Leading ladies

Madison and Ella got the two leads in the first musical theater camp they're in at Stages this summer. The show is Sleeping Beauty. Ella is Princess Aurora (a.k.a. Briar Rose, a.k.a. Sleeping Beauty) and Madison is the evil sorceress Malificent. Wouldn't you know that for the first musical the girls are in together, one of them is trying to kill the other.

They're among the older members of the group (ages 6-10), and this is the same director Madison had for Schoolhouse Rock. The camp is Monday though Friday for two weeks starting this coming Monday, and they'll have performances on the second Friday evening and Saturday afternoon. It will be mostly parents and friends in the audience; this is no hifallutin production, though Stages does a MUCH better job than other production companies about nurturing the kids into doing as professional a performance as possible, even in a 2-week summer camp context. One nice thing is that an old high school friend of mine is coming up to visit with her three kids that weekend, so they'll get to see the show.

I wasn't in the least surprised that Madison got the part of Malificent. Misty, her director, practically had her typecast. They had auditions this past Tuesday night, and from the first aggressive "ARRRRGH!" Madison let out when she started reading for the part, she had the four adults in the audience in stitches.

That's right, only four adults in the audience. The director, the choreographer, the assistant directors, and...me. The rest of the parents were in the parent meeting, but to my surprise, Misty asked me to be one of the judges, along with herself, the choreographer, and the assistant director. "You're sensible, and I trust your judgment." Gee! She handed me a sheet and had me rank each kid from 1 to 5 on singing, dancing, and role reading. It was interesting, although it took me a bit to get the hang of quickly reading each child's name tag and grading him or her. Most of the kids didn't sing above a whisper, and only half in tune, so you can guess what kind of a show it's going to be. I think only Ella and Madison had actual singing/acting experience.

Which is why Ella got the part of the princess. She isn't a very *strong* singer (fortunately, she'll be miked), but she stays in tune very well and she was the only girl besides Madison (who was beautifully witchy and over the top) who read with expression when they were reading for roles. If there had been a stronger or clearer singer than Ella, she would have gotten it, but Ella will do fine. She has two solo songs.

A small wave of relief washed over me when I watched Ella read for the princess: I realized that Ella's reading has finally "arrived." A year ago, she would have faltered; she would have been too busy concentrating on sounding out the words to have had any expression in her voice. This year, she is fine. And she is reading The Secret Garden for book club, all on her own, without complaining. So there.

And Madison...my goodness, Madison will be GREAT as Malificent. I think she knows all of her lines already. She has three solo songs, and is delightfully cackly in each. She was relieved at not having to dance (she's wise enough to know that she's no dancer), and her stomp-around overbearing dramatic in-your-face loud kind of presence that so gets under my skin at times is perfect for Malificent. And at the end, she gets to have a sword fight with Prince Phillip, and die dramatically. The child is in her glory.

It's going to be a fun couple of weeks. And I get to get a lot DONE!