Pageant report.

[rivka]

Today was the first rehearsal for the Christmas pageant.

There was surprising late drama over the casting, involving a couple of kids who had their hearts set on being specific animals but did not tell me so. I think everyone has voluntarily traded around for parts they like. I have a nice big group of actors, six preschool doves, and five members of the big kids' chorus - possibly about to expand again, if a group of girls whose grandfather brings them to church are able to commit to the play.

Let me say straight-up that I have absolutely no idea what I'm doing, directing a pageant. I don't know what you're supposed to do at rehearsals. I'm totally winging it. Here's what we did today:

When the kids arrived, I fed them donuts and handed around scripts. We sat the whole group in a big circle and read through the script together so that everyone got to hear the whole thing and started to be familiar with the verses of the carol. The kids did a beautiful job of the read-through - I expected it to be stumbling and awkward, but they were already putting expression into their voices. The Donkey, our lone 7th grader, did particularly well. Which is why I asked her to be the donkey.

After the read-and-sing-through, we divided up. acceberskoorb volunteered to take the doves (the preschool chorus) off to another room to practice flying and singing. This apparently went well and was a lot of fun, at least for the kids. (Maybe not for acceberskoorb.) My helper mom was familiar with the carol, so I asked her to take the big kids' chorus into the nursery to sing. I was left with the speaking-part actors. We talked for a couple minutes about each character, now that the kids had had a chance to see the script, and then we did a walk-through of the spoken scenes, reading the lines and moving around appropriately. The cows and sheep insisted on being on their hands and knees, and I let them do it but explained that they would need to stand for the real performance. (Because they delivered their lines to the floor, as I knew they would.)

While we were rehearsing, my scenery guy and his upper-elementary-age helper made a model stable out of construction paper so that we could see what they have in mind. I was blown away. It was awesome. Also, the big kids' chorus learned the tune of "The Friendly Beasts" to the point that they no longer needed the mom's help, and the doves perfected their flying and learned the first two lines of "Silent Night." I asked each dove parent to practice singing "Silent Night" at home.

Next week, we'll try to get it all blocked out, and we'll work on delivering lines with the proper pauses and emphases, being loud, and facing the audience. I think we'll probably go through it all together again, and then split up again - that worked well. Or maybe we'll do it the other way around. For the third rehearsal, I'm going to ask all the kids to have their lines memorized.

I've arranged to have one parent there for "crowd control" each time, but I was impressed with how well the kids paid attention and how quiet they were when they weren't speaking. That probably won't last, right? But they were all really serious and intent. I think they're excited and want to be part of a good play. Or maybe they were all just lured into a sugar coma by the three dozen donuts I provided.

I got some nice compliments from parents, about the script. And some "my God, I can't believe how pregnant you are and you're still doing a pageant" comments, which I suppose are par for the course.

For each rehearsal until the play, I have one parent assigned to bring food and one parent assigned to be a general helper. I have a squadron of costume-sewers and at least two animal-headdress-makers and a prince of a guy who is not only willing to make a stable backdrop, but is willing to let kids help him. I have a mom who is willing to work with the singers. Unfortunately, my teen accompanist just found out that her parents have booked them to travel for Christmas, so I need to come up with another accompanist. Hopefully that won't be too hard.

Comments

[hobbitbabe.livejournal.com]

That sounds like a great start. I like how you let them do the "playing" bits now, the animals on all fours and the flying-practice, without trying to skip by their ideas into your plan of how it will be in performance.

[green-knight.livejournal.com]

This sounds like fantastic fun for all involved.

[papersky.livejournal.com]

You are awesome.

[telerib.livejournal.com]

Will Jim H. be playing at that service? That would be the seemingly simple solution. (Actual simplicity may vary!)

[rivka.livejournal.com]

I would rather find someone else. I don't think Jim's gifts lie in supporting unskilled singers; at least, that's how his accompaniment of congregational hymn-singing strikes me. Nor do I think he's especially fond of children.

I think I want to ask Adrian H. first, and then Scott M.

[bosssio.livejournal.com]

is alex in the pageant? Neither boy wishes to participate this year in our pageant, which is definitely for the best. Though I think if you were running it, they may have changed their minds... ; )

[rivka.livejournal.com]

Alex is one of the flock of doves. I was also pleased that, during the read-through, she sang along with most of "The Friendly Beasts." (For tolerably obvious reasons, I've been singing it a lot at home.)

Alex has wanted to be in a play since she saw Teen Way-Off Broadway at SUUSI, so the pageant was an easy sell. The only problem was that she didn't grasp the difference between a play and Halloween, and she really really wanted to be the thing she's picked out for next Halloween: a Qallupilluit.

(What, in God's name, you may ask, is a Qallupilluit? It's an Inuit monster (http://www.umanitoba.ca/cm/cmarchive/vol16no6/promiseisapromise.html) that lurks in the cracks in sea ice, waiting to pull unwary children under. I don't think there's a Qallupilluit in the Christmas story, because otherwise the New Testament would have been considerably abbreviated.)

(How, in God's name, you may ask, is Rivka going to make a Qallupilluit costume? Hush. I have almost a year before I have to worry about it.)

[cantkeepsilent.livejournal.com]

I think there was a Qallupilluit during the forty wandering years of the Moses story, which goes a long way toward explaining why the Israelites chose to settle in the desert.

And I can't imagine what one looks like (although I'll probably meet it in my dreams tonight), but I'd imagine making up her face and hands in some sea-monsterish manner and then dressing her in an ice blue robe with long sleeves and an oversized hood. So she can "hide under the ice" and then pop out to scare people.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

They wear parkas made of (or perhaps decorated with) loon feathers, and they have bluegreenish skin and long grasping fingers, and they are decorated with human skulls and crab shells.

So I guess I would buy feathers at a craft store and hot-glue them to a thrift-store parka, the kind with fur around the hood, and paint her skin with makeup. Plastic skulls and crabs are easy enough to find.

If she still wants to be a Qallupilluit next October, that is. Maybe she will be willing to be something easy like a doggie or a witch or something, something that doesn't need to be accompanied by an interpretive card.

[curiousangel.livejournal.com]

We made an awesome robot costume; we'll handle whatever she chooses to throw at us. We may have to do some tempering of expectations, and discuss how some things can be implemented, but we'll come up with something that she likes. I also agree that we're likely to see her go through a litany of other choices between now and then, so I'm not sweating the whole issue just yet.

[acceberskoorb.livejournal.com]

acceberskoorb volunteered to take the doves (the preschool chorus) off to another room to practice flying and singing. This apparently went well and was a lot of fun, at least for the kids. (Maybe not for acceberskoorb.)

Are you kidding? It was the highlight of my day! Did I mention that we practiced sitting in our nests? We decided that birds probably do not watch television in their nests and do not drive cars in their nests. These conclusions were unanimous as the children shook their whole bodies in a giggly "no, silly!" kind of way. Ack! Too cute!

[kightp.livejournal.com]

I have a whole bunch of easy-enough-for kids games that are good for getting novice actors focused, helping them learn to project, etc. They make good rehearsal warmups, don't take much time and kids usually find them a lot of fun. If you'd like them, just say the word.

[rivka.livejournal.com]

WORD WORD WORD!

That sounds very helpful indeed. Thank you!

[mjlayman.livejournal.com]

It sounds like you're doing a great job! To get them to stand up and speak, you may want to show them how The Lion King (http://images.google.com/images?gbv=2&hl=en&q=lion+king+broadway&revid=1715492836&sa=X&oi=revisions_inline&resnum=0&ct=broad-revision&cd=2) was done on Broadway.