Saturday Snapshot -- Les Misérables

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My daughter Grace has the acting bug. And I believe most musical actors are enthralled with Les Misérables. She tried out this spring, and although she didn't get a big role, she decided to continue with it, just thrilled to be part of the production. Her main role is as one of the barricade students whose boyfriend goes to fight, but she also gets to be a whore in the scene with Fantine and Woman #6 in a solo singing role.
At the end of the show, she was in tears from the sheer joy and emotion of the show. Here she is right afterwards, still wiping away tears.

The show went off with only a small hitch. In the whore scene, a banging off stage ended up with the women kind of standing around for a few minutes, still in character, but unsure what to do. 

It turns out the conductor fainted. He had been going through cancer treatment and a stand-in conductor continued the show.

It could have been a little uncomfortable for us, Grace's parents, to watch her portraying a whore, but Earl jumped right into the stream of things and leaned over to me to whisper, "Hey! Grace got a client!" as she walked off stage with one man only to return a few minutes later and be taken off stage by another. 

Grace was enchanted by the 10-year-old playing Gavrotte. He's a heckuva singer and actor and has quite the good cockney accent for an American. 

And here are Grace and her friend Carmen dressed as whores. No wonder they were getting all the business on stage.

I'm also joining in with Paris in July this month cohosted by  Thyme for Tea and Bookbath.

Tomorrow is the last day to sign up for the $10 Amazon giveaway here. Just leave a comment to be entered and follow my blog or like me on Facebook for extra chances to win. 

The Three Musketeers -- The Musical

Somehow, Grace manages to find theater wherever she goes.

From last year's production
 of Pride and Prejudice

Last summer she was in a community production of Pride and Prejudice, the musical. Those same people who adapted Pride and Prejudice wrote music and adapted The Three Musketeers this year, and they told Grace they'd written a part specifically for her. She felt flattered, but worried that she might be reaching above her abilities.
"I've never been the leading love interest," she wailed one night after a frustrating rehearsal.
She plays Constance, who in this version, is the love of D'Artagnan and who is unfortunately married to D'Artagnan's landlord. The D'Artagnan actor is a dashing blond who just graduated from high school and strides across the stage singing his love for Constance.
The landlord, Constance's husband, luckily is supposed to be a "silly man" because Grace's friend Leron plays him. He's a 6-foot, 4-inch, gay, African American man and he camps it up. He might just steal the show.
Grace is lovely and sincere in the part, trying to stay true to her husband, to withstand the affections of a Musketeer, and to support her queen. In the end, she even gets to kill someone to protect D'Artagnan.
I wish you all could sit with me in the theater to watch and to laugh and to clap. After a few more performances, I might even be singing along to some of these original numbers.