The show closed tonight. It was better than last night, much better because there were no mistakes tonight. Well, no great big glaring mistakes. They all covered well for each other and some of them almost began to react to each other, so one or two of the things I tried to get them to do finally kicked in.
They were also a little louder tonight, partly because they hadn't had school all day and partly because they weren't nervous anymore. Whereas last night they sat there and didn't want me to leave, and wanted me to count down the minutes to show time and give them audience count updates, tonight they just wanted to whack each other with their scripts and make me go away.
LMA learned her lines overnight, so I was impressed. The Prince was still not loud enough, but the contrast between him being in rehearsal and onstage is a reminder of just how important an audience is to actors. Even Beautiful Iranian Girl was comfortable enough with her lines to really get into being a princess. (If you haven't worked it out yet, I'm impressed with all of them.)
Really, it was one of those experiences that makes you feel guilty you're getting paid, like a camp session closing, when all the parents come pick their kids up and tell you how wonderful you were.
The kids did the curtain call, and then they'd taken up a collection of stuff for me. Like, better than Christmas. The Prince had a huge bag full of wrapped stuff and goes, "This is for you." "Which one?" "No, all of it!" "All of it?" "Yeah, you have to unwrap it!" I made them help me.
They all want me to come back and do it next year, and I'd love to. Looking at it practically, if I have an assistanceship next year, plus more classes than I have now, I don't think I could. I think I'll volunteer to help whoever does it, because I do like the kids, but I don't think I could devote the same kind of time to it next year. I still have the show for the younger kids in the spring, so that will probably be the decider.
And now, to take about a week off, clean the house and the car (it looks like a middle school play threw up all over the place), and start thinking about the show for the younger ones. Who will not be singing, or memorising. We'll see how that goes.