Audition Weekend

Last night three of our kids auditioned for Schoolhouse Rock--their first time in the new chapter of our theater group. And they did us all proud!

Bantam9 was up first, with his rendition of the theme song from The Muppet Show. He had them from the opening drum roll as he loudly proclaimed, "It's tiiiiiiiiiiiiime for the MUPPET SHOW!" As the music continued he marched, blowing a pretend trumpet, turned and "walked like an Egyptian," then played a pretend baritone sax for several bars, swinging his head around wildly, before breaking into, "It's time to play the music, it's time to light the lights; it's time to meet the Muppets on the Muppet Show tonight."

He did the old geezers in the balcony, first bending over pretending to hold a cane and growling out, "Why do we always come here? I guess we'll never know;" he stood up more and used a different voice for, "It's like a form of torture/To have to watch this show!" The next moment he straightened, widened his eyes and grabbed his back with both hands, pretending his back had gone out. On the finale--"It's the most sensational, inspirational, celebrational, Muppetational, this is what we call the Muppet Show!"--he nailed the high note at the end. It was quite the crowd-pleasing performance!

Bantam13 came next, performing "What's This?" from The Nightmare Before Christmas. It's about a Halloween character who wakes up in the middle of Christmas and has never seen anything like it: "There are children throwing snowballs/Instead of throwing heads/They're busy building toys/And absolutely no one's dead... Everybody looks so happy!/Have I possibly gone daffy?/What is this?" B13 did a great job of acting incredulous and amazed, using the whole stage while articulately singing impossibly fast words!

Blondechick16 sang "Taylor, the Latte Boy" a song that includes a couple of quick facial changes between characters, which she pulled off very well, to the crowd's amusement. Her voice sounded as perky and bright as she looked, singing, "There's a boy who works at Starbucks/Who is very inspirational/He is very inspirational/Because of many things...Taylor, the Latte Boy/Bring me java, bring me joy..." (And yes, she looked and sounded almost as good as Kristin Chenowith! That's a totally unbiased opinion, of course.)

They all did fine on their dance auditions, it seemed, and the only big disappointment of the night was that somehow, when I thought I was videotaping their performances, I wasn't. Papa Rooster, who had been on an airplane at the time, was especially disappointed, and the kids were let down too, because they all felt they had done well and were eager to see for themselves! I am still so bummed.

So last night was a restless night of sleep for all. I can't help it, but I just can't ever sleep well on these two nights--the night after auditions and the night before the cast list goes up on Sunday morning. You pray with and for your kids, that whatever happens, you can receive it with a spirit of joy and teamwork, and you know that God will work it all out for good anyway--but somehow my nerves just never seem to get the message that it's all good. The adrenaline kicks in the second my mind turns toward the subject, which always continues even into my dreams. And it didn't help that last night we got snow, and the world's loudest snowplow passed by our house every hour!

It woke me completely at 5 a.m. and my first thoughts were, "The call backs are probably posted now, but if I get up, I'll never get back to sleep." I rolled over and tried to think of other things, but my heart rate began climbing at every other thought that popped into my head and finally I decided I might actually relax more if I knew whether they were called back or not.

So I slipped silently out of the bedroom, checked the website and learned that BC16 had been called back to sing for solo parts including "Interplanet Janet." I knew she'd be happy about that! B13 was called back for dancing, which could mean a lot of things--all of them good, but it will depend how he does. Bantam9 wasn't called back, but we weren't too surprised. They don't usually call back many younger kids, plus they said they'd be casting some characters straight from the auditions, and he certainly showed what he could do there!

After going back to bed and laying awake worrying about all the things I need to do today--clean house and make food for weekend guests, primarily--I finally got up and started cleaning and doing laundry at around 7 a.m. So it looks like a nap is in my future...

...but we won't know about the kids' roles until sometime tomorrow!