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Sherri said...
Ronni you are a gem. Don't worry about not getting back to me right away! I feel lucky that I have your ear at all.Tonight's performance was very low energy - the kids are rightfully exhausted and don't know how to handle it. Some of them have reached the end of their attention spans, it's fairly obvious. When on stage, I can be speaking directly to one of them and the person beside him will start talking across the bench to ANOTHER kid, who immediately joins into the conversation. And in scenes where the mass of them are on but not involved in the action forget about it... they push one another and laugh and make weird noises. Did this happen in your production?

This is totally unacceptable. If the adult stage manager won't do anything about this, you need to express your concerns to the director. These kids are out of control, and the director should never have allowed it to get this bad.

Kids should WANT to be in the show. They should have had the Riot Act read to them at the very beginning. They should be told that NOBODY is going to have fun if it's not a good show, and that in order for it to be a good show, they have to take and follow direction. I would not have put up with that for a nanosecond!

I mean come on the play is only an hour long!! I spoke with the 'grown-up' stage manager today who is stationed in the booth (the 13 year old is backstage) and asked him to talk to the kids. No go. Seems he's having his own issues with the lighting crew (which I don't get because there have been no errors or omissions in terms of the lights.)blah blah blah. I'm sick of hearing myself already!! :)

I don't care what issues the stage manager is having with other crew members, he has a responsibility to his actors, to the director, and to the show. There is no point in taking issue with the lights if what's on stage isn't worth lighting. Your one recourse is to go to the director. If you get no satisfaction there, is there a Board of Directors of this theater? The director has somebody to whom she is responsible, besides those Mommies.

Oh, and guess what? You know the histrionics that erupted after the missed lines and the Dad who was there and didn't get to see his girl do her funny bit? yeah. Well....First, I come to find out that it was worse than I'd even thought. The mother of the 'offended' child went on a tear asking everyone from the properties manager to the other actors to the producer to please "talk to Sherri" about missing the lines.

See, this Mommy has no business doing any of that. She should have gone to the stage manager and/or the director. This just makes ME want to come up there and read them ALL the Riot Act! LOL!

That was the piece of news I got BEFORE the show. And oddly, the mother approached me for the first time tonight, asking all about me, being very sweet and subdued and .. well... basically kissing my ass.

Somebody may have told her to behave herself. My opinion? The kids can be replaced much more easily than you can!

It was odd.But after the show...I saw the Dad backstage (he's a high ranking military man).. he looked very very happy and so I felt at ease going up to him to apologize for the night before. Shock of shocks when his wife came up to me and said, "yes, well, he wasn't here last night. He couldn't make it."a-HA! That explained a lot. And let me off the hook. It was a painful hook.

So the Mommy LIED to you! BAD Mommy! Oh, I would be SO not speaking to her, beyond what was absolutely necessary for the show to run! No need to call her on it--you know she lied, and now she knows that you know, and her husband knows, too. That is some sweet Karma!

Tell me how your son did! I was in "A Christmas Carol" too! played Scrooge's fiancee. It was a technically difficult piece but audiences go nuts for it. Lots of special effects. Tell me about this production!... and Ronni... Thank You.
9:13 PM, December 02, 2006

We didn't get to see it tonight. Due to a miscommunication, Jim thought it was at 8:00 when it was actually at 7:30, so we were a couple of minutes late, and couldn't get in. We will see it on Wednesday. I saw the kids after the show, and they looked lovely in their costumes. Brendan said that Marley was pretty frightening.

I am living for the opportunity to see Brendan dance, as he has steadfastly refused to learn even a simple two-step, which is a social necessity in these parts, heh.

Oh, and you're very welcome.

I'll tell you what my biggest frustration was with directing "Pageant." It was that I heard about problems, some of them fairly serious, after the show closed. The stage manager and others in the cast thought that I had enough on my plate without being "bothered" with little stuff like an adult behaving inappropriately around the young teens of the opposite sex, and, the first time I directed it (1993), a child cursing at adults backstage. I felt diminished and patronized when I was not clued in to problems I could have dealt with instantly.

Part of the Riot Act (as read by Ronni) is that there is no room in a production of this type (or any type, really) for overweening egos. We are all assistant storytellers. No more, no less. We all work together to tell the playwright's story to the best of our ability. Our performance starts the moment we step out on the stage, and ends when we step out of sightlines. I have no patience with people who break character when they are not speaking, no matter how old or young they are. We are there to have fun, yes, but there's no fun to be had if the show is not good. That's why I ran a really tight ship. There was no time when the kids were not supervised. During rehearsals, if they weren't onstage or backstage, they were sitting in the audience, quietly. Backstage, they were quiet. Onstage they behaved, and followed direction. They were told, "You saw how many kids auditioned for your roles. Each and every one of them would give his or her eye teeth to be cast. If you don't behave and perform, they will get their chance."

Those kids who are behaving is such an unprofessional manner will get a severe set-down if they ever try to take their talent to a professional arena. I don't know of a single venue that will put up with their behaviour. In most theaters that pay the kids, the kids are expected to show up on cue, do their job, and be out of the way and quiet the rest of the time.

We made over our costume shed into a playroom for the kids, stapling huge unfolded carboard boxes over the front of the racks and covering that with butcher paper, supplying videos, markers, books, and a rotation of Mommies, as well as juice, hot chocolate and munchies. We kept the sugar and caffeine to a minimum. That room was where they HAD to be when not on stage. That way, they stayed relatively clean, and within hearing of their cues. The Mommies organized most of that themselves.

Hold your head up; go out there and do the best you can. It's all anyone can ask of herself!