Behind the Scenes

Being in a play is a hoot. There are so many funny things that happen and time spent with the cast. You become one big family. It helped that I actually had four kids in the play, but as one of the only adults, I felt like they were all my kids.

Rehearsals were long and often boring. We all came to everything but we didn't always get to our parts. Sometimes we would come for a few hours and then go home without having spoken a line. I got a lot of reading done and watched a lot of laughter and clowning around along with a lot of hard work. People worked hard to learn their parts. The hardest part was probably that we almost never had the entire cast there. People were gone for different reasons, but I was incredulous to believe that after a month of NEVER having the entire cast there, we were going to go 11 straight days with everyone being there?? It would take a miracle.

I mentioned that many of us were gone at Girls camp. We came back on a Friday and opened the following Wednesday. Saturday we spent most of the day out at the storage unit. Pam has a large storage unit packed to the gills with theater stuff. It is crazy. You have to pull out half the stuff to get to what you need. And some of the larger set pieces were way in the back. I was good for about half an hour and then my allergies would go crazy.

On Monday, we were able to finally take the set out to our location at the Castle Amphitheater. The Castle has been out there for a long time. When I was in college, I remember people talking about it and saying that it cost money to take pictures out there because it had become so popular. Now, I have no idea what the rules are. When you arrive, there is a one lane road that goes up to the castle and there are a dozen signs that basically say, STAY OUT. I thought I was in the wrong place, but I guess it is okay to go up. And from the amount of traffic around there, apparently it is open to the public. Although there is security that constantly patrols.

There is some fun wildlife up there. We saw a couple snakes. One was slithering against a wall.

And the other I ran over. Literally. I saw something in the road so I centered my car over it so my wheels wouldn't hit it. Then I stopped the car to go back and see what it was. It was a fairly large. It's tail was strange. I'm pretty sure it wasn't a rattler. But I did prod it a bit until it left the road. I didn't want someone else running over it.

One evening I swear I saw an owl, but I couldn't get a picture of it. It was cool to watch the set go up. We had practiced in a church gym for months, so it was good to see where we would be going on and off set. During the day it was very hot, but in the evenings, the sun slowly left the stage and seating area. However, in the back, it was usually hot and sunny for a good half hour of the show.

The set originally had this screen in the middle. This was for the dragon. It was supposed to be put up on the screen. However, it just wasn't dark enough. Even though the dragon was towards the end of the play, it didn't work. So the screen came down, and they filled it in with more tree painted sets.

All this was happening Wednesday. We finally got costumes on Wednesday. We hadn't done a dress rehearsal and we still hadn't practiced the entire play with the set. And we were supposed to open that night. And there was no dragon. Yikes. So Pam canceled the show for that evening. The next day, they made that weird dragon we had. It was workable. We still had never had a dress rehearsal. We all got our costumes on, held hands, said a prayer and went for it. It was remarkably good for an opening night, considering it was our first run through in costume. Pearl and Tyler came to watch the first night.

Backstage was fun. We played around and laughed a lot. We helped each other change costumes and remember cues. I think we only forgot a few entrances the entire time. There were also some lost props and forgotten lines, but nothing too bad. Here we are hanging out.

The girl in pink is Torrey. She played Angel the first week. However she was gone after that, so Hannah took over and played both Angel and the evil fairy, Wednesday. She had some crazy quick changes. I think it might have been a little confusing for the audience, but they probably figured it out.

The second week June was in Driver's Ed. School ended around 4, so were weren't worried about it, but then we found out that she had to do range driving from 5-7 each evening. The play started at 7:30, so she would go to range in stage makeup and leotard and Tyler would drive her over quickly after and she would arrive right before it started. She did a great job and always came with a great attitude. In fact, remember that she hated rehearsals? Well, she loved performances. She wished the play could keep going.

Back stage we only have a skinny space to move around. There was a wall with a steep drop behind it. Everyone sat on the wall and plenty of people climbed over which drove this mom crazy. But everyone was careful and the only casualty was Cedros' awesome waterbottle/mister. (That was a sad moment.)

You can see here the drop down. There was a secret path from down below to the dressing rooms. We used it to run back and grab things, and also people would exit this way if they had to enter from higher in the amphitheater during the play.

I had some funny moments during the play. My skirt was VERY long. I had already pinned it up so it would fit my height, but it was still rather flowing. On top of that, it was a little small in the waste. I could get the velcro to fasten, but if I breathed at all, it would come undone. So I pinned it leaving myself a little breathing room. Well, one evening during the football scene, Mathew and I ran into each other. He always moved the footstool out of the way, and I caught the shoe too quickly and ran right into him. He proceeded to step on my skirt and all the pins popped and my skirt instantly fell off. Luckily, I caught it, but I had to hold it with one hand for the rest of the scene. I felt ridiculous, but I figured that was better than letting my skirt drop. The evening right after that, Becca stepped on my skirt as they were pulling me off the stage during the faint scene. The pins popped again and this time I lost the skirt down to my knees before I caught it. It wasn't so bad since I was wearing black tights, but some girls in my neighborhood saw and laughed a lot. It was very funny. I brought some bigger pins from home and didn't have any problems after that.

Here are a couple backstage selfies. Stage makeup is fun but gets a little old after a week. We would all stand in front of the mirrors and put makeup on for twenty minutes. Oh, here is a funny story. With my hair up, you can really see the white on the sides. Robyn was always trying to pull out my white hairs. One day, I was talking to Alice and she didn't realize all the white hair was real. She thought I put makeup in my hair every night. She said, "Well, in the last play, Amy put gray in her hair to make herself look older." I said, "Yeah, Amy is 14, I am 40. I don't need any makeup to make my hair look older."

People were often very bored backstage. There were a lot of devices. Sometimes everyone was staring down at a phone. I was always finding Daisy watching Miraculous on someone's phone, often during the performance. This picture was taken during intermission though.

We played a lot of 'What are the odds' It is a dare game. We ended up doing lots of stupid things, like pouring water down Kaleb's back, and I had to eat an apple off a tree out there. It was tart, but not as bad as I thought it was going to be.

The kids also played this stupid game called Scorpion where you dig your nails into someone's hand until they give in. Ember and Mathew played this in the car and although I was driving that night and only heard the results, I saw the battle scars the next day. I guess they are both pretty stubborn. Even after they both drew blood, they didn't let go.

Here is Missy in her white wig. We spent a lot of time pinning it on her head. She didn't wear it for the ball, but after we would start sticking dozens of pins in. She needed it nice and attached because in the second act, she was tackled and didn't want it falling off while she hit the ground. I'm happy to say that it never came off. But she often had more than 20 bobby pins in her wig.

The second act was pretty chill for me. I had nothing to do until the very end when I came out and bowed. Thus, I became in charge of the dragon, by my own volunteering. Most people were on the stage, so I took over. The dragon was super temperamental. Pam had a fog machine, which I would hook up during intermission. Then I had to wheel the dragon onstage and then hold the machine up behind his head. His wings were too wide to fit around the edge of the stage, so it was tricky to get him out there. Then, the fog machine didn't always work. I turned it on right away as he came out and then I would smoke him again when he helped defeat Donovand. But there were times when I would push the switch and nothing would happen. It was very anticlimactic. Mathew taught me that the red light needed to be on for the smoke to work. That made sense. But after using it, it would take a minute to warm up again. I was often sitting praying that the red light would come back on and it would, seconds before I had to flip the switch again. I must say that the dragon kept it interesting. Without him, I might have gotten some reading done during that second act.

Tyler took some awesome panoramas.

Our audiences weren't too large. Our best night was closing night. We had quite a few people come then. My mother also came from WA which was very cool. Here is Pearl hanging out before the show.

Closing night is also Strike Night. It is a beast because after the show everyone has to clean up everything and take down the entire set. Here we are finished with the last show, but there is still so much to do. Oh, and amazingly, everyone was there...every night. We did lose Torrey, but no one got sick and we ran the show for ten days straight (not counting Sunday). It was outdoor and there was no bad weather. It was a miracle after all.

We were up very late. Here you can see a lot of the set has been taken down. We loaded up a large U-haul and a trailer and truck.

Some of the kids were very helpful and others sat around waiting for other people to finish. It is kind of that way in life as well. In fact, the next day was even worse. Most of the people left for trek or scout camp or vacation. That left Ember, June, Mathew, and Kaleb to put everything back in the storage unit. And they did it. I'm so impressed with them. Then, as if that wasn't enough, they went back to the castle to repaint the stage black. Hannah and Jonathan finished that job. It looks pretty good I think. Like we were never there. But what you can't see on that stage is a whole lot of memories. I think this was an amazing experience for our family. It isn't one we are likely to do again soon, but it was worth it.