We're Off to See the Wizard...

Awkward angle + red lips + dark eyebrows + hot-pink-hairdye scalp

I ended up painting my nails bright pink to avoid looking like I had some sort of fingernail disease from helping the Wicked Witch of the West. 

I have a talent for sitting in during rehearsals of shows that I'm not actually a part of. 

This show was absolutely insane. Literal flying monkeys (and a flying Dorothy, witch, Glinda, Oz, and best of all, bike), a dog, a pit, fire, smoke, melting. Everything that *could* be done, was done. 

And it turned out amazing. 

Theatre is an incredible thing. There's no way of counting up the hours that go into making something like it possible. All that time goes into making sure nothing goes wrong, and when it inevitably does, the only way to fix it is by joining forces in the split second before the audience knows what went wrong. 

Over the past few months I've gotten to observe community theatre in action and high school theatre in action. While theatre is theatre and everyone is working for a common goal, there are quite a few differences. Like, for instance, in high school there's the obvious working around school schedules that needs to be done. I don't know how the actors managed to do school for three days while doing shows in the evenings (homeschooler perk, I guess). 

There's also a definite maturity level difference. At least in some cases. Some of the high school actors showed much more diligence and maturity than some of the community theatre actors I've met, but the overall difference was noticeable. 

That being said, high schoolers listened to directions from authority figures better. I think in a local theater setting, when you're working with adults, there's a sense of 'you can't tell me what to do, I'm grown up', where with kids and teenagers, they know they ultimately have to listen to what they're being told. 

And then there's homeschool theatre, where everything runs perfectly. (Kidding, ;) there's NO such thing as perfect theatre, especially with 74 kids)

 After going to nearly every practice and interacting with the high schoolers for several weeks, it wasn't until the day of the second performance that I got a 

'Wait, do you go to our school?'

I took this comment to mean that my awkwardly wandering around the halls and lack of knowledge of which things went where had gone at least somewhat unnoticed. 

This was also the night that I was told that I seemed normal for a homeschooler. 

I wonder what the reaction would've been if I told them that they seemed normal for a public schooler. ;)

But really, theatre is for the weird kids. The kids who aren't 'normal'. Personally, those kids are my favorite.