Beauty and the Beast Memories and a video clip

Last year Emily was in her elementary school musical Suessical. She did not get a lead part (to her dismay) but ended up happily playing the part of a bird girl in a group of 5 other girls. When that play ended the choir teacher announced that next year she would do the musical Beauty and the Beast. Of course Emily wanted to be Belle. Knowing how disappointed she was when she didn’t get a lead in Suessical I kept telling Emily that a lot of people would want to be Belle and she might not get the part. Emily assured me that her teacher had said “if you got a lead in Suessical you wouldn’t get a lead in the next play”. Fast forward to December 2011. Emily tried out for the Belle part with about 13 other girls. Two days later the cast list was emailed out and Emily was at the top of the list with the part of Belle. It was the happiest day of her life! Funny thing is two 6th grade boys decided to try out for the play at the last minute and they got the parts of Gaston and the Beast which they were not happy about (they wanted small parts). Luckily they thought about it and decided they would do those parts. Only about 10 boys were in the musical compared to 50 girls.

The teacher passed out cast books and gave disks of the music to all the kids so they could start practicing over Christmas break. Emily practiced all the time. She loved singing her songs in her room and reading over her lines. In January and February she had musical practice once a week for an hour. Then in March she started meeting everyday afterschool to practice. She loved the practices and had fun with the whole experience. At this point she had all of her songs and words memorized. She sang a few songs for us one Saturday and did amazing. Wow—our little girl could sing.

Grandma Moulton made Emily her costumes; a blue village dress, a red cape, and a yellow ball gown. We spent many evenings going over to Grandma’s house for dress fittings. Thank you Grandma!

This week was the technical rehearsal with costumes and mikes on stage and then two performances. Up until this point the parents hadn’t seen the play. The kids had always practiced in the music room with the door closed. I was blown away with the play when I saw it at the technical rehearsal and Emily sang her parts so well and confidently. The hardest part of the play for her was changing into the yellow gown and then back into the blue dress in the short time she had off stage. Luckily a mom was off stage to help her change.

The first performance went wonderfully. Little kids are so cute. Emily remembered all her lines and sang her little heart out. She was definitely the star of the show. After the performance all the cast members went out to greet the guests. Some kids even asked for Emily’s autograph on their program, which she thought was fun. Scott’s sister Laura was there with her family and our friend Jill Hart (who we met when we lived in AZ and who has since moved to WA) came too. Of course Grandma and Grandpa Moulton and lots of teachers and friends from school were there. Emily’s primary teacher and her activity day’s leader came and brought some girls from her primary class with them. The second night Uncle Derek and Uncle Andrew and Aunt Emily came to watch the play.

The play wasn’t as scary as Emily thought it would be. When she was singing on stage she felt like she was just in the music room practicing with the cast. For Emily the most nerve-wracking part was at the very beginning when there was a 30 second intro song that told the audience the musical was about to start. During that time all the kids backstage were “freaking out and getting really nervous”.

When people were telling her nice things after the play she realized all she could say was thank you and she told me she said it like fifty times, but didn’t know what else to say. She is a good natured kid, so she took it all in stride. For the Friday night performance the whole first row was filled with 6th grade boys! During the performance they were making silly faces and fake crying and trying to make the kids on stage laugh. Emily thought it was really distracting but she was able to stay in character which was impressive.

Emily is sad that the musical is over and wished she could do it a few more times. She has signed up for choir and drama next year in middle school. When she is old enough she would like to try out for X-factor and American Idol. And someday she wants to be on Broadway (of course)! It is fun to dream, so we won’t get in the way of her dreams :).

Below is an 8 minute clip of the first half of the musical. (Scott combined our video clips).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h2TJkqeb36c&list=HL1332734967&feature=mh_lolz