“Shrek the Musical” is history.  The songs are still being sung in our house, lines from the play will forever be a part of our dialogue.  It is like that in theater.  You hear the same lines over and over and over and the funny ones or the poignant ones just become part of your lives.

This was the biggest show Keilee has been in since she was about 10.  Dreamweavers Theater Company that she did from age 6-10 decided to stop doing theater so she found another home at College Street Players and Curtain and Lights Theater.  Which we both loved but one was in another town and their shows were smaller productions, still amazing, but smaller.

This show was not small.  It was a huge cast, an amazing director, professional costumes, a makeup artist, an orchestra and mainly adults in the lead roles.  The show was amazing.  Seriously amazing.

We met wonderful people who are now friends.  We met homeschoolers we did not know.  3 families that live in our town but we had never met.  I think there were about 7 homeschool families in this play.  I talked to 2 more Moms who have since contacted me about homeschooling!!!  I love that!

Keilee had practice 3 times a week at first, then the last 3 weeks it was 4 times a week.  From Saturday to Saturday [which is “Show Week”] I counted up and we were at the theater 58 hours!!! No exaggeration!!!  But I didn’t mind any of it.  For some reason it all just flowed.

Keilee LOVED it.  LOVED IT!  She loved meeting adults who were passionate about acting.  She loved getting to know the director who is just wonderful.  She loved making new friends.  She loves the fact that this company does several things a year and a huge variety of things from musicals, to straight plays to Shakespeare.

Keilee also made a Shrek hat for Shrek, a crocheted tiara with Shrek ears for Fiona, a headband with donkey ears and a LONG braided tail for Donkey and 3 Shrek dolls!!!  A Mom asked her if she could do it and she told her she would try.  She looked online and found one and just made it!  She worked on them about 12 hours during Show Week.  Then she decided she wanted to make the director one so she worked another 6 hours on hers.  And she took care of Augustus who is one high maintenance squirrel.  All during the grueling week of tech rehearsal, sound rehearsal, dress rehearsal and more.  I am seriously so proud of her.  I wish I had her energy.

She had a smaller role than she is used to but she started out with 1 line and ended up with about 6 and 2 one line solos.  She knew going in that the director didn’t know her and she would have to prove herself.  She said she liked being a small fish in a big pond better than a big fish in a small pond because she had somewhere to go.  UP. 🙂  She said she learned so much and it was wonderful to work with such dedicated actors and director.

So here are some of the 1200 pictures I took.  With my crappy camera but some turned out good.  Its a law of averages kinda thing. 😉

Backstage Fun:  Theater kids are so dang cool.  They are always singing and performing, even when they are not on stage!!

Getting Ready:   A wonderful guy who does set design and costumes in New York is from here but lives in NYC and does Summer Stock at The Barn in Michigan.  He brought ALL the costumes from when they did “Shrek the Musical”.  He also told Keilee she could come with him and be his assistant.  Nomad can’t go but Augustus can he said.  I said, “Ha Ha, NO”.   Keilee was also asked to be in the picture for the paper which was so cool.  The really bad quality picture is from our paper. I scanned it.

 On Stage:  It was simple magic!

Here is “Let Your Freak Flag Fly”  Keilee has on the blue wig. 😉  This is crappy quality from my iPhone and I didn’t even get the entire stage.  The colors were MUCH more vivid as you can see from my pictures.

 

 On Stage Part Deux: 

After Show:  So many people came to see Keilee.  I didn’t get pictures of a lot of them.  Her first director was there.  She did plays with him from age 6-10.  It was awesome to see him.  The lady with the Shrek ears is Carol, her director for this show.  She is wonderful.

Cast Party:  Always the cast party has been between the 2 shows on Saturday.  Not this show.  They had a huge party at a little restaurant downtown after the show.  So it started around 10:00.  It was a blast.  And they were STILL singing all the songs from the play. We made ogre toes!!  Aren’t they cute?  We both had so much fun and got home around 12:00.

It is such hard work to put on a performance of this caliber.  So many hours spent at rehearsal and at the theater.  Honestly it is like a non paying job.  But watching her on stage always makes it all worth it.

To my daughter, this play has so many wonderful lessons.  “Beautiful isn’t always pretty”, “Always be who you are”and “Let your freak flag fly”.  This last one is pretty easy for us both because we’ve always marched to our own beat.

Another show under her belt but these memories will last us both a lifetime.

Homeschool Rocks!
Karen

Live theater is just an incredibly powerful medium, and I think anyone who goes, whether they know about it or not, if they see something that sort of fits with them, it’s kind of hard to deny that they had a good time.  ~Harry Connick, Jr.

There’s nothing like the buzz of live theater. You put it out there and receive an instant reaction: laughing, crying, yelling, applauding.  ~Samantha Barks

Linking with
Mary at “Collage Friday”
Sylvia at “Friendship Friday”