leslee if you can give me advice.... am I a bad person or just frustrated??? I was really off my feed over the weekend, the reason being..... my grandson was doing this summer stock thing here locally... his mom was looped into it (I had nothing to do with it, tho I do love theatre) the deal was he went for two weeks mornings weekdays, and would be in a little play with some other primary (kindergarten) kids. I oozed in because I wanted to check them out (I AM interested in theatre, after a four year college degree in it) and I offered to help with costumes. My frustration there is best ignored because it didn't matter in the long run, and I was able to "ply my trade" again, a couple of the kids looked quite good up there.

I've found out over the years, the mark of a real amateur group is, the costumes look like poo. So few of the flamboyant people who want to get up on stage and "do their thing" understand that if you look like poo, no one will care. You have to get them at another level, not rely on your expertise as a fabulous performer. So, due to the director's flaky communications (I smiled and let her do as she please of course, it WAS her show) two of the kids looked terrible because their parents didn't get it either. Oh well. But the others looked good, I figured out how to make a mini Kinsale cloak (no light feat, I've been picking at that design for a few decades now) MY grandson looked great too.

But get this, the kids had worked very hard for the most part. My grandson has a very sweet voice, good tone, on key and with a vibrato, totally untrained (he's 7 in October) but one of the kids in the bad costume was loud, confidant and off key (of course) that got lots of indulgent chuckles from the crowd. And another kid had no business up there, far too young, but a cute little spud and he knew his lines actually. Smart, but maybe 3. And he rolled on the stage, wanted his director mom who was prompted in front, and wound up trying to hug my grandson (he pushed him away!!! outraged that the kid wasn't doing it right) goes over and hugs the girl who was Mother Goose, and she hugged him back, very in character. Got a big round of applause.

This all goes to show, you never know how it will turn out, and sometimes the biggest mistakes gets the biggest applause. Not matter how hard you work, the crowd wants sympathy, empathy and so forth. Not hard or competent work. They want emotion. They want feeling.

Well *I* don't plan to urge my grandkid to do stage. He didn't get that big a thrill out of it. Whew, I was glad when it was all over.

So now came the big show (hour long) Alice in Wonderland. Mind you for the two week camp, my daughter in law dropped $350 or so ... the second group was older kids, and I know they paid more as they were there all day, not just mornings like the primary kids. So I stuck around to see it, and was terribly saddened. For one, there were FAR too many kids on stage. The promoters were greedy, and put every kid who signed up on stage, talented or not. (You expect a lack of talent from Kinder kids, by the time they get to 2nd grade you'd think they'd get a clue.) One "little darling" danced with vigor all the way through the opening number, while the rest of them stood there making a lovely tableau. I almost barfed the dancer was so naseating, she was at least 2nd or 3rd grade and should have known better than to upstage like that.

I counted just under 50 kids on this smallish stage for the opening number. Little to no dancing... and again, if they had been there a couple of years doing this, at least they should have had some moves down.

Part of the costume solution for this show was to put white tees on the chorus.... yes a bit like Greek chorus. One of the first things I learned as a costumer, NEVER put white on stage, or if you do, really really limit it. And further, you have to match the lighting.... there was absolutely no meeting on how the lights, sets and costumes would fit together (it's easy to do at the beginning, no tech meeting) again the costume design (lack thereof) showed the abysmal amateur nature of it all. I mean, this is Alice in Wonderland. How freaking difficult is it to tie dye the tees in hippy colours??? NOPE.... But by George, all those darlings got on stage!!!

The White Rabbit appeared (fairly nice costume, but could have been better) and her voice was poor, she could have been scared of course. The "community theater" thing got to me about that point, and I departed. Have no idea if it improved or not. The script (I've read it, they did the same musical in the public schools nearby once) was a "modern" mangling of the original Alice done by Disney, which was an enjoyable mangling of the book. I couldn't stand that either.

In the past I've tried to work with high school groups, one show I did costumes with, was set c. 1890. I worked hard on a couple of dresses, but you know what the biggest hitch was? The high school girls all wanted to slick back their hair, which was the fashion at that time at that school. Those who know history, will find the hair quite poofy in 1890, Gibson girl look. Not one of the little brats would do period hair. That was the point I decided I had no desire to teach Drama in public schools. The little snots aren't artists, they just want to get up and glimmer on stage "Look at me!!!!" that's all they care about.

So now that we've established that families are insane to want their children on stage (most looked bored or scared) those who do want to be there are hams or brats, and costumers get no respect... let's look at the cash flow.

Let's say, being conservative, each of those 50 kids on stage paid $400 to be there and do summer stock. $20,000, good cash haul! Now, add in that the packed house (held about 500 maybe? Each child got two comp tickets, the rest were bought by doting grannies, aunties and so forth) for two nights, maybe a two night House of $8,000. Only one pizza party, no food otherwise was provided. Say something slightly in excess of $30,000 gross. Now you gotta pay the copyrights for the two musicals for two nights. Usually this is a good rate for schools and such, maybe $100/performance, say $400 for royalties. I suspect the school district let them use the place at a fairly low price, maybe some electric bills to pay, they did use the real stage lights (those were actually fairly good, and I bet that gaffer got paid!) There were some interns running around helping with make up and costumes, but I suspect they didn't get a stipend, and of course I wasn't offered one either for the sewing I did. The director did a lot of schmoosing with parents, she was good at that. Oh did I mention they couldn't get their make up on right either? Minor point. But, it was smeared on and pretty sad. Poor kids.... no concept of how badly lights will wash you out.

Someone made pretty good lettuce off that one. Do you suppose the little darlings learned anything? Or was it just a "Here I am grandma!!!! waving at you from stage!!!"

Pttttt.

It was a valuable lesson for me. I remembered why I don't like doing theater, amateur, community, professional and otherwise. People all act WEIRD they are so wrapped up in their own thing. The kids in my grandson's little group were very cute and enjoyable, I liked several of them. The adults looked stressed like "I'm never going to get to Hollywood if I don't do this right!!!" kinda thing, it was an emotional mindfield. The parents were painfully frantic that their child would be able to perform. Negative vibe. If I were going to do it for a living, I'd want DARN good pay. I don't love it enough to do it for free for very long... unless my own grandson is in it or something like that.

So tell me.... am I a bad person, thinking the ornery things I'm thinking about stage work right now??? Sigh, I'm just glad I'm not committed to anyting like this very often. I can be the real costumer from Hades, and it's not by best persona.