Begin: Longest Week of Life
OK, so here we are. Today is the day we move all our crap (and there's a lot of it) into the neighbouring high school theatre. It's a huge job, especially considering the 8 or 9 people who put up their hands to tell me that their parent was coming with a truck suddenly dwindled to 3 yesterday.
Anyhow, after we move in and spend a few hours setting things up over there, we have the kids come in for tech rehearsal. For those who have done theatre, I'll wait till you finish groaning. For the rest of you, picture this: trying to control 60 uber-excited kids while we stop and start the show and have them stand on stage in various positions for hours at a time and fiddle with the lights and sound. Yeah, exactly. More fun herding cats.
So all weekend (that's right, the May long weekend) we spent at the theatre. We had two large rehearsals with all the sets, all the props, and all the costumes. Today, being the busiest day ever, and it only being 6:30 in the morning, you'd think I'd be catching up on my sleep. Nope, of course I wake up with a million things on my mind.
Namely:
- the aforementioned shy kid (who CRIED during auditions) who had to be told a few times that during the big raid scene when everyone is running around, staging a prat fall and "dropping" his shoe wasn't gonna work.
- realizing just how uncouth my kids are when they all came out in their costumes and not one of them had figured out that the tie goes UNDER the collar.
- trying to convince my dancers that the Fruit of the Loom granny panties we had bought for them to wear underneath their short costumes were actually "dance pants" from the custom dance shop. They didn't buy it.
- the kid who has literally ONE line in the whole show, yet still decided she needed her script up on stage on one of our final rehearsals.
-watching the leads turn various shades of red when the tech guy told them that they'd have to hold their kiss much longer, until the light change. The tech guy told them that it doesn't have to be a kiss for the full time, but that the boy could look deeply into the girl's eyes, hold her, touch her tenderly, etc. To which the boy replies (while turning various shades of crimson)"Uh yeah, thanks for the tips."
-wondering how the one kid who constantly forgets the choreography somehow ended up in the front row of the chorus, despite my best efforts to lie to the kids and tell them that even the people WAY in the back can be well seen.
-thinking that even if we tried, in a million years we could never recreate the following scene to its full hilarity: The lead grabs the gun from another actor and is supposed to toss it to his friend. He gets excited, tosses it a little hard, it goes straight through the other actor's hands where it hits my beloved choreographically-challenged kid square between the eyes. Anyone else would have caused a scene. But, because he's normally a bit stunned anyway, a little head injury wasn't going to deter -- he blinked, and that's about it.
-noticing in the last number that we had an awful lot of "dolls" instead of "guys", and realizing that many of the females-who-play-males had changed into the costume they liked best for the curtain call. Nice try ladies, get your suits back on.
-shaking my head at the one mission band member who, along with her prim uniform top, and proper navy blue skirt, was wearing very bright striped knee-high socks. Yeah, Wizard of Oz was a few years ago. Get rid of them.
-giving kudos to the stage manager who figured out that the kids who told us during costume fittings that not one of the numerous pairs of shoes we had available fit, actually meant that none of the ATTRACTIVE pairs of shoes fit. Somehow, when faced with the prospect of going barefoot, these kids managed to find an ugly pair that fit. Either that or they were really devoted to the show and cut off toes or something.
-trying to pick out the kid who will become this year's applause whore. Every year, there's one kid who suddenly comes alive once he (it's usually a he, despite the odds) hears the applause of laughter of an audience. The first night, it's a good thing, because he just delivers with an extra oomph. But then our little ham tries to fit other ways into his performance to get an extra laugh, bigger applause, a longer lecture from the stage manager.
-hoping the audience will be able to keep a straight face when one of our leads starts singing. It's a strange phenomenon. Usually I have a pretty decent ear, sensitive to singing even slightly out of tune. However, the more we hear this otherwise talented actor sing WAY off key in some parts of his songs, the less it bothers me. Numb to the pain maybe?
And finally, taking bets on which one of my team is going to lose it first tonight. When you've been going full tilt day and night for two weeks, it only takes something small to push you over the edge. Last year, it was when I asked the kids to come in 15 minutes earlier the next night and I hear this big tongue click and SIGH from one of the kids. And then I unleashed on her (something about me spending every waking hour there to ensure HER show went well, so if I wanted her there for 15 more minutes I did NOT expect attitude). And then I turned around to see a whole whack of parents standing there waiting to pick up their kids. Umm...oops? That said, one of the parents brought me alcohol instead of flowers as a present, so I think my message got through loud and clear. :)
Ok, I'm off. Wish me luck. I will attempt to get back in throughout the week and keep everyone updated. I can't believe we're this close already (Thursday is opening night). Ahhh, we've come a long way gentle blog readers, a long way. Stay tuned to watch me lose my sanity. By the way, if there are any readers in the local area, you're welcome to come to the show. Just say "I read the blog" at the door for a free ticket. ;) Only, all my front of house staff are parents, so don't tell them what you mean by it ("yeah, it's where the director goes to rant about and make fun of your children").
Anyhow, after we move in and spend a few hours setting things up over there, we have the kids come in for tech rehearsal. For those who have done theatre, I'll wait till you finish groaning. For the rest of you, picture this: trying to control 60 uber-excited kids while we stop and start the show and have them stand on stage in various positions for hours at a time and fiddle with the lights and sound. Yeah, exactly. More fun herding cats.
So all weekend (that's right, the May long weekend) we spent at the theatre. We had two large rehearsals with all the sets, all the props, and all the costumes. Today, being the busiest day ever, and it only being 6:30 in the morning, you'd think I'd be catching up on my sleep. Nope, of course I wake up with a million things on my mind.
Namely:
- the aforementioned shy kid (who CRIED during auditions) who had to be told a few times that during the big raid scene when everyone is running around, staging a prat fall and "dropping" his shoe wasn't gonna work.
- realizing just how uncouth my kids are when they all came out in their costumes and not one of them had figured out that the tie goes UNDER the collar.
- trying to convince my dancers that the Fruit of the Loom granny panties we had bought for them to wear underneath their short costumes were actually "dance pants" from the custom dance shop. They didn't buy it.
- the kid who has literally ONE line in the whole show, yet still decided she needed her script up on stage on one of our final rehearsals.
-watching the leads turn various shades of red when the tech guy told them that they'd have to hold their kiss much longer, until the light change. The tech guy told them that it doesn't have to be a kiss for the full time, but that the boy could look deeply into the girl's eyes, hold her, touch her tenderly, etc. To which the boy replies (while turning various shades of crimson)"Uh yeah, thanks for the tips."
-wondering how the one kid who constantly forgets the choreography somehow ended up in the front row of the chorus, despite my best efforts to lie to the kids and tell them that even the people WAY in the back can be well seen.
-thinking that even if we tried, in a million years we could never recreate the following scene to its full hilarity: The lead grabs the gun from another actor and is supposed to toss it to his friend. He gets excited, tosses it a little hard, it goes straight through the other actor's hands where it hits my beloved choreographically-challenged kid square between the eyes. Anyone else would have caused a scene. But, because he's normally a bit stunned anyway, a little head injury wasn't going to deter -- he blinked, and that's about it.
-noticing in the last number that we had an awful lot of "dolls" instead of "guys", and realizing that many of the females-who-play-males had changed into the costume they liked best for the curtain call. Nice try ladies, get your suits back on.
-shaking my head at the one mission band member who, along with her prim uniform top, and proper navy blue skirt, was wearing very bright striped knee-high socks. Yeah, Wizard of Oz was a few years ago. Get rid of them.
-giving kudos to the stage manager who figured out that the kids who told us during costume fittings that not one of the numerous pairs of shoes we had available fit, actually meant that none of the ATTRACTIVE pairs of shoes fit. Somehow, when faced with the prospect of going barefoot, these kids managed to find an ugly pair that fit. Either that or they were really devoted to the show and cut off toes or something.
-trying to pick out the kid who will become this year's applause whore. Every year, there's one kid who suddenly comes alive once he (it's usually a he, despite the odds) hears the applause of laughter of an audience. The first night, it's a good thing, because he just delivers with an extra oomph. But then our little ham tries to fit other ways into his performance to get an extra laugh, bigger applause, a longer lecture from the stage manager.
-hoping the audience will be able to keep a straight face when one of our leads starts singing. It's a strange phenomenon. Usually I have a pretty decent ear, sensitive to singing even slightly out of tune. However, the more we hear this otherwise talented actor sing WAY off key in some parts of his songs, the less it bothers me. Numb to the pain maybe?
And finally, taking bets on which one of my team is going to lose it first tonight. When you've been going full tilt day and night for two weeks, it only takes something small to push you over the edge. Last year, it was when I asked the kids to come in 15 minutes earlier the next night and I hear this big tongue click and SIGH from one of the kids. And then I unleashed on her (something about me spending every waking hour there to ensure HER show went well, so if I wanted her there for 15 more minutes I did NOT expect attitude). And then I turned around to see a whole whack of parents standing there waiting to pick up their kids. Umm...oops? That said, one of the parents brought me alcohol instead of flowers as a present, so I think my message got through loud and clear. :)
Ok, I'm off. Wish me luck. I will attempt to get back in throughout the week and keep everyone updated. I can't believe we're this close already (Thursday is opening night). Ahhh, we've come a long way gentle blog readers, a long way. Stay tuned to watch me lose my sanity. By the way, if there are any readers in the local area, you're welcome to come to the show. Just say "I read the blog" at the door for a free ticket. ;) Only, all my front of house staff are parents, so don't tell them what you mean by it ("yeah, it's where the director goes to rant about and make fun of your children").
posted by Daisie @ 6:22 AM
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