Perfect Weather for Theatre Under the Stars

July 13, 2012 by Leave a Comment

No rain ponchos or rain insurance were needed for the opening night of The Music Man at  the 2012 TUTS season at the Malkin Bowl this Wednesday night.  The weather was perfect and the bugs behaved themselves allowing us to enjoy a great night of stellar singing and dancing with The Music Man.

Daren Herbert was perfect as the slick salesman with a heart of gold, Professor Harold Hill.  I much preferred him to Robert Preston.  I found him much more likeable and his talent handled all the fast and complicated songs that the Music Man is famous for including ‘Ya Got Trouble’, ‘Marian the Librarian’ and ‘Gary, Indiana.’    The rest of the cast managed the crazy songs too, including ‘Pick a Little, Talk a Little.  Samantha Currie as Marian has a gorgeous voice that fits the character perfectly. This is a great show for young and old, since the cast includes both young and old talent.  It is such fun to see the kids singing and dancing with so much enthusiasm.  Caitlyn was most impressed with the Barbershop Quartet.

The tickets range from $29 to $44, but really all the seats are good.  It is a great set up and all you need is a cover up and perhaps a blanket if the night begins to chill.  Grab a drink or a cup of coffee and enjoy theatre as it should be.

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Letting Everyone Shine

May 29, 2012 by 1 Comment

A couple of weeks ago Caity announced that she had ‘auditioned’ for the school talent show. “Oh, I said. “What did you do?” Apparently she danced. Apparently she did the coffee grind dance move for about 30 seconds and that was it.

A worried teacher caught up to me the other day and in a panicked voice told me she wasn’t ‘er um, ready.’ The teacher said that she could have another chance if she wanted too, to prepare something more….structured. EEEEEH.

I give points to my daughter for having the guts to just charge up there and do ‘something’ THAT is awesome. However, my daughter has a tendency to not want to remotely understand that any ‘talent’ takes practice. I earnestly explained all this and that she and I would have to work on a routine, a whole dance that she could do. She steadfastly refused.

Later on a bit more came out. She had HEARD a teacher say she was terrible. Probably not quite in the context SHE assumed, but it broke her little heart. She refused to do anything to the point that she was going to skip school the day of the talent show because she feared being forced to get up and perform.

Oh dear.

We were watching the new season of You Think You Can Dance, a show we have all enjoyed as a family. Caity suddenly burst out with a wail of “I CAN’T DO ANYTHING.’ The realization was devastating to her. I hurredly placated her with the idea that perhaps she just hadn’t found HER talent yet or perhaps her talent just wasn’t the type you could put in a show. Awkward I know. The truth is, as much as I love my daughter to pieces – the things she likes to do most – singing and dancing – are two things she just does not have a talent for. Her brave Hip Hop solo a while ago at school – in front of the ENTIRE school – was alarming to say the least. God bless her.

Throughout her short life, I have gamely let her try anything she wanted to, she is a pretty good artist, but only when she truly focuses on her work. She is so like me. When I was a kid, I expected to just ‘do’ things. I didn’t want to learn musical theory, I just wanted to play the violin. I didn’t want to make pigs out of clay, I attempted porcelain figurines like I had seen on the Antiques Road Show. I couldn’t understand why mine weren’t the same. I quit everything I tried.

Caity is a magical being. She shines with energy and enthusiasm. She is loud and creative and it shows. She stands out from the crowd. But standing out is a hard path and I sure hope she has the strength to handle it. I hope she can find her own true talent and I will do my best to make sure her enthusiasm never wains……balanced with a teeny tiny bit of ‘perhaps you could try something else’ for good measure.

Thanks to the kind people at the Vancouver International Children’s Festival, we are spending Saturday down at Granville Island to take in couple of the featured shows. We are going to check out ‘Journey Through Sound,‘ being that the kids love street dance and hip hop. We are also going to see ‘Pete the Cat.’ Pete the Cat never stops moving and grooving and singing his song and hopefully that will reinspire my daughter into remembering that she can try and do everything she wants to do and nothing can slow her down.

Filed Under: Crunchy Children, Crunchy Life, My Blog Tagged With: , , , , ,

Pure Imagination

April 25, 2012 by 4 Comments

After a mistimed nap, Tara was wide awake and asking – nay – demanding to go out to play. This was exacerbated by the fact that the two older siblings were out taking full advantage of the longer daylight. This led me to be following in her pursuit of the kids to join in their games.

I gotta admit, we seem to have a ‘different’ crop of kids around here for this generation. I remember when I was a teen, the kids seemed to only play street hockey and catch and nothing else. Not this lot.

They were playing a game based on a video game. It involved lots of drama, action, and most importantly, unfettered imagination. They were PLAYING.

Playing is an art I fear is dying due to the often over scheduled or isolated lives of kids these days. I am much relieved to see my kids have found neighbours who are just as much into imaginary play as they are. Let us not forget that they are school age. The age range there with Tara included, ran from 2.5 to 12. They were completely unselfconscious even when I arrived on the scene shadowing Tara. This made me smile.

Apparently this is the norm at school too. The kids have a long list of play based games that get rotated and pushed aside as they create new one’s. There seems to be little mockery from the more ‘grown up’ of the kids. The school seems to have done well cultivating a culture of fun and expression among their diverse students.

This joy of play is one of the reasons festivals like the Vancouver International Children’s Festival needs continuous support, as does the few child focused theatres like Carousel and Arts Umbrella. Children need the opportunities to see what play can be transformed into and what an active imagination can create.

We can’t let the art of play die. We need to create a space that doesn’t involve US. We need to be able to back away and let children be children. They need to create fun for themselves out of nothing. They need to be able to create something out of nothing. You can’t teach fun….you can only allow fun to be there for the kids and nurture it from a safe distance.

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