Fee, fie, foe, fum....

I am in week three of my fall production rehearsals; though this is the first week I have to work Monday-Friday. It’s only Tuesday evening, yet I feel like I’m jet-lagged. Maybe it’s because I’m listening to “The Time Traveler’s Wife” on audio book, a great distraction for my 25 mile (one-way) commute to my various schools.

Today was the first class meeting for my K-2nd grade Jack and the Beanstalk group, which I am also doing at another school on Wednesdays and will do at yet another school on Mondays come November. It makes my life a bit easier if I do the same theme at all of my schools, though each play is very unique as the student actors make up their own characters.

The Tuesday cast features a lot of testosterone, which is great, as one kid observed, “the boys finally outnumber the girls, that means we rule”. I didn’t tell him that I count as at least two votes.

The group consists of nine kids, all of whom I have worked with before, though not together. I have three extremely exuberant, BFF kindergarten boys, three older boys, two younger girls and one helper who has already been put in charge of wrangling my “triplets”. Luckily they all want to be The Giant, so we have Three Giant Brothers and the Giant Mother, perfect.

It’s actually adorable, they have begun chanting in unison, with great projected voices, “Fee, fie, foe, fum…” and other giant-y things like “we want sheep for breakfast”. Two of the older boys have decided to be aliens, who “perform scientific experiments on Jack” (as quoted from one of the aliens). Jack, as the story goes, is lazy and spends his days playing Guitar Hero. The aliens love to dance and that’s why they visit Jack, trying to exchange the famous beans for a guitar, though Jack refuses (enter two aliens at night who abduct the sleeping Jack). The Golden Goose and Mother Giant and best friends and that’s about as far as we got, not bad for an hour during which I felt I had zero control and should possibly pursue a career in finance (good thing I’m getting an MBA). As always, I have to remember that it’s really not about me; the important thing is that the kids have fun and maybe learn a stage direction or two.