Well, all the leading uptoness of the play and we are 2/3 the way through the experience.
All the rehearsals, the planning, the worrying about the costumes... I can't really believe we'll be more than finished with it all by this time tomorrow.
I should preface this with a little story. Her elementary school goes up to grade 6. Each year, the sixth grade does a voluntary full stage production with a lot of music. Rumor had it that this year they'd be doing "Oliver." But they quickly realized the price for the rights to put the play on would be astronomical, and there is absolutely no budget for the production. Parents volunteer their time, buy things, and they rarely ask to be reimbursed for time and effort.
Last year they did a particularly atrocious play, and each year it seems to get harder and harder to find a good play for the kids to do.
Key important fact is they usually have 50 6th graders try out for the play, and they like to give them ALL something to do, even if they aren't speaking role material. So finding a decent play with about 50 parts is pretty difficult in the first place. Finding a decent play with 50 parts the school could afford to pay for production rights was downright impossible.
So this year, facing the fact that the kids would be let down because they couldn't do "Oliver," a play that most of them knew the music for already and were really looking forward to, the teacher at the helm of the production wrote a play herself. From scratch. With about 50 roles, some of them were dual roles, girls who did one thing in the first half changed costumes and did something else in the second. There is a huge complicated dream sequence, crazy choreography, monsters, animals, spirits... it sounded pretty insane when I heard the description from Jessie after she auditioned.
When she was assigned her part she was very disappointed. She wanted to be the villain, the evil real estate agent who wants to sell the reputedly haunted school and make a killer commission, and also ruin the lives of six kids who put a secret animal shelter in the basement.
The role she received had three lines. During rehearsals, she'd make wisecracks on stage. As they were doing the readthrough and blocking the scenes, she'd throw out a smart alecky comment, and one by one they all were added into the script. The teacher in charge didn't tell her to shut up, but let her run with it, and most of what she threw in was pretty clever... and it fit. So her role grew and ...
She doesn't exactly steal the show, but she got the biggest laughs.
Friday night she kind of rushed through a few of her lines, but tonight everyone had a rhythm down and things went really well. Both nights I got to watch as complete strangers, school teachers, other students and their parents all came up to her to congratulate her on a job well done. Did my heart good. She wasn't the star, she didn't have the biggest lines, but I heard people leaving the building doing an imitation of her, and that means she stuck to them.
Last night when I saw the play I couldn't believe that most of these kids were kids she was in Kindergarten with just a few years ago, and here they are -- totally acting for real, totally doing the most complicated choreography (they do a really interesting dance to "Rock Lobster" and "Thriller"), boys and girls (mostly girls, there were tons of girls) completely having it all down pat. It blew my mind. And tonight was no different. They were better tonight than I expected them. Even when they obviously messed up they recovered beautifully without laughing and giggling and yelling 'oh my god I messed up so bad!!!'
And I can't believe the teacher wrote this thing. She did such an amazing job. Kudos to her.
Anyway -- tomorrow's the last show. The music teacher who co-directs the performance with the author/teacher said that a lot of the kids feel totally let down after the performance is done. For weeks now every day after school and most Saturdays they've worked on this. No matter how big or small their roles, they were required to be there. Jessica read about five books during this period, just waiting for it to be her turn, when she wasn't busy watching the choreography or watching the leads work on their lines.
I have a feeling she'll be relieved and let down.
Pictures coming forthright.
Today we left Her Royal Hiney home so she could diva it up and paint her nails and relax with the playstation2. We went out to hide a geocache, one that we'd been planning for a little while.
Again, preface with little story.
Last week it started raining, and it rained for like three solid days. Movie rain, like in Spider-Man where Spidey kisses MJ while he's hanging upside down. It rained without ceasing. You should see the creek running on my property. It isn't running, it's stampeding. It's out of control. Scary. I won't let Geoff or the dogs near the lip of the edge of our yard lest they fall to their watery and fast graves.
So, with all that rain, you think we'd go hide a geocache on high grounds. Some sort of drumlin, hill or mountain in the area.
Naah, we went to a salt marsh in Newbury. At one point, the trail was so completely underwater that we gave up trying to dance through on branches and rocks and just slogged our way, water totally up to mid shin, shoes and boots filled with muddy water. We just slogged ahead and then realized that where we wanted to put the cache was probably just beyond an area that was so deeply flooded it was over Jackdog's head and he could swim for real, not just bound across it with unbridled doggy water joy.
We turned back, found another spot for it, and then headed home. As we were driving down a street on the way home, we noticed a road going through another part of the marsh. It was so pretty. So lovely. We decided to drive down it.
We got to the end of the road where it turned into the woods, and it became unpaved. We decided after all that rain, it wouldn't be a good idea to proceed. But it was a little dangerous to drive backwards out of the area, so Doug went to execute a three point turn...
And our tires left the tarmac, and we sank deep in the mud in rear wheel drive.
There was NO getting out for us. Doug tried everything. We just kept digging in and digging in...
A tractor came down the road towards us, he called out to Doug asking if we had a chain. We did not. Doug asked if he had one. He did not.
He proceeded into the woods to the other marsh to harvest his hay... we continued to try and free ourselves for about 15 minutes and he finally came back. He got out of his tractor with his 10 year old son... He put his son behind the wheel, and Hay Farmer, Doug and I pushed on the front end of the truck. He popped right out of where he was, all it took was three strong folk a pushin' like mad.
We drove away humiliated and embarrassed. The guy said it happens all the time, and had we kept going we would have gotten stuck out there too, it was really wet on the road. Normally it's passable. But not today.
So we came home, our truck is caked in mud, our shoes and boots need to go through the was desperately. It was a funny assed day, I'm still embarrassed about us getting the truck so deeply trapped in that mud, but... at least God sends his angels to the stupid and foolish, eh?
Right then. Off to bed. I can't believe we have to leap forward. Gah. I lose an hour of sleep. Booo! Boooooooo Daylight savings change! Boo!
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