I wanna crow; just a little bit.

On Tuesday night I did one of my favorite things. I sat in a theatre and watched a musical. To be honest I experienced it, marveled at it, sang with it, recited the lines I knew, anticipated the jokes and stood in appreciation at the close. This production of Peter Pan also brought back wonderful memories of the Peter Pan I was involved in in 2008. You cant live a show for months and not become connected to it forever. Usually it is with fond memories, sometimes with not so fond ones. This one is with sweet and proud blasts from the past, for sure.

Deciding to do this show with a middle school cast, in a school we had little connection with, an auditorium with no fly system, no wing space, no pit, no close by dressing rooms and with kids that did not know us was a gigantic leap of faith. My com-padres in this endeavor were 2 of my favorite men, Mike and Eric. When we got together in the fall of 2007 to bounce ideas around we all knew that big time productions are fun, hard, demanding, and most of all expensive. We had walked this path before and were giddy with the choice we had made. Now we just had to secure the permission of the school district to literally fly their students, assure all involved that this could be done, and done safely, and then hope like crazy we could get the students to come on board. Every single step was a cake walk. Every single administrator and parent was behind us and every single dollar we needed we had!! The flying company famous for this show's traditions happened to have a technical advisor in our town, the insurance and liability was ok'd by the Superintendent, the kids showed up to audition in large numbers!! Rehearsals began in January and the show went up in April.

One of the very best memories of this production is the sight of long long lines of families with little kids waiting to get in, and then the realization that we did not have enough seats for everyone and the on the spot permission to add folding chairs anywhere and everywhere so we did not have to send anyone away!! almost 800 people saw this show for each of the 3 nights it ran. We got fabulous pictures in the local newspaper, TV coverage on the news and wonderful feedback after it was over.
It turns out it was the last student production I was a part of. Mike, Eric and I were a good team and we had wonderful helpful people around us (with the exception of one really selfish and arrogant shop teacher but that is another story). The parents jumped in and made our lives easier with building,painting, sewing, cleaning,feeding us, getting donations and, thankfully, re-numbering all the seats after a mix-up (Diane R. I will never forget your calmness and brilliance that night). Our sets were great, the crocodile was a high school art students senior project and the dancing that had been horrific at times in rehearsal came off beautifully. Seeing those kids take off and meet and join hands center stage with perfect precision still makes me want to crow (and I had absolutely nothing to do with that part!)

So, as I walked along and crunched on the drying leaves scattered on the paths on campus from the theater to the parking lot following this fine performance I sang the songs and smiled at the sweet memories of my days in Neverland.