The Theater

This morning, I feel slightly drugged from an overload of overscheduling and overemotion as I watched the end of my children's high school theater career.
I shouldn't be sad about the end. I should be thrilled that we got more high school theater time after Grace left. I never pictured Tucker throwing himself into theater productions.
He started off his sophomore year in the chorus of Oklahoma!
Combining theater with swim season is difficult.They practice three hours after school in the theater, then get to come home for about an hour before heading off to swim until 9.
But, Tucker's junior year, he accepted a role as the UPS guy in Legally Blonde. I thought that might give him the theater bug because he got so many accolades. He brought down the house every time he walked out in those UPS shorts and nodded toward the audience in his cool, nonchalant way.  Of course, he also had to wear a blonde wig in that production since he was bald from swim season. They usually shave their heads at the end of the season.
They announced the musical this year as Kiss Me Kate. Tucker didn't really have much interest in that. He'd never heard of it. He had to drop his vocal group class because it conflicted with his AP Stats class, so he wasn't singing regularly.
When auditions came around, he didn't go.
That's when the choir director started to pester him about trying out.
Tucker has never sung solo songs. Too self conscious? Too unsure of his voice?
He didn't think he wanted a big acting or singing part.
On the day of callbacks, that's when they bring in the students for specific parts, Tucker agreed to audition.
He sang "Hallelujah" and I like to think of him sitting on a stool with his hands strumming the chords of his guitar as his soft baritone voice sang the words.
Two days later, he told me he had the male lead -- Fred Graham.
The story of Kiss Me Kate is set in the late 1940s. Fred and Lily, an actress, are divorced and acting in the Shakespeare play The Taming of the Shrew. So it's a play within a play.
Tucker made it to States in swimming this year so his rehearsal time became sporadic. He caught the flu and missed a week of rehearsals.
He claimed he'd never be able to memorize all the lines, especially the Shakespeare lines.

And then the show opened and he amazed us. 

By last night, his voice cracked a couple of times, worn out by the fourth show, but he pulled off his role with aplomb.

At one point, one of the boys in the show told the woman in charge of wardrobe. "Tucker was really mad at me." She explained to him that Tucker was only acting because he was supposed to be mad in the scene.
Maybe he could pull it off.
Tucker wouldn't stand still for pictures, except this one of him and his swim friends.

I'm back at the high school today to strike the set and put away costumes. My last hurrah with the high school theater. 

Fun With Hats

Why didn't I take pictures today?
I went to work on costumes for the high school musical. The kids are doing Kiss Me Kate. Tucker is Fred, although I haven't seen the movie or play, so really don't know what that means.
Today, Jenny, the woman in charge of costumes, told me to find hats. They need 1940s hats and Shakespearean hats. Apparently the actors in Kiss Me Kate are performing The Taming of the Shrew, a play within a play.
Jenny searched for images of Shakespearean hats to show me. Mostly, I thought they looked like throw pillows on people's heads. Here's an example.
Then I had to decide whether to search through the throw pillow box or the hat box. I could take throw pillows, add feathers and cut holes in the bottom of pillows so they fit on the kids' heads.
Truthfully, a beret with some tissue paper pushed into the corners and some gold braid along the edge would work too and might be a little easier.
Letting me loose in a room with bins full of hats might have been her first mistake.
Within minutes I was back out in the hallway modeling hats.
Sometimes, when you see a hat, you just have to put it on.

This bamboo hat was awesome, but I couldn't convince Jenny that it would work. Although she later found a woman's hat from the 1940s with the same shape and covered with fabric. So we might make it work yet.
Jenny threatened to take the job away from me if I didn't get serious. So I went back and started sorting through hats.
I found a lovely olive green beret. I put it on and began to sing "La Vie en Rose."
I continued to paw through fedoras and driving caps when I heard Jenny call me from out in the hallway.
I hurried out there again, forgetting about the beret. Jenny and her son, Eli, started to laugh.
"Every time you come out you have a different hat on," Eli said.
Isn't that the point of finding hats?
A hat can definitely transform you.
We also pulled some fancy women's hats for the 1940s. Hats similar to this.
I also found a hat that had a scarf attached that ties under the woman's chin. Jenny threatened to remove the scarf part but I protested.
Someone else in the group reminded us that the Baroness from The Sound of Music had worn a hat like that.

I carried the pile of hats into the hallway for Jenny to approve or discard. Then she called a meeting of the wardrobe crew and everyone put on a hat as we discussed what needed to be accomplished to complete the costumes in three weeks.
At one point the music director walked into the hallway and started laughing. We all looked at him puzzled then he pointed out the hats.
We'd forgotten.