Aladdin

A couple weeks ago Lizzie performed in her school musical, Aladin.  She was one of the "itty bitties," meaning third graders and under all of whom have non-speaking parts.  It was her first year in and she had a fabulous time.  Of course it was a lot of work with a couple months of bi-weekly practices, culminating in a week of long rehersals on the actual stage.  For my part I worked on the sets (just a little bit), chaperoned at practice, and sold tickets and concessions at all three shows.

Lainey was well behaved during the dress rehersals.  She spent a lot of the time just watching the practices.  Ellie, on the other had,was a handful.  I let her get away with a lot just to keep her quiet and stationary (I let her do the same thing with markers on our spring break flight).

Liz loved her costume and was delighted when she was allowed to keep it after the final show.  I'm guessing she'll wear it for Halloween this year.

Because Alaina was so much better behaved during the rehersal than her little sister, we got a sitter for Ellie and took Laines to opening night.  She enjoyed it, but got a little restless and would sometimes loudly respond to the actors on stage. At one point I coughed into my elbow and she held up hers and said, "now do mine."

 

Lizzie was in the full-cast opening and closing song and dance numbers and then one scene during the show (during which she and cohorts dances around the "bad guys" during a musical number).  She, and the other "evil spirits," had a lot of down time backstage so I sent games.  It was kind of funny to see them playing cards (Uno).  People joked that they looked like they were gambling for souls.

Lizzie was excited to have family, friends, classmates, and teachers attend her shows.  Below she pictured with her buddy, Taryn.

Lizzie was happy to be in the play with her friends, Jordan and Isabelle, though the following picture doesn't adequately show it (she was focusing on making an "evil looking" face).

The official cast party was on Sunday, but the cast also had a tradition of going to Pizzeria Uno after the Saturday night show.  Since Lizzie would not be attending the Sunday party I took her to the restuarant.  Initially she was upset, because she had assumed that even though it was 10 p.m. when we left the show we would go straight home and have our usual family movie night (the shot below was taken right after I told her that as soon as we got home she would have to go straight to bed).  In the end, wee went Uno's, Liz had fun, and didn't have another breakdown until the drive home.  We arrived at 12:30 a.m. Sunday morning which Andrew deemed highly inappropriate.