Catch up post: Wonderland

This year's school play was called Wonderland, performed on April 13 and 14. It was sort of Alice in Wonderland but with additional characters and centered around a chess game theme.  Susannah landed one of the lead roles as Alice, and she was on stage for virtually the entire play.  She sort of stayed put and the 'scenes' evolved/revolved around her with minimal props and scenery.  It almost felt stream of consciousness and didn't always seem to make full sense. 

The other characters were entertaining and it was fun to see them interact with Susannah's Alice.  A few times, Susannah guided her fellow actors to their correct lines and kept the play going smoothly.  It was a pleasure to see her leadership and her two solos were beautiful.

Of course (by this mom's measure), the most entertaining 'side' character was Hatta, played by Moriah.  She thought it would be a bigger role, like the Mad Hatter, and she had some momentary angst when comparing Alice's stage time with her character's stage time.  Even though the role was smaller than she would have liked, Moriah totally played up her scenes and was a definite highlight of the play.

I will try to update this and put some photos on, but all I have right now is the video I took of the play.  I'm not sure I'll post the songs they sang, but I might.  The girls may have some photos from the play on their cameras, too....

Second night

Tonight went well too, I think. I was backstage wrangling energetic cast members and thanking God (literally) for a freshman who appeared out of nowhere and watched the little girls all night. (yep you read that right...the entire night...thank you Hannah!)

The kids are sad to see it done but so happy they did well. Every one of those kids should be very proud of the production they put on.

Now...on to the next community production. Anyone have any suggestions? :)

School play

King Artie and the Knights of the Rad Table was a huge success tonight. The kids did really well, with three true stand outs. Yes, I mean our three oldest kids. They were the best, you see. Really. No one else even came close. Nope, not joking. Everyone was talking about the Doepken kids. The audience didn't even notice the other actors.

Ha! Yeah, right. :)

Seriously, Samuel, Moriah and Susannah did do very well, but so did the rest of the cast.

Samuel was Merlin and was a funny combination of befuddled and hapless. And he had a huge fluffy white beard and wig ensemble that looked like a fuzzy animal had died on his face. It was kinda awful. And apparently it got moist, which is even more awful (and probably too much information?). But even with the beard handicap, he shined.

Moriah was the town crier, who announced the "Sword in the Stone" competition and had a solo. She wore a tidy little mustache on her face and watched as three 'contestants' tried to remove Excalibur from the stone. At one point Moriah had to dodge out of the way when a disgruntled thug tried to squish her with a rock.

Susannah was a dragon who delighted in tea. She was 'mean' and had damsels in distress in her cave, but was really more interested in tea. Two of the knights even joined her for a 'spot of tea' as she sang about her love of tea and danced around. She also fought and defeated the knights of the Rad Table but was undone by the damsels who were frantic to get to Lancelot.

The whole play was very cute and the kids had great energy. I was the parent who attended tonight while Jim stayed with babies. Tomorrow night Jim gets to watch and I...I will be keeping kids corralled backstage while managing babies. Whoo hoo! What I won't do for my older kids. :)

Artie madness

Instead of heading to bed like a good girl, I decided I needed to blog about the new scheduling nightmare for our household. The three older kids all have roles in the school play, King Artie and the Knights of the Rad Table. Practices began today, as did the awareness that life will be busy for the next six or so weeks.

Samuel will be playing Merlin, Moriah is the town crier and Susannah is the dragon.

Samuel initially thought he'd rather be the main guy, Artie, but agreed that he probably couldn't pull off playing a 'skater dude' as well as he could play Merlin. Now he's looking forward to being the 'wise' guy.

Moriah has a large part in one of the early scenes and has a solo, too. She gets to announce competitors who will try to pull the sword out of the stone. She thinks it's funny that she has the same role that Samuel had when they did the play four years ago.

Susannah will be playing the dragon later in the play who has captured some damsels in distress. Her dragon is a refined creature who enjoys tea, and she also has a solo where she will sing about a lovely spot of tea.

I'm going to be helping the school's music teacher in whatever capacity I can, whenever I can make it to practices. I was her 'assistant' director for the Girdwood Community Theater's The Music Man in December, so she knows I make myself at least marginally helpful.

The performances are May 6 and 7, so buy your plane tickets early to catch the performances. *grin*

(Oh, and P.S. Bethany is still fine today after her tumble. She's got a bump under her left nostril but it doesn't seem to be bothering her much.)