04.15.08

The play….and a rant

Posted in Life, the Universe and All that Jazz at 4:10 pm by Meg

First off, the play.

The weekend went amazingly well. As I suspected, a blown dress gets the kids to that final push and the two performances went great. Everyone pulled together and produced something to be proud of. Step-mom enjoyed herself and the kids had fun.

People that came to the show were decently impressed.

But I’m afraid that I don’t have much else to say because they killed the entire experience for me. In addition to the two performances that we had this weekend, we are scheduled to do it again on the 22nd at the local state university for their drama department. - Sounds really neat, doesn’t it?

Sunday evening the boy playing the second Antipholus dropped out, citing pressing deadlines in order to graduate on time, his paperwork is due on the 22nd.  Monday evening, the second Dromio made noises like he was dropping out because for the university we only had a 50 minute time slot and would need to do an abbreviated show.  Then the girl playing Adriana started wondering if it was worth it.

I was upset because:

1.  We’ve had the 22nd planned since about mid-February.  This week and a half lag time is no surprise on anyone’s calendars.

2.  Last Wednesday, I announced to the kids and any parents that were there that the show would be an abbreviated 50 mins. I asked people to think about that and to talk to me some time in the following 24 hours if they had strong feelings about go/no go with doing a show that is missing scenes.

3. As of Thursday’s rehearsal, NO ONE had said anything to me, so I went and talked to parents.  The comments I heard were:  Yes - let’s do it, and one NO - that’s a long time to wait between the main shows and doing it again.  (This was not a statement that was a NO GO, just a comment on an issue that was known since February.) I also heard a couple of pleas that we do it since friends would not be able to make either of the weekend shows.

4.  On Saturday night I said to the kids we were doing it, I just wanted to confirm a couple of things with the theater before I committed us.

5.  Sunday night Antipholus and a minor character (his sister) dropped out - this committed us to a rehearsal this week so that we could work around not having him in the show.  I did not plan on rehearsing this week.  I really do not have the time and Boy has 2 AP tests in about 3 weeks, he doesn’t really have the time.  OTH, I had made a commitment to the 20 some kids that have been involved, so I was going to find a way to make it work.

6.  Monday morning I spent 90 mins talking to each family asking for a commitment for the 22, doing a show abbreviated differently than I had envisioned on Saturday.  Losing Antipholus has meant that I can not do an abbreviated show that includes everyone else.  I had to ask kids to be willing to allow me to cut their character out.

7.  I then called the state university and COMMITTED us to being there on the 22.  I have put MY word out to having us there based on EVERYONE saying THREE DIFFERENT TIMES that they were on board.  Now I will have egg on MY FACE when I call and cancel.  The people involved at the state university will not come away with a good impression of homeschoolers in general or our group in particular.

I GIVE UP

I can not force anyone, so do whatever you want.

At this point I’ve got an amazingly bitter view of the show in general and our group in particular.

I will be at rehearsal from 2 to 4 PM on Tuesday afternoon.  Come if you stand behind your commitments and we’ll see if we can come up with something that will work, at this point to be honest, I wonder.

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