The Performance

Recently I performed along with all of my siblings in "Something Old, Something New, a musical and drama review" by our co-op drama group. I thought that I would share a few of my most memorable experiences in this post :)

We started rehearsals in August, I believe. That is the shortest amount of time our group has ever had to get a show together. We could not change the time either, due to people moving, and other things. So we were rehearsing often and long. I remember at the dress rehearsal how panicked/worried some of the parents and performers were. People were having line trouble, cues were being missed in songs, and just about anything else you can imagine that wasn't very good. Including a main character starting to feel ill. I will admit to being a bit worried myself too. You see, I was singing "Part of Your World" from The Little Mermaid, without a fin, or anything like it. So I wore a green formal dress, hoping that the green might hint at a fin. That night at the performance things started looking up. The girl who was feeling ill earlier was doing better, people were a bit more calm (except our opening act) and the parents seemed a bit more calm too. The lights went out, the performers were ready, so, in the words of our narrator, we "let the music begin".

The opening act (as mentioned earlier) was my Sister Caitlin. She was Maria, from The Sound of Music. The first song was her solo, "Confidence", which she did quite well with :) Then, most of the rest of the cast went out on stage to happily sing "Doe, a Deer". The last number was "edelweiss". (I am not sure of the spelling) That was sung by a sweet girl who has performed with us before. On the first night she had almost no voice, so singing was quite hard. Christina helped her a bit on stage to get throughout it. After the applause, the Oklahoma crew came on. We began with "Oh What a Beautiful Morning" then ended with the "Oklahoma" song. I won't repeat the entire show for you, being as you would get pretty bored. But I will tell you that it went well. Much MUCH smoother than we thought it would. It was a success.

If there is something I learned from this performance, it is that you can't please every member of the audience. Especially when it comes to something like a song. When I sang the song from The Little Mermaid, I didn't know who I was going to be singing to. The first night I felt no energy from the audience. It was very depressing. Except for the few little girls in the front row singing along. On the second night I was ready to go all out and put everything plus some that I had into it (or as much as I could being congested) Before I went on, a few little girls came up to me, and asked me when I was going to sing the mermaid song. I talked to them for a little bit about their favorite princesses, and the songs they enjoyed. They loved the song that I was singing, and wanted to hear it. That meant a lot to me. So I went out for that last performance to give it my all. My perfuming was better, I preferred my singing the night before though. When I finished and walked off the stage, I felt two tiny arms around me. It was a little girl who had been listening. She looked up at me and said "you did SO good!". Her smile was enough to make me happy for the rest of the performance. Despite all the downs, it all became very worth it. It is something I will never forget.

I am sorry for the post being a bit out of order, I have been working on it for quite some time. I am thinking about posting some of my essays that I have written for our literature class. Until then, have a blessed weekend!

Paige :)