Mulan - what a difference an afternoon makes!
It was a whirlwind week here. The biggest time consumer was Robin's play. There were three shows midweek for the student body at their school, and three evening performances as well. One of the dads who is a professional videographer films each night, and in the past he has asked me to take pictures to include at the end of the video as part of the cast list and a montage of scenes. So I've become the unofficial photographer.
This is tricky business for a novice like me. Photographing stage shows is tough enough due to the constant lighting changes, dark theatre, bright stage, etc. My current camera is pretty good in low light but does not have a good action setting, so fast movement gets blurred. Therefore, I have to try to catch mostly static shots / tableaus rather than dance numbers (a new camera is on the list for Christmas!). But even the static shots are hard when dealing with elementary schoolers. I try to get one decent shot of each cast member (and I believe there were about 60 this year) on stage to use in the video credits. Not easy!
I have learned that there are some kids who simply cannot stand still, even on stage. They sway. They fidget. One girl constantly was readjusting her earrings. Or they will make inadvertent odd faces - mouths open, lips squinched up, head turned the wrong way. Then just when you have a good shot, somebody moves in front of them! Ay yi yi. But I got it mostly done. If there is time, I try to get some set shots after the school performances (before and after the evening shows there is too much chaos - parents milling about, kids rushing to get into costume, etc. But the cast availability to get these shots is very much depending on how the performance went at school.
Miss Gosling, the director, is very big on inclusivity regarding the school shows. On one hand, this is good, because every child gets to try acting and they all get a part of some kind. However this also means that she double (and sometimes triple!) casts, and that some children who really have no business being onstage are indeed onstage and mucking up the production. But hey, they are elementary schoolers - nobody is expecting Kennedy Center performances here. Each child has a chorus night and a "main part" night (even if their main part is only one line).
So Robin was in the chorus the first night as one of the multitude of Chinese daughters. It's not a bad system. Kids with tiny parts get to be in the big musical numbers that they otherwise would not have been in. Robin, who was playing a male in her main part, got to dress like a girl in a pretty kimono and sing in "Honor To Us All" and "Written In Stone" and the matchmaker number, and she enjoyed it.
When I went to see the first school performance of Cast A, I was expecting one big hot mess, because Miss Goslings shows are always one big hot mess right up until show night, when they somehow pull it together into a half mess. Opening day, I was pleasantly surprised compared to previous years. 90% of the kids knew their lines, there was little coaching needed, and only a few kids suffering from that REAL triple threat of theatre - no not "sings, acts, dances" - rather, "can't project / doesn't know lines / no expression". Those are always painful to watch, but in Cast A, those kids tended to be the ones with tiny parts like the Huns who have one liners like "We will destroy you!" or "Yes, boss!"
Overall, it was a good show. The girl playing Mulan opening night had a good strong voice and knew her part well, spoke with expression, etc. Mushu didn't have the best voice for singing but she was funny and animated and a good pick. Most of the main cast was pretty darn good. The gal playing Robin's part that night was solid, good speaker, was a stern villain. The one thing that did (and does) drive me crazy were the two kids who forgot their costumes. People, really. If you know you have a main part in the play and that your school show is Tuesday, don't show up in your gym uniform. It's just an EYESORE when Mulan's father is wearing a grey t-shirt and sweats amidst all those robes and kimonos. It's embarrassing to you. And of course that kid was the only one in the main cast who also did not know his lines and was a :( Triple Threat (a.k.a. "TT"). Otherwise, the others were fine. I thought, "Hey, this bodes well. Typically, they are still utterly terrible right up til showtime!"
Then came the next day and Cast B, Robin's cast. Oh man. It was not pretty.
Our Mulan was not bad. Okay voice, but she is IRL a very shy Asian girl. Smart, sweet and competent, but not a lot of expression. She knew her part and gave it her all, but she was a bit on the muted side for having the lead. Then there was Mushu.
The girl playing Mushu, Noelle, is in Robin's class, and I know Robin feels a certain competitiveness with her. Noelle is from a family of singers. Her older sister who is in 8th grade has undoubtedly the best voice in the school - the girl can sing like Mariah Carey, and belt out those unbelievably high notes like a champ. She has sung professionally and done professional theatre work - she's very good! Noelle's voice is not of that caliber, but she can surely sing well, and got to do a small solo at last year's Christmas concert, much to Robin's chagrin, though they are friends. Noelle is also a very outgoing, funny and confident kid, so I was sure she'd be a terrific Mushu. But at the performance, I was stunned. The child did not know her lines. This really surprised me because I know her mom is very firm about professionalism with the older sister, but Noelle was blowing one line after the other. She still sang great, but she could not stay in character and there were constant pauses as she had to have every other line whispered to her.
And this problem was endemic to the majority of the cast at the morning show. It was dreadful. All humor sucked totally out of the play as kid after kid blew their lines. Mulan, Robin, the Grandmother and the Matchmaker were the only ones really on top of their lines, and about two of the ancestors. Captain Shang had no expression at all, and the kid playing the Father did not know ONE SINGLE LINE! It was painful to watch!
Then there were the miscasts and costume goofs. Most of the kids had decent costumes pulled together from closets, thrift stores and the occasional Halloween store purchase. All the girls had silky type robes as stand-in kimonos, except for Mushu. Mushu had an amazing dragon costume, but her robe was terrycloth with big hearts on it.
Then you had the Huns. The Huns are the bad guys in the play who are invading China. Miss Gosling tries to keep the costume requests very simple so parents don't have to shell out a lot of money. For example, the Chinese soldiers were all in basic blacks with some colorful sashes. The Huns were to wear brown with fur accoutrements. Well, some of the Huns got it right and some didn't. One of the follower Huns had a great outfit, a fur cap, brown clothing and snow boots with fur lined tops. Simple yet effective. However, the lead Hun, a tall girl, had an outfit that looked like "Hun who stopped by Lord and Taylor on her way to the invasion" - skinny jeans in high heeled boots, a tight turtleneck and a glitzy brown vest that looked very Claire's / Forever 21. Not scary, not soldiery, not mannish - not good.
Another problem plaguing the Huns...they are the tiniest parts in the show, a group of fierce rabble rousers who come hulking in, shout a few threatening lines, then leave. Typically, those parts are given to the brand newby kids or the ones with very little acting experience or talent. Should be easy, right? Look tough, shout a line or two, and off you go. Nope. because of the ever present shortage of BOYS in youth theatre, all the boys get put into the main parts where you need a male - Mulan's dad, the love-interest Captain, etc. By the time you get to the Huns, all the boys are taken up. So the Hun army is comprised of mainly little girls who cannot act. The lead Hun in cast A was a boy, and he did a darn good job. The tall girl in Cast B did not know her lines and was wearing the Bloomingdale's outfit, and the female Hun followers were a motley bunch who also were primarily TTs, so that instead of storming the stage all rough and tumble, they wandered in looking like a bunch of Girl Scouts who got lost on their way to the camp-out. One of the Huns was Robin's best friend Aphrodite, who is a sweetheart. She was the only one who knew all her lines and could project, but unfortunately, Aphrodite is a sweet to the core kindly girl who cannot stop smiling. So she'd get up to the microphone and say "We will destroy your village!" in her regular high pitched adorable Aphrodite voice, all big eyed and smiling white teeth and dimples, looking and sounding like the Hun who is really a Hon that could not hurt a fly. It was so badly cute that you had to smile. :)
The morning show for Cast B took a full 20 minutes longer than Cast A's simply due to Dreadful Pauses and Dropped Lines. I had no opportunity to take cast photos afterwards like I did for Cast B, because Miss Gosling had to read them the Riot Act. You MUST know your lines. You CANNOT rely on the microphone, you must PROJECT, you have to look towards the audience, NOT turn your head to your castmate upstage because then no one can hear you. You must be READY for your entrances and exits, not stagger in late while everyone is standing around onstage waiting. People in the pit, NO talking, NO standing up while the show is going on, etc etc. It went on and on.
She did single Robin out to the rest of the cast as the one cast member who knew every line, who always projected and who stayed in character. The crew is made up of 8th graders who are all theatre kids, and they all went "Yay, Robin! Yeah!" and clapped for her, which made her feel good, I know. Miss G told the whole bunch that they needed to go home and PRACTICE and know their lines before the evening show for their parents. Good luck with that, I thought.
I called my mother in law when I got home and warned her to lower her expectations mightily, and to leave the rotten fruit at home, no matter how great the urge to throw some might be. :)
But to my surprise, the evening show for Cast B was vastly improved. The majority of the kids who did not know their lines suddenly knew them. Kids who had mumbled in the morning performance were projecting more and were focused. To my surprise, there were two cast substitutions that night. Mushu was played by the girl from Cast A - apparently Noelle had another commitment and could not do the evening show. Maybe that was why she never really learned her lines. And Mulan's Dad, who at the school show looked to have just wandered in off the street - no costume, no lines known - was also replaced by the girl who played Robin's part the night before. I give her major credit - she was given the part 20 minutes before show time, and had to come in with a little notecard in her hand, and she STILL did the part better than either of the boys who did it in the preceding shows! The boy who was supposed to be Mulan's dad was there in the audience...I know Miss G would never axe a kid for a bad performance, so I am guessing that at the 11th hour he told her he simply could not do it and bowed out.
Robin did a great job. For a girl who came out crying when the cast list was posted because she had a boy part that she couldn't even identify, she grew to love play the villain, and she is a ham. Chi Fu the previous night was stern and mean, while her Chi Fu was over the top snivelly, snide, cowardly and self-important enough to be really funny. She got a lot of laughs for a medium sized role, and a ton of compliments from her cast mates and other parents. In fact, at the start of the show, the other Chi Fu's mom came up to me and said, "I have to tell you, my daughter is your Robin's biggest fan. I had been hearing that she was really funny during rehearsals, but Jennifer told me she blew everybody away this morning!" Robin, with her crazy long moustache and beard and kooky red hat, was beaming by the time the show was over. She was so proud, and I was proud of her. For her first school show, she really did a fine job. Here she is as Chi Fu -
Next up with be Dove starting Once On This Island rehearsals probably next week. Poor Ms. Gosling is 7 months pregnant, and I don't know how she manages to direct all these kids, with one show starting up right after the previous one closed. For as uneven as some of the performances are, I have to give her credit. I could never corral that many squirrelly, chatty, ants in the pants 3rd, 4th and 5th graders and get them through the rehearsal process without shooting half of them, my own included! It takes incredible patience to work with that many kids of that age. I'm told the upper school plays are much better, so we will see in March - another opening, another show still to come. :)
This is tricky business for a novice like me. Photographing stage shows is tough enough due to the constant lighting changes, dark theatre, bright stage, etc. My current camera is pretty good in low light but does not have a good action setting, so fast movement gets blurred. Therefore, I have to try to catch mostly static shots / tableaus rather than dance numbers (a new camera is on the list for Christmas!). But even the static shots are hard when dealing with elementary schoolers. I try to get one decent shot of each cast member (and I believe there were about 60 this year) on stage to use in the video credits. Not easy!
I have learned that there are some kids who simply cannot stand still, even on stage. They sway. They fidget. One girl constantly was readjusting her earrings. Or they will make inadvertent odd faces - mouths open, lips squinched up, head turned the wrong way. Then just when you have a good shot, somebody moves in front of them! Ay yi yi. But I got it mostly done. If there is time, I try to get some set shots after the school performances (before and after the evening shows there is too much chaos - parents milling about, kids rushing to get into costume, etc. But the cast availability to get these shots is very much depending on how the performance went at school.
Miss Gosling, the director, is very big on inclusivity regarding the school shows. On one hand, this is good, because every child gets to try acting and they all get a part of some kind. However this also means that she double (and sometimes triple!) casts, and that some children who really have no business being onstage are indeed onstage and mucking up the production. But hey, they are elementary schoolers - nobody is expecting Kennedy Center performances here. Each child has a chorus night and a "main part" night (even if their main part is only one line).
So Robin was in the chorus the first night as one of the multitude of Chinese daughters. It's not a bad system. Kids with tiny parts get to be in the big musical numbers that they otherwise would not have been in. Robin, who was playing a male in her main part, got to dress like a girl in a pretty kimono and sing in "Honor To Us All" and "Written In Stone" and the matchmaker number, and she enjoyed it.
When I went to see the first school performance of Cast A, I was expecting one big hot mess, because Miss Goslings shows are always one big hot mess right up until show night, when they somehow pull it together into a half mess. Opening day, I was pleasantly surprised compared to previous years. 90% of the kids knew their lines, there was little coaching needed, and only a few kids suffering from that REAL triple threat of theatre - no not "sings, acts, dances" - rather, "can't project / doesn't know lines / no expression". Those are always painful to watch, but in Cast A, those kids tended to be the ones with tiny parts like the Huns who have one liners like "We will destroy you!" or "Yes, boss!"
Overall, it was a good show. The girl playing Mulan opening night had a good strong voice and knew her part well, spoke with expression, etc. Mushu didn't have the best voice for singing but she was funny and animated and a good pick. Most of the main cast was pretty darn good. The gal playing Robin's part that night was solid, good speaker, was a stern villain. The one thing that did (and does) drive me crazy were the two kids who forgot their costumes. People, really. If you know you have a main part in the play and that your school show is Tuesday, don't show up in your gym uniform. It's just an EYESORE when Mulan's father is wearing a grey t-shirt and sweats amidst all those robes and kimonos. It's embarrassing to you. And of course that kid was the only one in the main cast who also did not know his lines and was a :( Triple Threat (a.k.a. "TT"). Otherwise, the others were fine. I thought, "Hey, this bodes well. Typically, they are still utterly terrible right up til showtime!"
Then came the next day and Cast B, Robin's cast. Oh man. It was not pretty.
Our Mulan was not bad. Okay voice, but she is IRL a very shy Asian girl. Smart, sweet and competent, but not a lot of expression. She knew her part and gave it her all, but she was a bit on the muted side for having the lead. Then there was Mushu.
The girl playing Mushu, Noelle, is in Robin's class, and I know Robin feels a certain competitiveness with her. Noelle is from a family of singers. Her older sister who is in 8th grade has undoubtedly the best voice in the school - the girl can sing like Mariah Carey, and belt out those unbelievably high notes like a champ. She has sung professionally and done professional theatre work - she's very good! Noelle's voice is not of that caliber, but she can surely sing well, and got to do a small solo at last year's Christmas concert, much to Robin's chagrin, though they are friends. Noelle is also a very outgoing, funny and confident kid, so I was sure she'd be a terrific Mushu. But at the performance, I was stunned. The child did not know her lines. This really surprised me because I know her mom is very firm about professionalism with the older sister, but Noelle was blowing one line after the other. She still sang great, but she could not stay in character and there were constant pauses as she had to have every other line whispered to her.
And this problem was endemic to the majority of the cast at the morning show. It was dreadful. All humor sucked totally out of the play as kid after kid blew their lines. Mulan, Robin, the Grandmother and the Matchmaker were the only ones really on top of their lines, and about two of the ancestors. Captain Shang had no expression at all, and the kid playing the Father did not know ONE SINGLE LINE! It was painful to watch!
Then there were the miscasts and costume goofs. Most of the kids had decent costumes pulled together from closets, thrift stores and the occasional Halloween store purchase. All the girls had silky type robes as stand-in kimonos, except for Mushu. Mushu had an amazing dragon costume, but her robe was terrycloth with big hearts on it.
Then you had the Huns. The Huns are the bad guys in the play who are invading China. Miss Gosling tries to keep the costume requests very simple so parents don't have to shell out a lot of money. For example, the Chinese soldiers were all in basic blacks with some colorful sashes. The Huns were to wear brown with fur accoutrements. Well, some of the Huns got it right and some didn't. One of the follower Huns had a great outfit, a fur cap, brown clothing and snow boots with fur lined tops. Simple yet effective. However, the lead Hun, a tall girl, had an outfit that looked like "Hun who stopped by Lord and Taylor on her way to the invasion" - skinny jeans in high heeled boots, a tight turtleneck and a glitzy brown vest that looked very Claire's / Forever 21. Not scary, not soldiery, not mannish - not good.
Another problem plaguing the Huns...they are the tiniest parts in the show, a group of fierce rabble rousers who come hulking in, shout a few threatening lines, then leave. Typically, those parts are given to the brand newby kids or the ones with very little acting experience or talent. Should be easy, right? Look tough, shout a line or two, and off you go. Nope. because of the ever present shortage of BOYS in youth theatre, all the boys get put into the main parts where you need a male - Mulan's dad, the love-interest Captain, etc. By the time you get to the Huns, all the boys are taken up. So the Hun army is comprised of mainly little girls who cannot act. The lead Hun in cast A was a boy, and he did a darn good job. The tall girl in Cast B did not know her lines and was wearing the Bloomingdale's outfit, and the female Hun followers were a motley bunch who also were primarily TTs, so that instead of storming the stage all rough and tumble, they wandered in looking like a bunch of Girl Scouts who got lost on their way to the camp-out. One of the Huns was Robin's best friend Aphrodite, who is a sweetheart. She was the only one who knew all her lines and could project, but unfortunately, Aphrodite is a sweet to the core kindly girl who cannot stop smiling. So she'd get up to the microphone and say "We will destroy your village!" in her regular high pitched adorable Aphrodite voice, all big eyed and smiling white teeth and dimples, looking and sounding like the Hun who is really a Hon that could not hurt a fly. It was so badly cute that you had to smile. :)
The morning show for Cast B took a full 20 minutes longer than Cast A's simply due to Dreadful Pauses and Dropped Lines. I had no opportunity to take cast photos afterwards like I did for Cast B, because Miss Gosling had to read them the Riot Act. You MUST know your lines. You CANNOT rely on the microphone, you must PROJECT, you have to look towards the audience, NOT turn your head to your castmate upstage because then no one can hear you. You must be READY for your entrances and exits, not stagger in late while everyone is standing around onstage waiting. People in the pit, NO talking, NO standing up while the show is going on, etc etc. It went on and on.
She did single Robin out to the rest of the cast as the one cast member who knew every line, who always projected and who stayed in character. The crew is made up of 8th graders who are all theatre kids, and they all went "Yay, Robin! Yeah!" and clapped for her, which made her feel good, I know. Miss G told the whole bunch that they needed to go home and PRACTICE and know their lines before the evening show for their parents. Good luck with that, I thought.
I called my mother in law when I got home and warned her to lower her expectations mightily, and to leave the rotten fruit at home, no matter how great the urge to throw some might be. :)
But to my surprise, the evening show for Cast B was vastly improved. The majority of the kids who did not know their lines suddenly knew them. Kids who had mumbled in the morning performance were projecting more and were focused. To my surprise, there were two cast substitutions that night. Mushu was played by the girl from Cast A - apparently Noelle had another commitment and could not do the evening show. Maybe that was why she never really learned her lines. And Mulan's Dad, who at the school show looked to have just wandered in off the street - no costume, no lines known - was also replaced by the girl who played Robin's part the night before. I give her major credit - she was given the part 20 minutes before show time, and had to come in with a little notecard in her hand, and she STILL did the part better than either of the boys who did it in the preceding shows! The boy who was supposed to be Mulan's dad was there in the audience...I know Miss G would never axe a kid for a bad performance, so I am guessing that at the 11th hour he told her he simply could not do it and bowed out.
Robin did a great job. For a girl who came out crying when the cast list was posted because she had a boy part that she couldn't even identify, she grew to love play the villain, and she is a ham. Chi Fu the previous night was stern and mean, while her Chi Fu was over the top snivelly, snide, cowardly and self-important enough to be really funny. She got a lot of laughs for a medium sized role, and a ton of compliments from her cast mates and other parents. In fact, at the start of the show, the other Chi Fu's mom came up to me and said, "I have to tell you, my daughter is your Robin's biggest fan. I had been hearing that she was really funny during rehearsals, but Jennifer told me she blew everybody away this morning!" Robin, with her crazy long moustache and beard and kooky red hat, was beaming by the time the show was over. She was so proud, and I was proud of her. For her first school show, she really did a fine job. Here she is as Chi Fu -
Next up with be Dove starting Once On This Island rehearsals probably next week. Poor Ms. Gosling is 7 months pregnant, and I don't know how she manages to direct all these kids, with one show starting up right after the previous one closed. For as uneven as some of the performances are, I have to give her credit. I could never corral that many squirrelly, chatty, ants in the pants 3rd, 4th and 5th graders and get them through the rehearsal process without shooting half of them, my own included! It takes incredible patience to work with that many kids of that age. I'm told the upper school plays are much better, so we will see in March - another opening, another show still to come. :)