Things I Like (School)

• I like it when students are prepared for their classroom performances. That way I can give them more notes than, "memorize."


• I like it when students go to a theatrical production somewhere and tell other students to not climb over seats or put their feet on the chair in front of them.


• I like it when students say that they are so excited for our New York trip that if they think about it too much they can't sleep.


• I like it when one of my drama club officers who works at In-&-Out burger brings me 2 Double-Doubles before the restaurant is open to the public.


• I like it when I can send my musical theatre students into the auditorium to rehearse without me and I go in to find them actually rehearsing.


• I like that Millie can attend pre-school at my school, meet Santa Claus there and tell him that what she wants for Christmas is "a secret."


• I like it when Film Studies student turn their papers in early- and when they all write on different movies and not just Forrest Gump.


• I like it when students say on their quiz on the film Tootsie that the main social issue in the film is NOT cross dressing.


• I like watching our school Improvisation Team perform with Laughing Stock for a charity performance. Very funny to watch a student pretend he has no bones.


• I like reading students play critiques- especially when they don't like the show.


• I like it when Theatre 1 students, after the voice and diction unit, call me Mr. EaTon- with a T.


• I like it when our musical makes enough money to buy another microphone.


• I like that I only ended up with 1 negative letter about Les Miserables (the letter wanted to know why I didn't do the high school version of the show- I'll take it as a compliment that they thought I did the Broadway version).


• I like it that Millie and Ellis feel comfortable enough around the MDT students to go up to them and a: demand to be played with or b: sit on their laps without warning.


• I think I like it when 3 students and 1 alumni are with me at callbacks for Hale Center Theatre's Fiddler on the Roof.
• I like it when students get nervous about auditions (as long as I know they're prepared).
• I like it when my students work with college professors, choreographers or professionals and do not embarrass myself, themselves or the school.


• I LOVE my fellow faculty (esp. performing arts- but Brent Cox in Yearbook knows he is an honorary member of the Performing Arts Faculty- and his wife Amanda too) and staff. It's why I'm staying at Riverton instead of Herriman (that and the fact that I now have a music library worth over $4000...)

What I've Been Up To...

So though I'm very excited to see this over Christmas Break, this is what I"ve been up to:

Directed Les Miserables at the school. They (the students) did great and we sold out (1315 seats) on Monday night- which was a fun way to close. It was great that my parents and inlaws (and lots of other people) came. What makes me laugh is that I've gotten letters from offended patrons for the following shows: Ten Little Indians (brandy drinking), Anything Goes (costumes and language), My Music, Dance, Theatre revues, Once Upon a Mattress (pregnant out of wedlock), and others--but nothing on Les Miserables.

What I've been watching (TV): Amazing Race, How I Met Your Mother, Big Bang Theory, Top Chef, Modern Family, The Good Wife, Glee, The Office, 30 Rock and Parks and Recreation.

What I've been watching (movies): Dollhouse (Season 1), Food Inc. (interesting to watch after Thanksgiving dinner...), Wallace & Gromit (Loaf and Death- great), Lost in Austen (never-ending), Little Dorrit (great!), The Taking of Pellam 123 (OK...) and other sad documentaries.

In the meantime, I'm taking students to: Children of Eden (at BYU), A Christmas Story (at PTC) and I just bought tickets to the tour of Avenue Q- nothing says Merry Christmas like full frontal puppet nudity.

Plans for the Week

So...

Do you hear the people sing? Singing the song of angry men?

Do you know any lovely ladies? Master of the homes? Comforters? Philosophers? Cunning little brains? Regular Voltaires?

Have you dreamed any dreams of days gone by?

If so, come this Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Monday to Riverton High School's production of Les Miserables: School Edition (7:00pm). Fear not- school edition just means it's been trimmed from 3 hours to 2 hours and 40 minutes. All the good stuff is still there (Lovely Ladies, Master of the House, lots of tenors singing in falsetto, Fantine still croaks...). If I do say so myself, the (huge) cast does a great job, the orchestra is coming along (it's always touch and go with violins and horns) and my student technicians sat outside in a snow storm on Saturday to await an overnight delivery of a spotlight lamp that had exploded the previous day- that's dedication.

Tickets are $7 for students and seniors and $8 for adults (college age and above). That works out to about $.05-$.07 a minute! If you don't like musicals, come for the REALLY good cookies we're selling at intermission. We do use haze, fog and gunshots- so bring the babies and infirm. It'll be a fun night!

You Know the Musical You're Directing is About to Open When...

• You wake up at 5:00am not being able to get Master of the House off of rotation in your head. The only song that will bump it is Don't Be Tardy for the Party from The Real Housewives Atlanta.


• Your 2 and 4 year old dance around the house (and probably Primary) also singing Master of the House. I think they only know that phrase... so far...


• You spend 2 hours trying to find a short and long haired wig that's the EXACT SAME COLOR- you order it and spend a lot of money having it overnighted- then you find out it's on back order. You then spend another 2 hours trying to find 2 other wigs- get them ordered- only to find out they won't arrive until after opening night. You decide to weave 2 wigs by hand from the hair you have pulled out of your own head.


• You get an anonymous letter from a parent (forwarded to you from the principal) that is furious because you made a sick student come to rehearsal (a lead that had to sing/mouth her words for the first time with the orchestra pit) for 30 minutes (and you made sure she touched and spoke to no-one)- and it turns out she's sick from being lactose intolerant. The letter states that the principal should "deal with me".


• You have to speak to 3 different boys about the importance of wearing deodorant (their poor dance partners came up and begged me to do it. I have no qualms about it. I love giving the deodorant/antiperspirant talk).


• You realize you just spent 10 minutes talking about microphone packs with the girls in the cast and you've said the words "bra straps" about 15 times.


• You have to remind everyone that wearing underwear is not "optional" for this production (or any other at Riverton High School).


• You spend 30 minutes adjusting corpses on the barricade for optimal effect. You also have to make 2 boys hold their breath for 8 seconds when their faces pass in front of the fog machine.


• You have to explain to administration that if the fire alarm goes off, it's probably because of the aforementioned fog machine.


• That if the halls around the auditorium spell funny, it's because the haze machine you rented had fluid in it from a Halloween party at the E Center that wasn't flushed out yet. Or it's the boys not wearing deodorant.

The Lion King

So this past week, everything was about The Lion King.

Millie discovered that she could sit throughout the entire movie without getting scared- and then she discovered the Broadway musical soundtrack. She learned that she could make herself weep during "quiet time" by listening to the song Shadowlands 100 times in a row and that she and Ellis could perform a beautiful pas de duex to Can You Feel the Love Tonight.

Since the Broadway tour of The Lion King is coming to Salt Lake City in August, I ordered a bunch of tickets last July for my school (faculty and students). Since I ordered so many tickets, I was invited to The Lion King Musical Cocktail Party last Monday. Since I got to bring guests, I brought Jackie and Brent and Amanda Cox from the high school. None of us had ever been to a cocktail party before so here's my thoughts (I hope Jackie, Brent and Amanda will leave comments if I left anything out):

• We arrived to the Rose Wagner Theatre and they had it decked out with food on three levels, an open bar and servers circulating the area. I think they were hoping people would get pretty loose so they could open their wallets and order tons of Lion King tickets for next summer. I already purchased my tickets so I wasn't falling for their ruse. But in using the facilities, Amanda discovered a lonely bartender stuck by the bathrooms that became our go-to guy for getting multiple Cokes and Diet Cokes without standing in a line.


• They flew in 3 leads (Rafeeki, Simba and Nala) from the Las Vegas production to perform 4 numbers for us. They also brought in members of a local Baptist church choir to sing and sway- with the minus track.


• One of Disney's head honchos in the theatre department talked about Disney on Broadway- and made a man shriek with excitement behind me when he lead us to believe that Julie Taymore (the director of The Lion King who is way too busy trying to save the new Spiderman musical to fly out to Utah to pimp her show) was backstage ready to answer questions. She spoke to us from a video filmed over 10 years ago.

• The poor Broadway Across America Salt Lake spokesperson was REALLY NERVOUS. I thought he was going to pass out and forget his own name as he welcomed us. I felt bad for him.


• They were serving 3 kinds of shrimp: cocktail, tomatillo and "gin". I was tempted to get the gin kind (it was offered) but I refrained. They also served really good potato balls. And curry things.


• Tiramisu tastes good with The Lion King trademark dusted in gold on top.


• The goodie bags were great. They included: A plush doll (retail $16-20) of either Simba (mine), Scar (Jackie and Amanda), Puumba (Brent), the Broadway soundtrack, the Broadway souvenir program ($20), a DVD featuring Rosie O'Donnel screaming and weeping about how much she loves the show (Ellis and Millie watch it every moment they get).


• Somewhat unrelated, today during the sacrament portion of our meeting, Ellis climbed into Jackie's lap and began singing "Can You Feel the Love Tonight" at the top of her lungs. If she had waited just 10 minutes, it would have been a beautiful testimony to share with the congregation.

Overall, it was fun to go to- but it seemed odd to ask us to buy tickets when most of us got invited because we had already purchased A LOT of tickets to begin with. It was good to learn that if you happen to drop a bunch of shrimp into a puddle of gin, you can still eat them- they'll be alright.

What I'm Excited to Read

Elna Baker is a FUNNY girl.

This story becomes WET YOUR PANTS FUNNY at 8 minutes. It's worth it.

Fall Theatre

Being a high school drama teacher, I get to see a lot of shows. Here are some memorable ones from the past 4 weeks:
Charlotte's Web- I took Millie down to Utah Valley University to see their inaugural show in there brand new children's theatre. I also wanted to go see former Riverton students playing Fern and Fern's mom. The show (directed by the great Christopher Clark), was fantastic with the 2 actors manipulating and voicing puppets for all of the animals. It was great- and Millie loved it. They had a great educational outreach program for the all the kids to do activities based on the show. Millie's favorite part was petting the Charlotte puppet on our way out.
A Chorus Line- we took 40 students up to see the educational matinee of A Chorus Line at Pioneer Theatre Company. I was excited because I had never seen it on stage (and the movie is horrible). We were in the first 4 rows and it was a fantastic show. The dancing was great and it was fun reading student play critiques about how there wasn't a set- but there didn't need to be. It'll be fun referencing the show in Musical Theatre class and why the show was so revolutionary in the 70's when it first was on Broadway.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare Abridged- This show is always a favorite- I show the film version in Theatre 3- and the production at the Utah Shakespearean Festival did not disappoint. Even Jackie chuckled a little- which is usually pants-wettingly funny for me. I felt a little exposed in my seat because it was sticking out from everyone else- so needless to say, I got pulled up on stage and was made to run all around during the show. Jackie was greatly concerned for the state of my britches- she says it was her prayers alone that made them stay up as I ran around, but I would have been aware of any potential "wardrobe malfunction" and was completely in control of the whole situation. The 3 actors had great timing and it was a fantastic show.


Tuesday's With Morrie- All I knew about this show was that Jackie had to read the book for a class at the U and she hated Mitch- she thought he made all his money off of Morrie. I have to say the play production at The Utah Shakespeare Festival was pretty powerful and everyone from our school was weeping (sometimes hilariously so). Jackie immediately lined everyone up for pictures after that show to forever capture their tear stained faces.
Curtains- This was a show that a lot of people went to in New York of 2008- but Jackie and I didn't so we used my two free comps (from doing Cash on Delivery in Jan.) and went. It was really fun- and a lot of friends were in the cast and they were great. It was a fun production- but I wish that Jackie was cast as Carmen- she could play that part really well (although Camille was fantastic).