Friday, March 26, 2010

Back on Stage

The fun news: George has been cast in another university stage production (he was in one last year as well). The less fun news: as was the case last year, the theme is too mature for any of his friends to come see it!

Last year George was cast in Harold Pinter's One for the Road. It was an awful play, really! I mean, a great production, but a really grim play. George was not allowed to watch any scenes other than the ones he was in (much to his chagrin. Though I did capture it on video and promised to let him see it when he's like 30). The scenes he was in were fine, though with quite creepy undertones, because he was being sort of interviewed by a monstrous torturer who had kidnapped him and his family, but was being all pal-sy with him. Anyway, despite all that, it was a fabulous experience for him--we have a pretty good theater department here, and with a relatively small cast, he got plenty of personal attention and instruction/direction. It was starting up right when we pulled him from school and began homeschooling full-time, so it worked out well that he really had the time and energy to devote to it. I was so proud of him, as I'm sure you can imagine! He was a real pro up there, completely holding his own with the college kids. I was disappointed only that his friends couldn't come see him.

Fortunately, another opportunity came up right after that--homeschool friends of ours started a Shakespeare group/class and George was cast as Lysander in A Midsummer Night's Dream. They worked on the show all during the spring and put it on in June in the same theater on campus where the Harold Pinter play took place, and then again outdoors at a local Fairie Festival. Lysander is a great part, and George played it very well, if quite reluctantly--he was highly embarrassed to be playing a "lover"! He has plenty of friends that are girls, but did not like having to be lovey-dovey with a girl on stage (no matter that the girl in question was/is *totally* adorable and sweet, IMO)....

I'm really happy that the Shakespeare class is happening again this year; the play will be Twelfth Night. We're still waiting for casting. George was so eager *not* to play a lover that he actually asked if he could have the lead, who happens to be a girl. A girl who is pretending to be a boy for almost the entire play, and who does end up in love at the end but it's with a boy, so he wouldn't have had to walk off the stage arm-in-arm or holding hands with a girl. I find it pretty amusing that he'd rather play a girl than pretend to be in love with one, but ok! In any case, alas, it was not to be; there are more girls than boys in the group this year, so they really can't spare a girl's part for a boy. Anyway, we should find out Monday what part he ends up with.

In the meantime, as I mentioned, he's been cast in another play on campus--Arthur Miller's All My Sons. Not to be at all confused with the sit-com My Three Sons, which I watched a lot as a kid. No. Not at all. Once again, George's scenes are harmless, but the overall theme is definitely not too kid-friendly, ending as it does with the suicide of the oldest son and the father.

Why can't he be cast in The Sound of Music, or Mary Poppins, or something?!

Still, I'm not complaining! He's thrilled to be in the show, and I'm pretty thrilled myself that he's getting another opportunity like this. His first rehearsal was last night and he did *great*. I was so proud of him up there. And today we went to the costume shop to get him fitted, which turned out to be lots of fun because in one of his scenes he gets to wear a cowboy get-up which includes a holster and gun:




I had to practically drag him out of there; he was having such a blast (as you can probably tell from the pictures).

I think I forgot to mention that opening night of this play is on the earliest of my possible/shifting due dates, by the way, so I might not even get to see him in it. (Though of course I'll be at many of the rehearsals.) And as I said, none of his friends can come...

But at least there's no love-interest for his character!

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