For all of my friends who were ever involved in any aspect of theater/drama in elementary/middle/high school/college, you will definately enjoy this post:
We had auditions for our annual drama, Oliver, two weeks ago. Since this is Al Raja's first year having music, they have also chosen to do a musical, since they have me here to help the students actually learn the music. We're using students from grades 3--12 in this production, so you can imagine that it's quite the undertaking!
Last week, the students had their exams (except for third grade), so their schedule was uber-messed up. I don't even understand what was going on last week. I'm really glad I didn't accidentally miss proctoring an exam, although I could picture myself doing that! Anyway, all week last week, I had some students constantly asking me in between exams, "When are we going to know about the drama?" I was always like, "After exams." That was my way of saying "Leave me alone." The problem is, I finally realize how taxed our teachers really were. Virgil, the director, is both a 5th grade math AND english teacher. So he had to get all of his exams graded. He was definately not worried about getting all of the stuff out for the drama! Well, we sat down with the Vice Principal and had our final casting meeting, and then worked really hard on a cast list during our Sunday staff work-day.
You can imagine, though, when I finally went to the printer to print out the list on Monday and the printer was out of ink, that it put a kink in the plan! Also, our drama bulletin board also has beautiful artwork on it that needs to get taken down before we can put up our drama stuff. Well, basically, most of the students know who they are, but I don't think the parent letter was sent out yet. So, we'll see if anyone shows up for our first music rehearsal tomorrow. My guess is going to be no. But we'll see. Naturally, this leads me into a state of confusion. I was once told that confusion is my natural state...
You can also imagine how bad I feel that some of the kinder can't be in it. It's just, we have a 3-5 Grade chorus of like 50 kids! That is a massive amount! Anyway, I feel torn because I do feel bad that I couldn't put all of them in it. I love them all, but they just all can't match pitch. We really need to have pitch-matchers in this production! This one third grade girl is particularly upset that she's not in it (even though 3rd grade is only in the beginning), and I do feel for her. Man, now I also feel for all the teachers that had to deal with unhappy students! I definately remember what it was like to be rejected. But at the same time, do we always get everything we want in life? Nope. And we do have to work hard for what we want. There's always next year.
Call me a nerd, but it looks like I've just taught life lessons through music. That's beautiful!
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