We (Were) Off to See the Wizard!

As many of you know, our Kieran loves "The Wizard of Oz." Or as he told me yesterday, "I used to be a 'Wizard of Oz' fan." When I saw that our beloved Northwest Children's Theater planned to produce Oz this year, I knew we had to take Kieran. We saw a similar production in Washington Park a few years ago, but this production surpassed that one. It was wonderful, and Kieran was mesmerized! It was the one holiday event that we had planned that was not cancelled!

Dorothy was played by ninth grader Natalie Hovee (I thought she was 16 or 17 until I just now looked her up on the web!). She did an amazing job, especially given that she was in virtually every scene, and they were going to do another performance last night (we attended the 2:00 show).

The other roles were cast well, too. The cowardly lion was played by the same man (James Wesley Peppers) who played Willy Wonka this summer in Washington Park. The man who played the tin man (John Ellingson) had the best singing voice, I believe, but they were all great.

Some of you will remember that our Kieran, in his Oz-obsessed days, dressed up as the Wicked Witch herself for his 4th birthday celebration. Many of his guests humored him by dressing up too!

After the production, we went to have the cast sign Kieran's program (Chris, who used to love to get cast signatures, now sits back and watches--you know, the cool 6th grader!). I forgot my camera, but was able to take these two shots on my BlackBerry--the witch (who played the role wonderfully well by Merritt C. Glover) was delighted to learn that Kieran had dressed up as her for his birthday party!

Very fun! The next play for Kieran is "Alice in Wonderland" later in the month. Chris will go see "The Hobbit" with Mike in May.