The Pipsqueak has been something of a performer for as long as we've known her. From a very young age, she would normally be dancing or singing "just because" and has always enjoyed putting on little shows for family & friends. When she was four years old, we got her a battery-powered microphone with an amplifier & speaker built into the stand (a pink plastic model meant specifically for young kids, nothing professional!) and for a couple of years it was a favorite toy -- one that she still has and repeatedly chooses to not add to the "donate" pile during cleanups. I can still remember her using it to put on a show for the family, then telling us that when she grew up she wanted to be the singer who sings all the songs. :-)
She also started dancing fairly young (a love she shares with Mommy), and even when repeatedly told she can quit any time she wants & doesn't have to do it if she doesn't want to, has repeatedly chosen to not only keep dancing but to try additional new (for her) forms of dance -- thus the classes for ballet and modern and tap and jazz and lyrical and acro and... (
Dude, I'll bet you didn't know there were that many types of dance...!) In fact, as I type this, she & AJ are at a 2-1/2 day intensive dance workshop out near Dulles, and last night Miri asked to please be signed up for the cheap-but-not-included freestyle dance competition. (She didn't make it past the 1st round, but told Mommy that it was OK because she had a good time and what really mattered was that she did it and tried her best. [insert several minutes of
kvelling here].)
The kid's been in dance performances, in choirs (she signed herself up for the synagogue choir,
then told Mommy about it!), puts on shows for family & friends, regularly performs complex dances in a group in front of large audiences... so imagine our surprise a couple of years back when she started crying when telling us about a project at school that required her to actually have two lines in a class play. Despite all her experience performing in front of a variety of audiences, Miri was
terrified by the idea of actually having a speaking part that required her to remember a couple of simple cues and what to say in response to them!
We talked through the problem; it took a while to figure out exactly what the problem was because she couldn't quite verbalize it, but knowing her perfectionist streak it soon became obvious. AJ talked with her. Mom & Dad talked with her. I talked with her. We did "what if" scenarios and practiced lines and spoke about our own "oopses" onstage through the years, and when the time came for the Pipsqueak to actually act in the play, she was fine... but remained very much afraid of speaking parts ("I don't have to talk when I'm dancing!")
Fast-forward to spring of last year, and AJ quietly suggested a week-long "theater camp" at a local high school as a way to fill some of the long & complicated summer vacation... and Miri surprised us (a little) by agreeing to give it a try. She was one of the youngest kids in the program, and physically one of (if not the) smallest -- but by the end of the 2nd day she was talking about how interesting it was, how much fun she was having, and how she was looking forward to their putting a show together for everyone to see.
June 29th was the big day, with the group putting on a show to a well-populated auditorium of families & friends. There were several skits, but Miri's story was a "comedy of errors" about kids overhearing some teachers speaking and mistakenly believing the teachers are dangerous spies. (
Spoiler alert: At the very end, it turns out the kids were right!) The cast was aged from 8 to 14, and because they'd only had about four days to learn the script, blocking, etc. the majority of the kids (even the older ones) performed the entire play with scripts in hand, frequently reading directly from the paper instead of emoting to or with their fellow actors....
...but Miri had memorized every cue, every word of dialogue, and every little shtick her character was supposed to get into -- and absolutely
nailed it. She was one of 4 or 5 out of the 25 kids in the group who didn't need to read her part, and one of only 3 or 4 who
acted like a character instead of just reciting their lines. (
Dude, should you be worried about how well she puts on an attituuude
...?)
 |
| Curtain call (photography was prohibited during the show) |
Everyone got a nice round of applause at the end and we all let the Pipsqueak know how proud we were of her for working through her fear and doing such a great job. More importantly, she was proud of herself -- and had a great time learning about acting, stagecraft, and performance tech.
Who knows? Maybe someday we'll be heading to Toby's Dinner Theatre not
with Miri, but to
watch her perform!
PS - I'm adding this about 5 hours after my original post. AJ & Miri just got home, and it turns out that the Pipsqueak won a special achievement award for her "Mini Musical Theater" skills -- so maybe my closing line is less goofy than I thought! <8-D
