So, the show is over! Hooray! I had a good time, we sold out the run, and we got two and a half standing ovations. No one messed up in any obvious ways, and the bigger, mobile one, despite many tears and arguments over the length of rehearsal, came up to me as we were breaking down the set and said, “Mom, thanks for not letting me quit.”
Awwww.
(He’s also decided he’s going to do every musical from now on, but when I suggested doing children’s dinner theater or doin a summer show at the local kids performing arts troupe, he was having none of it. Sigh.)
I do think I will stick with my plan of not doing the musicals going forward (not sure the bigger, mobile one is allowed to do them without me, so that’s going to be a thing), or at least I will need to look at them closely before going in and remember how I feel about them and make the decision knowing I’m probably going to be frustrated with the casting.
Added on to the musical is that my high school theater teacher, who was a major influence on me, passed away this weekend. (Kind of ironic to be late to that news because I was busy performing.)
So I’ve spent a lot of the last couple of days thinking about high school theater, and how great a time I had and how much I learned, even though my teacher was kind of a jerk and was prone to cussing at us when he was frustrated. He really did provide us with an excellent program–lots of opportunities to try out different things, and always pushing us out of our comfort zones. We did three shows a year: a drama, a comedy, and a musical (I only did my senior musical, not getting cast in the earlier ones, so you see that this is an ongoing weak point). One of those would be Shakespeare (not the musical). Plus, on top of that, we had a children’s theater troupe that would go to local elementary schools and perform, the occasional one act play festival, improv competitions, and whatever he got it into his head to do.
(He was a bit of a mad genius. He’d come up with these ideas for shows that sounded crazy, but were always amazing in the end.)
Kind of weird, the two events coinciding. Lots of confusing feelings.
But, anyway! Now on to revising Book 1, which is going about as horribly as I feared. But we shall persevere. More on that later in the week.
Spring looms, squiders! See you in a few!
