take a bow

I haven't been blogging that much about the Christmas show this year partly because my digital camera is on strike and partly for the same reason I haven't been blogging very much about anything: Facebook. Also, I think it's becoming a little bit old-hat. I still love (LOVE) it - highlight of my year, I keep telling people - but it's all pretty familiar now.

But here, have a random Christmas show anecdote. Last night was our final dress rehearsal, which is also the outreach performance. They bring in groups from homeless shelters, lower-income schools, and others who wouldn't normally be able to afford it. Many of the kids have probably never been to a theater before, let alone something as wacky as the Christmas show, so you sort of never know what you're getting with this audience. (They're super fun and engaged, and they're also kind of confused sometimes.)

Every year, the director goes out this show and welcomes the audience, and tells them they're at a rehearsal and they're helping us out, and she has the option to stop the action and fix things. (She never does it, but she has the option.) Yeah, last night she didn't stop things, but hoowee, it got messy. Not during the show, which basically went find, but at the end: the curtain call.

The curtain call hadn't really been fully worked out before the performance. It's always really long - there's a lot of different groups that have to come up and bow (sword team! abbots bromley dancers! lord of the dance guys! traditional musicians! storyteller! etc! etc! etc!). But last night, those people didn't really know exactly what order they were going on and kind of stood around stage looking awkward and trying to sort themselves out. Any audience has a tough time keeping the applause going all the way to the end, and last night's crowd just gave up and only clapped when there was a bow.

We'll be fixing that before the opening performance. Which is this afternoon! Yay!