Last week in Oklahoma: officially in my top two weeks of the summer. I think it might even beat my first week in Colorado, simply because, though the kids were not quite as awesome performance-wise, they were still stellar, our contacts were amazing former tour actors, our homestays were their family members and we had a day off. Plus my cousin took Sam and I to brunch at Cracker Barrel before we hit the road this morning, so it really doesn't get better than that does it?
The kids this past week were just darling (Sam's homestay, Jon's grandmother says that word all the time). I mean seriously, they were so sweet and encouraging of one another (as were the kids my first week in Colorado). We will never have raccoons as smart as these ones were. The picnic basket ballet was brilliant. And the raccoons LOVED it. On Friday we had dress rehearsal in the morning and then a touch up rehearsal in the afternoon and the first time the raccoons did the ballet during touch-up I nearly cried: it was perfect. And they giggled the whole time. Well they did it about three times over and all the older kids were applauding and giving them high-fives and it was wonderful.
And now I must write about the love of my life. Six year old Jonathan. He should have been a raccoon, but we cast him as the Boy Who Cries Wolf. He came in to rehearsal on tuesday with all of his lines memorized and he could not possibly have been cuter. Seriously, I want a son who looks and acts just like him. Well the great thing about Jonathan was that he didn't understand how to exit the stage. He would run out through the curtains on stage right and then attempt to run behind the wall on stage left. Well this was not possible because of the masking we had put up to hide the actors from the audience. One had to exit through the curtains on both sides of the stage. So after watching Jonathan hilariously get stuck between the wall and the masking all throughout dress rehearsal, I decided to do a little demonstrations of how to enter and exit the stage with Jonathan as my assistant. All the kids looked at me with that smile that says "I know exactly why you are doing this and I am trying not to laugh". And of course they all applauded when we finished our demonstration. Well then we did a scene in the brush-up rehearsal that Jonathan was involved in. And he still got stuck behind the wall. (our accompanist about died laughing- the piano was literally right in front of where he kept getting stuck)
I wish I could describe the look on this little boy's face before the show. It was incredible. He was so excited he didn't know what to do with himself, so he just kept talking. He repeatedly told us that he six and he was in school, and he was going into first grade, and he really liked school (all things we had learned about him much earlier in the week). And then there was Oat 1, who was an athlete, not an actress, but really had a lovely voice. She was saying all of her lines to me backstage to reassure herself that she knew them. She was a girl who's mom had read about the camp in the paper and signed her up for it. This girl didn't go to the school the camp was held at (most of the kids did) and she was very quiet and shy. But by the end of the week she had made a new friend, one of the other Oats, and when she made friendship bracelets as parting gifts for me and Sam, she also made one for her.
This was a really special group of kids. I could go on about them forever. Especially about the accompanist's niece and nephew, who were some of the most creative kids I've ever met. Her nephew was Little Lovable Wolf and came up with the brilliant idea of having his character actually disguise himself as Red Riding Hood when he goes and pretends to be her at her grandma's house, so I decided to have him steal her cape when he steals her picnic basket a few scenes before. And I just can't even describe the amazingness (yeah, that word is made up) that was her niece's interpretation of Girl Friend #2. Let's just say she completely stole the party song. And she wasn't even doing the choreography.
Sam and I are up to our ears in gifts. We ended up going to Walmart on our day off on Saturday and buying two tupperware containers, one for all of our candy and baked goods, and one for all of our cards. I am REALLY going to miss these kids. I really hope that this gets to be a repeat town for me. Leslie and Jon's camp was wonderful. The other activities they did with the kids who weren't in rehearsal were great and I don't think there was a single kid in that camp who didn't have a great time. If words gets out about how successful the camp was this year, they should have people knocking down the doors to get a spot as soon as registration opens.
We're now in Kansas. We're about an hour away from a town with a nice lookin' Walmart and a Braum's diary place (if you're ever near one, do go get ice cream there- also their milk is awesome). The town we're in is small, but I think their are three traffic lights, and they do have a McDonalds (and, yes, a Sonic). Plus I hear they've just opened a new roller rink, so we're obviously going roller-skating this week. And Sam and I are both in wonderful homestays, so we won't feel so abandoned and bored as we did a couple weeks back.
Tonight we went to a church function with Sam's homestay family (mine was out golfing- I'm obviously with the right bunch!). It was a pot-luck dinner prepared by a bunch of men from the church. They all make a dish and then people vote on which dish in their favorite by putting money in the jar with the number that corresponds with the number of the dish and all of the money goes towards scholarships for the church kids to go to college. They also did this hilarious little skit about a prodigal son of the owner of a clothing store who runs away California and squanders away his inheritance then returns home to be a stockboy in his father's store and make an honest living. All these sixty-seventy year old church members acted it out and it was quite entertaining. Also I got a sweet door prize: a hot pink knock-off nalgene!
My homestay is great. My room is quite large and has lots of drawers to unpack clothes, a black white tiled floor, and a somewhat creepy clearly original cabbage patch doll. Plus some cool artwork that I am sure my homestay mom made (she has a gallery and craft store downtown). And I have a nice big bathroom all to myself :-) I just love having my own bathroom. And may I reiterate the fact that I have wireless internet. I am one happy theatre nomad.
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