First Performance

 

During the day Friday, Tatiana and I worked really hard on her lines.  She knew just where she really needed work, so she studied those before we practiced.  I would put a mark next to lines when I needed to help her out.   Then she studied her lines again.   The next time through the play I made a different mark.  So, then she knew that she really really needed to work on lines with two marks.  

Friday morning, Tatiana ran to me and gave me a big hug.   She even let me kiss her a lot on her forehead.  When we were done, she said, "My forehead is wet."  I feigned ignorance and said, "I have no idea why that would be."  Scotland said, "Like Mother, Like Daughter."   I asked him what she had done that was like me.  He said, "No, you are like your mother with the kiss-kiss-kiss"  

The play started at 7 pm.  Everyone had to be there by 5:30 pm.   Friday morning she told me that people could get there at 3 pm, if they wanted to go over their lines since the theater would be open.  Tatiana thought it was funny that they had said, "Homeschoolers, don't show up at 9 am."    I had been packing up the food, so I hadn't heard.  Tatiana wanted to arrive early.   

When we got there a little after 3 pm, Grayce said she would go over the lines with Tatiana.  She gave Tatiana suggestions as they went through them.    Then before the play, all the actors ran through the lines again.  I think those two runs though the play really helped Tatiana.  

Tatiana did AMAZING in the play.  She rarely messed up any of her lines, and she frequently helped out the other actors by saying their lines.  There were a few places where she talked a little fast.  She had a couple of pauses while she remembered her lines.  But she was truly amazing.   I got teary during the ovation.   Actually, I'd gotten teary several times during the play.    When the actors were all backstage afterward, we heard this big cheer.   The audience was standing around talking and we wondered what they were so excited about.   My guess was that they had just gotten their candy surprise.  Someone said no, they are too old to get that excited about candy.   Scotch, Maybe.  We learned later that they were cheering Tatiana's performance.  They declared her MVP.   Several people in the audience made a point of telling us how amazing our daughter did.  She remembered a vast majority of her lines and helped out other people several times.  For the lamplighter scene, he still didn't know his lines so they 'improv'ed' it.   He was so grateful.   There was only one scene with a long pause.   The fox didn't remember his lines, and she couldn't think of a way to help.   

After the play Tatiana wanted to go to Hibbit's.   That made sense to me because we had gone to get ice cream after several of the rehearsals.  Then we learned that the other actors were going there too.   She sat with them and we sat at another table.   She was in her glory.    I think something she really liked about being in the play was that she could hang out with the cool, older kids and they didn't mind.      The other kids commented many times on how cute she was.   I think she made them feel like mature adults and that is heady stuff to a teenager.  

I had taken a video of the play on Thursday during the rehearsal.   In fact that was helpful too.   She asked to watch the video of the first part of the play with the long pauses.  I was extremely happy to see a guy setup a video camera with an equipment bag.   He was recording the play as a favor to Grayce.  I asked if he was selling the video.  He said he doesn't sell the videos, but he could give me a copy.   I talked to him during intermission and gave him my email.  He will email me his address and I will have Amazon ship him a flash drive.   I should have just gotten his address then.