Two Nights, One to Go, of Bye Bye Birdie!

Well, Mike's writer friend was right...I guess that bad dress rehearsal = good performance! The kids did great at opening night last night--there were a few glitches, including the fact that somehow one whole song was missed! But the terribly rough transitions were smoothed over, and the play moved along at a clip. There were only a few missed lines, from what I could tell. Their performance was especially amazing given the fact that their director, Andrea, was called off to the set of the Harrison Ford movie, and was not able to be there for rehearsal yesterday (and also missed most of the play!). So they didn't have their best coach there during rehearsal! Apparently they let her go at 6:30 tonight so at least she was able to see the play.

Chris had two big songs: "The Telephone Hour," of course, which I think was their best song overall, and during the second act they were able to give him a bongo drumming role! Andrea said that she loved the fact that they were able to give him a "cool" role at the end--Harvey Johnson gets cool!

Tonight's performance was even stronger than last night, so I'm sure the closing performance will be great. The kids are feeling so much more comfortable with their roles.

We've had a number of friends attend, and last night my aunt and uncle came as well, which has meant a lot to Chris. He's the type of kid who wants to be on stage and he wants people to come and see him. Unfortunately my parents are going to miss the show because they are in Costa Rica.

This is an ambitious play for a middle school. We sat near Andrea's mom and grandmother tonight, and after the play was over they asked us whether we had a child in the play. When we told them our son was Harvey Johnson, Andrea's mom said "We were just saying that he was our favorite!!" Andrea, too, had lots of praise for Chris when we talked to her after the play. I'm so proud of him!

Curtain call Chris

Posing with his flowers

And his brother

And here's the whole family

One more day to go! Chris has been complaining of a sore back, which I'm suspecting might be because of all the hard work. But he will be sad to see it end.