Drama Trauma

My little homeschool school has two drama programs for the first time. We've had improv classes before and musical theater class. We've had little plays with the cd that has all the parts and the kids would listen to over and over and over and over again until everyone in the family room knew all of the songs. All of them.

This year we have a musical theater production of Seussical Jr. This is twice as long as anything we've ever done. We had try outs and a team of people who cast it in the fall. We've built amazing sets and set pieces drawing on the talents of our graphic artists and engineers. Our costumes look to be done by professional designers. And our advanced drama class is doing a production that is all dialogue and it's an hour and half long, it has beautiful sets painted by one of the actors, lovely costumes and a dedicated team of sound designers.

My youngest is in both plays. My oldest son is the assistant director for Seussical, and though he denies it my middle son is the assistant director for the Sleeping Beauty and the Beast performance and he does stage crew for Seussical.
(Horton and Gertrude....you should see these two play "sniper" against each other with nerf dartguns......not so much this affectionate)


There's been DRAMA around our drama. We need microphones. Some of our kids are little, with little voices and the places we preform are big. Even though we're all in the same school district, we can't use their wireless mics. We might damage them and they are super expensive. So we've been fundraising all year. Soup lunch after bulb sale after coupon book after bake sale. Super expensive. When you put children and money and opportuntities together you get near people's senstive spots, near their hearts. Tempers have flared. Meetings have been less than pleasant. It's a he said-she said-I heard-who said mess.

But here's the thing; we must not be too dysfunctional. There was a big talent show marathon day with an outing afterward, and hey.....we all got along. Yesterday was a four hour practice for one show followed by a three hour practice for the other. We just compared anxiety dreams and ran for coffee. No trauma, and (snort) no drama!

I think this is what living in community is. We all care, we feel strongly and sometimes speak strongly. And then we move on. I guess this is healthy, loving community. Good stuff for our kids to see.



(JoJo and the Cat, who will be at a birthday party later today with Horton and Gertrude......we are lucky, and check it out--of these four leads, three are mixed race. We really love our school!)