On a scale of 1-10, I am easily a 13 on the ecstatic end.
Most of you already know that I work at Legacy teaching 9th grade English. Some of you know that last year I created a theatre program at Legacy named FOIL: Fellowship of Inspired Lions. We are official! We put on a one-act version of Alice in Wonderland in April last year, and then a WWII Radio Christmas program this year in December. They have been wonderful and fun and a HUGE learning curve for me. I participated in plays and musicals in high school, and I've been involved in choirs since I was little through adulthood, but I have ZERO directing or stage managing experience. It turns out that it meant I was worse off than ever since I thought I might know something from my experience which may have put me at a negative degree when I started. It's ok, though! Live and learn.
Now that I DO know a little something, and am willing to ask beg for help, we are partnering with a local theater group called CYT - Christian Youth Theater. It's their mission to ensure that kids who want to get experience on stage do AND to help fledgling programs such as our own to get off the ground. AND, as fabulous as that is, even more wondrous is that one of my co-workers is stepping up to be the Stage Manager which means I don't have to keep up with PAPERWORK! Do I hear any "amens"?! She is a rock star and is organizing parent committees (brilliant idea by the way), handling the rights paperwork for the musical, and basically anything else that I really stink at. She told me to go be creative and make the show happen and she'll do everything else. It's a deal!!
Anyway, we decided to put on a full length musical this year since I'm not running it solo. The kids will be performing "Honk! Jr." which is a musical take on "The Ugly Duckling" by Hans Christian Anderson. It has a beautiful message: God made each and every one of us special, unique and perfect in His eyes. It's also British, which the kids are rather excited about :)
We are allowed to use the "usual" images and make one for our own use, which I'm rather stoked about. I wasn't sure what all we would be allowed to do with the rights.
This is the image that most productions use (it's what we used when we announced auditions):
And this is the one I made for our own use (which we will use on everything else from now on. I used it when I announced the cast list, for example):
Hannah (the Assistant Director and Choreographer from CYT I'm working with) worked with me during Auditions. We had each kid learn a 45 second choreography number to a song in the show, and then they needed to deliver a 30-60 second self-selected monologue that they memorized, as well as a 60 second song of their choice. The auditions went so well! They were on Wednesday. After I prayed over each child and their audition form, Hannah and I got together for several hours on Thursday to figure out exactly where each kid will shine. Then Diane (our fabulous stage manager) and I met with the students at lunch on Friday and explained the casting process. They were giddy and desperate to know the results, but I told them I would post it Friday evening once they were home. I told them to celebrate like crazy and/or grieve if it wasn't the role they wanted over the weekend, but come to school on Monday humble and ready to rock their part(s) for the show. I actually ended up seeing most of the kids on Friday evening after the announcement at the basketball game, and all but one told me how happy they were, which is great.
So since I'm still on hyper-productivity mode, I've created spreadsheets for each scene that include the sets/props/characters needed for each one. It's been extremely helpful so far - especially with casting because several students need to play more than one role and we need to make sure that they can change costumes in time.
And THEN, and I have a big grin even typing about it, I drew up the set design that I have in my head. It's a little unconventional but I think it'll be amazing. Rather than a large backdrop, I want 4 columns. Think refrigerator sized box for the size of the largest 2, and the. 2/3 and then 1/3. It'll make more sense when you see the drawings below. For each of the different sets, it'll be really simple to just rotate the columns around. So one set will have all of the columns on side 1, and then the next scene we will rotate them and have them all on side 2, etc.
I will be meeting with the art teacher, Di, who will head up the set construction and design committee. She's going to take my ideas and make them happen, with obvious tweaks because she's an artist and I'm not. (Keep that in mind when you see my brainstorming pages below.)
The first set is the Barnyard. I ADORE the fence that gives perspective for the animals being small, even though they will be human sized in our production.
And here's the set with the primary prop we will need, a nest for Ida, the mother duck, and all of her eggs:
Then the second side is the Cat's Lair:
With her props:
Third will be a set that will double for the Goose Squad in the Marsh and the Bullfrog/Froglet number in the pond:
With props for the frogs, not sure exactly what I want to do with the Goose Squad yet:
There's also going to be a simple and small side set a little off to the side for Jaybird & Maggie Pie, the newscasters:
Finally, there is a fourth set for the blizzard scene. I think this is the one I did the worst with. How the heck do you draw snow?!?
And a goofy looking prop we need:
It's meant to be a snowman cat/duck combo. I'm guessing the art team will do a better job, haha.
Anyway, it's really coming along!! Hannah is taking care of a little over half of the choreography (including the really complicated opening barnyard number) and I'm doing the other half. We will teach the songs that we are choreographing, and then I'll handle the directing from there. It should go really well!! I hope you are feeling excited as well. Mark your calendars for Friday, April 15th at 6pm or Saturday, April 16 at 3pm to see one of our shows! It'll be quack-tacular!
Sorry if I just majorly over-shared. I'm just excited :)
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