Jasmine's Play

Missoula Children's Theater came to our area again this year. They didn't come last year and everyone was upset. I think the youth center got a lot of complaints because they were back this year. 

Everyone who wants to be in it from ages 6-18 show up Monday morning to try out. That takes about 90 minutes. Then the main characters actually start rehearsing about a half hour later! They rehearse every day for about four hours. The minor characters come during part of that time. The littlest kids only rehearse an hour or two, but then on Friday everyone is there from 2:00 until the performance at 6:00. So it's only a 5 day commitment.

Here are the ones she has been in. She has mostly had main roles except 2014 when there weren't many main parts. The twins have been part of the casts groups but have not always had parts. They always have groups of characters by ages.

They take a regular story but totally rewrite it. This year was Gulliver's Travels in Outer Space. There were two Gullivers, tall Gulliver and short Gulliver. Jasmine was short Gulliver. Tall Gulliver was the same (very tall!) girl who was her mermaid twin in The Little Mermaid in 2015.

2013 Rapunzel

Kayla as a troll

Jasmine as Queen Monique

2014 Hansel and Gretel
Both twins tried out but neither got a part.

This year Jasmine was part of a group of gingerbread people.

2015 The Little Mermaid
This is the only year all three were in the play together.

Jasmine with her mermaid twin on the left in the picture

2016 Sleeping Beauty
Jasmine was the evil witch and Kaleb was a troll.

2017 No play!!

2018 Gulliver's Travels in Space
Kayla is at camp, and Kaleb was at the Boys and Girl's Club and did not try out for behavioral reasons.

Jasmine and the same girl as both Gullivers.

Can anyone guess what the gift is that I gave Jasmine?

Play Week

This week Jasmine, Kaleb and Kayla tried out for "The Little Mermaid." This is an original play by Missoula Children's Theater that only vaguely resembles the Disney version. It has all original songs. 

On Monday The Missoula people arrived, and 80 kids showed up to try out for 60 parts. Depending on where the Missoula people are, they have from 20 kids to 450 kids show up for 60 parts! It's open to ages 5-18. Our oldest one this year was 17 followed by Jasmine who is 14. 

The kids had to say lines like "Frozen is the worst movie ever", "There's a monkey in my soup", and others. 

Kayla saying "It's a bird, it's a plane, oh it's nothing."

Kaleb saying, "Basketball? Not basketball again!"

They had to sing row, row your boat as a group, then in groups of ten kids. It was a close try out for the main parts. They had to sing in smaller groups as they narrowed down who would get each part. Jasmine had to sing with only one other person at one time.

These are the kids who got the main parts. One merboy, four mermaids and a starfish.

 Practices started the same day. In fact tryouts ended at 11:10 Monday and practice for Jasmine started at 11:30. We did a quick run to Burger King! Practices were Monday through Friday, and the first performance was Friday at 5:00.

Someone back stage slammed down one of the props, and one of the mermaids jumped. Jasmine started laughing.

Sea Scout

Mer people

When they did photo call for town criers, Kaleb wasn't paying attention and thought he was supposed to go change, so he left!

This year there was a second show Saturday at 3:00.

Ready to go to rehearsal this morning. 

 Kayla as Sea Scout

 Jasmine as Amelia mermaid

 Kaleb as town crier

 Kaleb

 town criers

 Sea Scouts

The kids are already talking about next year. Right now we're watching the video that shows what the Missoula Children's theater does all over the world because Jasmine is interested in working with them after high school. I think that would be great. (Okay, so maybe I suggested it to her, but I encourage my kids to follow their dreams and use their talents.)

Summer Fun--and Frustration!

I wish summer could be carefree and fun. But the girls' school assigns summer work. For most kids, it's probably no big deal. For mine, it means a summer of frustration. In fairness to the girls, I have Kaleb do the same summer Bridge Book Kayla does.

The bridge books are a good idea, but my kids don't just sit down and do them. We had hours and hours in the car driving to New Orleans and back, and to Indiana and back. FL to IN is 16 hours one way. If they were focused, they could have the whole book done. 

The skills in the book are supposed to be ones all fourth graders learned in the previous year, but that isn't always true. Some of the pages were super easy, others had math problems that I had to sit down and figure out how to do.

It's set up to do a two page section a day--if you have 100 days of summer. We don't. Plus Kaleb was at camp for a full week. 

Jasmine just finished her second week of band camp 10-4 & 6-9. She has to read Fahrenheit 451 and do some journal activities with it. She also has a math pack that she can't do because she wasn't in regular 8th grade math last year.

So it's a summer long struggle for us.

But we make time for other things. Scuba, snorkeling, swimming, running, movies, reading for fun, crafts, frozen yogurt etc.

We meet for family circle time every day. All of us wrote out a wish list/goal list for the summer. One of mine was to read 100 picture books to the kids this summer. You are never too old for picture books and never too old to be read to. So we read picture books, plus we just finished Journey to the Center of the Earth and are starting the Prince and the Pauper. We read the Wizard of Oz earlier in the summer. We talk about character traits, find verses about them and watch videos such as The Book of Virtues, do The Christian Girl's Guide to the Bible and talk about long term and short term goals in circle. It's a no fault, no penalty zone. Sometimes that takes a lot of determination on my part.  

The twins just finished their workbooks. We have two weeks until we go back to school. Next week is play week. The Missoula children's theater group travels to different places and does a play in a week with the local kids. On Monday morning the kids try out. For those who make it, rehearsals start immediately. They practice all week, and perform the play on Friday night.

So if the kids get parts, that will take up the whole week because the script has to be memorized in the evenings. We've tried out the last two years. (I didn't know about it before that). The first year Jasmine and Kayla were in it. The second year only Jasmine got a part. This year the play is The Little Mermaid, and I hope they all get a part. They always do their own version of a fairy tale. Last  year was Hansel and Gretel, and the witch was a vegetarian.

The final week of summer vacation we plan to skate, bowl, swim, snorkel, watch DVDs, read, finish up projects and do some new crafts.

In upcoming posts, I'll share some of the kid's summer goals and their thoughts on summer.