Beauty and the Beast

Fairbanks High School's production of Beauty and the Beast was this past weekend. It was a family affair for us, as Ben was the pit orchestra director and Maria won the part of Chip the teacup's son when she auditioned back in January. It was a big production to undertake, and losing two weeks of rehearsal time in February certainly did not help. But it ended up to be very good, with only a few weak areas. As expected, Maria did an awesome job, won the hearts of the audience as the cute little teacup, much as she did when she played Cindy Lou Who in Seussical four years ago. This is her third major show, and she continues to show that she has a very real natural ability in the singing/acting/dancing realm. We are going to need to look for other acting opportunities for her outside of our school productions, I think.

Anyway, the rehearsals (which were four days a week after school since February) have been very time consuming and for that we are all glad that the show is finally over. But as with any production of this size, the participants become a little family, and so there is a sadness involved with the end as well, especially for Maria and a little bit for Ben too, I think. Although both will enjoy having more time to themselves. And an unforeseen benefit to all of this practice time is the amount of one-on-one time Sam and I spent together, especially this week when the rehearsals were 3-4 hours long each evening. Sam is very different when he's the only kid around, and I love to have conversations with him alone because he's not afraid to voice his opinion about anything when there's no other kids around to disagree with him. And he's cute when he tries to help me as well - offering me his hat at a cold soccer practice because I didn't have one, and showing me where to find things in the grocery store since that is mainly Ben's job and I have little idea where anything is.

All in all, a wonderful experience for all involved. But I am glad that life will be getting back to normal around here.