Opening Night

Cinderella Redux opened tonight to a full house!  I couldn't believe it was so packed in there.  It made me a little nervous, honestly. 

But, the kids were ready.  We prayed before-hand and expected God to show up.

He did.  I have prayed all week for God to allow these kids to shine.  They love acting together, being together, and learning to be better actors and I wanted that to come through in their performances.  I wanted the audience to see that love and know my kids the way I do. 

It happened tonight.  It really did. 

The kids were completely 'on' from the first sentence of the first scene.  They were completely in character and were adding subtle things to bring it up a notch or ten.  They were ad-libbing and using their entire bodies to tell their story.  It was awesome to behold. 

There were a few mistakes but there was always someone there to cover for them and the audience was none the wiser.  The crowd was laughing almost constantly and thoroughly enjoyed themselves.  The kids were beaming at the end.  I think they could feel how well they did. 

I really almost cried with how proud I was/am of them. 

Let me just say...I love directing these kids.  It is stressful and completely time consuming but it is so worth it in the end.  I am already looking forward to next year's play!

Look What I did

I wrote a book. I mostly was just playing around with it but let my sister read it and then a friend read it and they really liked it. My sister suggested putting it on Amazon so I did. (oh yes, my oldest daughter loved it too and wants credit for saying so!)

Unfortunately, I loaded the wrong file. You know the one that wasn't spell-checked? yeah, awesome. So, I am in the process of updating the Kindle content today. They will send update notices when it is ready. The paperback had the appropriate content so it's all good. ;-)

Since I write the way I talk it won't be eveyone's cup of tea but I think it is an interesting read.

That should take you to the Kindle edition and just a little ways down is a listing of the paperback version. See what you think. If you love it, leave a review and tell me. If you don't...don't make me cry! lol

 

Renita

Mosaic Reviews

Things are really starting to heat up over Mosaic Reviews.  We are filling out forms, seeing some of the items we are getting to review, and talking about upcoming possibilities. 

Oh it is so exciting!

First up is a Blog Planner that I am just loving, then is a curriculum for Money Management for kids, homeschool planners will be coming up soon, and a foreign language is in the works. 

See what I mean?  Good stuff coming up.

I have already received two of the above products and can't wait to see if I am lucky enough to receive the others. 

Be on the lookout for the reviews to start in a few weeks.

A Sigh of Relief

To say that I have been a little scared about our homeschool play is an understatement.  It has been downright frightening the last month.  Between sickness and people not being at practices for this reason or that, we have only had half-dozen or so practices with everyone there. 

That has made this director stressed out beyond limits. 

But, we are down to the final week and I am happy to report that our practice today went much better.  It wasn't quite where I want it to be but it was so much better than the week before that I can't complain.  Much.

There were still a few spots that were scary but there were more amazing scenes to make up for it.  There were moments that actually took me by surprise and made me laugh out loud.  I even snorted a few times!!  These kids really do get acting and becoming their characters.  They are having fun and I am having fun watching them develop their talent and love for theater. 

I am still praying for good shows, don't get me wrong.  We have one more rehearsal on Wednesday and shows on Thursday and Friday.  The costumes are ready, the lighting is set, and make-up is planned...we are ready. 

Now, on to another theater practice for a different show! lol

Weekends are for

Rest.

Nah, not really.  They are for doing all the things you were too busy to do during the week. Right?  Of course, right!

Last weekend was no different.  While we don't have soccer going on at the moment we had a basketball game for a friend to go to, call backs for Triple Threat Music Theater Co., a Sunday School party for Steven and I-just on Saturday.  Sunday we had to go out of town for Steven to sing at his brothers' church and then come home to get ready for friends to come over for the Super Bowl. 

It was a pretty hectic weekend but it was good. 

Bug got sick Sunday(tonight) night so we'll see where that goes.  :(

Now, to get ready for the next 9 weeks of school and our performances of our play for our homeschool group.  *sigh*

Those Homeschoolers...

Our homeschool group is doing a play, as you know, and today and yesterday we put on a 10 minute or so performance for the preschool at the church.  We did this last year as well and it was a great experience for our kids.

This year, not so much.  Well, okay that's not entirely true...it was just different.

The play we are doing is not intended for young audiences so we-meaning I- chose little parts of scenes that seemed appropriate. 

Yeah, not so much.

Thursday we did our first scene and as one of the actors said the beginning words of one of his lines I knew we were in trouble.  Why you ask?  Well, the sentence ended with 'honey butt.'  Yup, that's right, honey butt.  I hung my head in shame.

But before that there was the s-word.  No, not that one.  Come on, give me some credit.  The word was 'stupid.' 

Not cool in a theater of 3 and 4 year olds.  Not cool indeed.

We changed those words for the next performance and all was well.

Until today.

We had to choose a different scene because some of our actors couldn't be there today.  No big deal, we just performed a different scene.  Only when I talked to the kids beforehand to explain why Hansel and Gretel were in the Cinderella story they started talking about witches.  Yeah, at a Christian preschool.  It was awesome.  >insert heavy sarcasm here<

Immediately following the performance we were asked not to do that scene again.  I completely understood and we changed it up for the afternoon scenes.  Unfortunately we didn't have all the actors we needed for any of the other scenes! 

But, we are actors so we can improvise. 

I pulled three actors and put them up there with books in hand and started them on a different scene.  Then someone said nincompoop.  I was really questioning my judgment at this point.  It just could not end fast enough.

The actors muddled through and we got some laughs out of what they were doing on stage and it helped to solidify the relationships among the group but I'm afraid it didn't leave a great impression of our acting abilities!

There are some great stories that have arisen from this experience and I'm sure we will be talking about it for a long time to come.