We celebrated St. Patrick's Day in a very pink way ~ I took the girls to see Pinkaliciousat First Stage Children's Theater.
Everything was so pink and so cute, the girls loved it all!!
Photo 74 of 365, taken March 17th. The girls enjoyed the musical, and it was very fun! Alyssa auditioned for this season of plays, really hoping to get cast as "Pink" and it was one of those things that as I watched the play, I was secretly a tiny bit thankful that it didn't happen. Pink was a little sassy for my liking and unfortunately {or maybe not so much} Alyssa doesn't quite have it in her to pull that off.
Nothing better than pink cupcakes to finish off a fun afternoon at the theater!
Thank you very much to Aunt Laura {my mom's sister} and Unlce Ted {my dad's brother} who came up to Milwaukee a couple Sundays ago with my parents to see A Christmas Carol. It was so nice to see you, and Alyssa was very happy you could see the show!
Below are some of my favorite pictures of Alyssa in her costumes for A Christmas Carol. The first several photos show her in her "Want" costume, and in the bottom few she is wearing the costume that she wears in almost every scene of the play other than the Fezziwig scene and the Want scene. The only costume we didn't get her pictured in is her Fezziwig scene costume. It blesses me so much to have these pictures because our experience in the past is that it is extremely difficult to get photographs of the kids in costume ~ wonderful memories I am thankful to have!!
Tiny Tim and Want.
With Martha Cratchit.
With Remembrance and Forgiveness.
With Fan.
With Catherine {possibly Alyssa's favorite actress in the play}.
Collecting for La Causa after the performance.
“I will honour Christmas in my heart, and try to keep it all the year. I will live in the Past, the Present, and the Future. The Spirits of all Three shall strive within me. I will not shut out the lessons that they teach!”
― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
Every December, the Rep hosts a Christmas Tree Trimming Party and the girls looked forward to it for days. It's a Rep tradition to invite all the families of the cast members for tons of food and fun ~ and at least a little decorating.
However, the day before the party Rebekah came down with an ear infection and later had an allergic reaction to her antibiotic. I felt so sorry for her. She itched everywhere, had two unexpected doctor appointments {which are always stressful for her, even when she feels well} and the red hives just spread all over her entire body. After a few doses of benedryl, a new antibiotic, and missing a day of school to sleep, she is completely fine. And there was no way she wanted to miss the party, even though she was still getting over the reaction.
They started with this bare, white lighted tree and tons of boxes and bins of decorations later, it was anything but plain!
Emma jumped right in with the kid's cast to decorate.
Alyssa and Rebekah worked very carefully on this side table. They decorated with a gold theme and it turned out so cute.
This is as close to a final product photo that I got, with the food there it became way too crowded to get a good picture. They added a mini Christmas tree and all the gold accessories they could find.
Busy, busy tree trimmers.
When it was time to eat, Rebekah ate like a champ...I was relieved that she was feeling better!
The older girls enjoyed a great meal by the tree too.
A quick photo of many of the tree trimmers and cast mates. I have been so thankful for the many ways that the Rep has invited the families of the cast into the whole process and season of A Christmas Carol. Alyssa continues to enjoy the experience and performances each and every day!
“For it is good to be children sometimes, and never better than at Christmas, when its mighty Founder was a child Himself.”― Charles Dickens, A Christmas Carol
In the last couple of weeks we have learned a lot about what goes into putting together a pretty large scale professional theater performance. While this is not Alyssa's first theater experience, I'd be willing to venture that it's the biggest time commitment she has had, in probably the grandest production she has been a part of. I thought I would give you a little tour of what she's been doing the last several weeks.
First up was perfecting an English accent. Again, not her first time having to speak with an English accent, but it was her first time to work with a dialect coach. We ran into her dialect coach, Jill at a Starbucks, and she is so nice. No wonder Alyssa loved the dialect sessions so much.
The weekend after her birthday, my parents came up to spend time with Alyssa and after going out for lunch, we walked her up to practice in the main rehearsal hall, The Hub. The next several photos were taken by Emma or Rebekah as they explored the hall.
Getting her petticoat off the rack.
A huge dress goes over this petticoat, she feels like a princess when she gets in costume.
Where her stage shoes wait for her to put them on.
Emma was fascinated with all the props in the rehearsal hall. This is a model of what the stage in the Pabst will look like for the performances.
The Christmas goose.
More food props. Fun, behind the scenes info: There is a fezziwig scene in which there are tables of fake food that the children are supposed to be eating from in the background as the scene plays out. The children's director thought the kids' acting looked slightly forced as they were eating fake food, so she arranged for real small gingerbread cookies to be tucked in among the props. So when the kids look like they are really have a snack on stage ~ they are! Alyssa was so impressed they would do this to make the scene look more natural.
Rebekah outside the entrance to The Pabst.
Emma on the other side of The Pabst.
At the beginning of Tech Week, Dave was able to go with Alyssa on a tour of the Pabst. The Hub where they had previously been practicing is in an ajoining building, so there were all new dressing rooms and such to familiarize herself with, not to mention the beautiful theater itself. This is a grainy cell phone pic, but it is gorgeous.
Her costume rack. She is so excited about each of her costumes, and she has quite a few changes to make, so she has an assistant to help her with that. She also serves as a helper to Tiny Tim during costume changes.
Last night was opening night for the Friends and Family Preview.
Curtain Call.
I knew my mother in law would love to see as many photos of the theater as possible. Here is the best shot I could get of the balconies. The whole theater is beautiful. Alyssa claims the middle section {1st Balcony} is the best vantage point. I thought the seats we were given in the orchestra section were awesome.
Excited family and friends ready for the performance to begin.
Looking from the lobby down into the theater.
The hallway that led to the bathrooms, because I am showing you all the most important locations, after all.
Alyssa was so happy that a couple of her friends were able to come see opening night ~ Thank you for being there, Katie and Megan {not pictured :-( }!
My parents drove up to see the play, which did not end until after 10pm, on a weeknight in which they had to work the next day. Saying thank you is not enough! Alyssa was so glad you were there. All she talked about all week long was how excited she was for everyone to see the play, she would have loved to fly in all Dave's family in from Hawaii to see it, had that been a possibility.
Rebekah fell asleep in the second act, so our post show family picture is a bit of a bust. Alyssa chose our outfits for the evening ~ she wanted us to wear purple and black.
One more photo of Alyssa and Katie.
Alyssa was so excited after the preview last night, that she could hardly sleep {even though she needed to ~ badly!!} She kept asking me what my favorite part was and if I saw her actually eating the cookies during the Fezziwig scene {yes! She took the command to really eat something seriously :-) } They have the press preview tonight, and officially open on Friday. I thought the entire cast was amazing, if you're local and can go, I think you would enjoy it immensely.
Congratulations, Alyssa. We are so very proud of you! Keep doing what you're doing.
Between Halloween and New Years, Alyssa was kept very busy in her first ever performance in a First Stage Children's Theater production. Rehearsals ran from the weekend before Halloween until the weekend of Thanksgiving, when they opened. The play was supposed to close on Christmas Eve, but there was enough interest in tickets that they extended until December 28th.
This was her third time auditioning, and each time she was called back for the possibility of being cast in one of a few roles, but she had never gotten the part until this year. She learned SO MUCH and had such a fantastic time, there is no way I could sum up the whole experience in just a few sentences or paragraphs. She came home from each rehearsal so excited about what they practiced and performed that day and she started speaking using all these very proper and technical theater terms. Before my eyes I saw her transform from a dramatic little girl who loves and is intrigued by anything theatrical to a real theater artist herself, and it was just amazing!
Here with her whole cast, the Bell Cast. First Stage double casts each show so the kids miss a minimal amount of school, and if someone becomes ill, they have an immediate actor to fill the role. Even with the double casting, I think both casts performed the show about 30 times. It was an intense schedule, but so much fun.
Alyssa as Hook, and her fellow pirates, Popeye and Sinbad. Alyssa's role was rather small and it was a perfect way to introduce her to being a part of a production this big without overwhelming her. I remember the day she realized that people would be paying to see the play, her eyes got huge and she said , "Yikes, we better not mess this up." She usually does not have any hesitation to be on stage, but for one reason or another the fact that this would be a paying audience seemed to add some pressure. Each and every performance of the show went off without a hitch, she never had anything to worry about.
During the running of the shows, one of the things that Alyssa was insistent upon was taking us for a backstage tour as a family. It ended up being what she gave Emma and Rebekah for a Christmas present. Here, Alyssa is hugging her favorite robe that she always wore backstage while she was eating. The kids weren't allowed to eat in costume unless they wore one over their clothes.
Showing her little sisters where she hung her Hook costume in between shows. I later saw the dress part of her Hook costume on clearance in Crazy 8, but didn't buy it, and now I'm kicking myself for that. I would love to have that dress, just as a keepsake, if nothing else, and now I can't find it.
First Stage is a very family friendly and family oriented theater company. I tried to help in the lobby during as many shows as I could, and Emma was even able to volunteer with me during one of the shows. She handed out programs to the guests as they entered the theater, and she felt really cool, like she was part of the show as well, finally being involved in this place she had visited so many times as a guest to see cool plays.
Rebekah getting comfortable in the Green Room during our backstage tour.
On this night we saw the show as a family and two of Emma's friends also came with their families. The number of shows in which Alyssa had friends, family or classmates in the audience was just astounding. Many times she knew to be expecting them out there that night, and other times it was a complete surprise to see them and it was so special for her!
One of Alyssa's favorite things about the performances was the "Talk Back" sessions that directly follow each show. After the curtain call, the audience has a chance to ask the cast any questions about the show, and before the play opened Alyssa told me she was nervous to offer an answer to the questions. But in her very first show, she did, and I think in almost every show after that she answered a question. She was the Stage Manager's go-to person when no one else wanted to answer {she loves to talk and explain things, let me tell you...}
Alyssa quickly made friends with her cast-mates! Being the second oldest of the group definitely earned her the position of little cast mother. It was interesting to discover that this mothering tendency of hers does not pertain to her sisters alone. She's very watchful, careful, over protective and I hesitate to say she's a worrier {but it is quite accurate} and always kept tabs on everyone backstage and felt very responsible for monitoring all unruly behavior.
Way too much silliness and fun was had by all! One of the things we have always loved about Alyssa's First Stage experiences is how much they focus on teaching the kids life skills, through stage skills. That is in fact one of the mottos that is printed on their t-shirts. Alyssa loved and appreciated very much how each of the kids was treated just like a professional actor who was a vital part of the production. She is so excited to audition for future shows!
