Backstage!

It was awfully quiet around here this morning. Mary Mae's whole family went to the Opening Night Cast Party after the Opening Night performance of  "Witches, the Musical," and didn't get home until very late -- or should I say early this morning?! Everyone slept in. Granddaughter Claire managed to sleep until a bit after noon!

Tonight was Daughter Mary Mae's turn to be the "behind the stage mother," helping with costumes, etc. for the actors and making sure the three young girls had their costume changes and parts ready. She asked me if I wanted to come along and help do some sewing. It sounded like an interesting way to spend an evening seeing what goes on behind the scenes.

Grandson Varick is working with the sound system. There are 22 members of the cast who are miked, which makes for a lot of batteries that need to be changed and mikes secured. Once the show is up and running, his main task is to listen for a call to come and assist someone who is having troubles.

He watches the show on the downstairs television monitor, alert for what's going on with the sound. That's his sister Claire in the background, waiting for her next turn on stage.

Mary Mae and I were pretty busy before the show started, mainly getting aprons and cuffs for the Puritan girls fixed and adjusted. I sewed the buttonholes smaller on one girl's dress as he buttons kept popping open as she danced...

After the show started, the task was to watch what was happening and being prepared to deal with wardrobe malfunctions between scenes...

Claire's other role in the production is to be one of Satan's minions in the two dream sequences. The other two girls play a cat and a dog while Claire is a bird. Here she is in make-up --

As soon as the two dream sequences are over, she'll have to quickly come back down to make-up to get this set-up removed and her Pilgrim girl look re-done.

Quite the costume!

In the "green room" downstairs waiting to go on again --

After Claire had changed into her bird costume, I called Forry to come down to the Lincoln Theater and get me. I had done my part and enjoyed being backstage, but the show was only half over. It was getting to be too many late nights for this old lady!

They will have four more shows next weekend, starting on Thursday night, one of them a Sunday matinee. They have a special show on Halloween, then the last two shows will be November 2nd and 3rd.