Bean there, done that.

I wish that they had sold T-shirts; I would have gotten one.

How was Rachel's pantomime, "Jack and the Beanstalk", you ask? Ok, so maybe you didn't ask, but I'm going to tell you anyway.

It was just absolutely, postitively a GIGANTIC bean-bag full of FUN . I must like slapstick alot more than I care to admit. Drat.

I was glad to have found the Whitakers and sat down next to them. Well. At the end of the row of their family, at least. When the show started, Ethan and Andrew their children got up to sit on the floor in between the chairs and the stage with all the other kids. That left me sitting there with a bunch of Philipina ladies (probably the domestic help of a few families with kids performing there than night) and a couple of empty seats away was Zach (he's 17). I caught him smiling a couple of times when I looked over at him during the funny parts... but for the most part, he was either expressionless or painfully embarassed by the silliness of the play.

I was completely enthralled. It was perfect. They had an all 5th grader cast of every color, flavor, accent (it's an International elementary school) and acting ability. The show began with a leggy American female in clowlike overalls saying in a serious tone, "My name is Jack Trot and today is going to be the longest day of my life."

Her mother, Dame trot was played by a short Chinese boy (I did database entry for the Boy Scouts last year and I felt like I had known these boys having typed in all sorts of information about them but only seeing their face for the first time last night) who had a bosom stuffed to be 3 times larger than mine (not that hard to do). There was, of course, Daisy the cow, played by 2 Korean boys, which yielded milk in cartons and split up to Tango when the ocassion required.

Silly Billy and Foolish Freddie, Jack's brothers' appeared on stage everytime with a "Howdy y'all" and we'd have to answer "Howdy Billy, howdy Freddie" EVERYTIME. The kids loved it.

There were veggie faries and fleshcreeps (whom we got to boo everytime they came on stage or said anything mean) and King Arthur's sword in the stone which Jack pulled out to sharpen a pencil with, a spoiled king and his princess daughter whose friends would squeel "A GIANT?!" and would feign passing out at every mention of the word, villagers who were punished to dance the Macarena by the fleshcreeps when they couldn't pay their taxes... and of couse, who could forget, the vertically challenged Giant Blunderbore!

Then of course, there was Rachel who was so excited to be performing on stage, she overexaggerated every single dance move, kicking up her so hard as she danced you could nearly see the shorts she was wearing under her long skirt. She said her only solo speaking part "You mean the catapult, the one to kill the giant with?" perfectly, making me a very proud pretend big sister.

The music was just awesome. I nearly got up and danced a few times in between. I noticed a boy and a girl who were about 4-5 years old dancing in a corner everytime there was music. It was just so cute. I wish I could have just stood up and danced like they did. Technically, since a pantomime is interactive, it would have been totally acceptable to do that, but I would have been the only one. EMBARASSING! I just bobbed my head up and down and swayed from left to right in my seat. Zach looked over at me like I was weird. Hey, you would've done it too when they played "Hey ya" and that Kungfu-fighting cats song...

*sigh* It was a delightful evening. It made me miss my theatre experience so much.

I wish I had pictures but I didn't want to do that flash-photography thing you know. Maybe Pres. Witaker took some or Rachel will have some pictures from a shoot or something. I'll definitely post them here for ya if I do get my hands on some.

I have decided that when my kids go to school, I will be one of those moms who have their hands in everything and get involved in the fun stuff. No, my kids are NOT going to be homeschooled!