Wonderplan

"I want to thank everyone for coming out this evening, it will be an exciting next couple of weeks and we look forward to working with all of you." The head of the elementary school theater department is all business as she addresses the room. This year, after a little prodding, our son will be participating in the school's production of Alice in Wonderland. Over the next couple of weeks, all other after school activities are put on hold for rehearsal, culminating in a four performance weekend (let me stress before the actor's union comes protesting, there are two casts, each cast doing two performances.) I am excited for my son, as he has not wanted to do the play in past years but after finding out how much fun his friends have had being involved, became open to the draw of the stage. 

Since the meeting was strictly for the parents, I walked over to the school for the 7pm meeting. The meeting laid out the overall plan and the background of the production, but more importantly laid out the expectation of the parents to take this as seriously as the production company does. "Rule number one, you must make sure your child is here for every rehearsal, no excuses.." The Drama Head goes through the rules, covering other tidbits like they are not babysitters and no switching casts because your kid doesn't like so-in-so, stuff that parents seem to chime in about. After locking down the volunteer portion of the meeting by convincing the moms that getting together to unpack and sort costumes was a bonding experience and the dads like to conquer building the sets because they can use all those tools they got for Christmas, the meeting ended with the standard theater folk rally of "We look forward to working with the kids and putting on a great show!"

After the meeting we lined up in the back of the cafeteria to receive a cd of the music and a lyrics sheet to bring home for the kids to familiarize themselves with before the first rehearsal. I get home and show my son the lyrics and load the music on his ipod. He glances over the sheet with a bit of excitement, and the feeling that maybe this theater thing will be really fun. Now I need to charge my drill, set building here I come...