Thoughts from Class Teacher Jenny Hatch:

It has now been two days since our performance and I wanted to share some final thoughts on the Musical Theatre Elective Class and also share some photos from our Family Dance that followed the show.

I have long believed that children are more capable of memorizing theatrical lines and songs quicker than any of us give them credit for.

Here is a printable program from our show:

Program for a year with Frog and Toad Kids for Web

When we had our final run through of the show on Friday morning, I was marveling that these nine students had memorized a full Broadway kids show in six weeks.

They not only memorized lines, they also worked hard on music theory, with half of them completing three units from our textbook.  They learned a variety of ballroom and folk dances and we also had fun with the Chicken Dance, some line dances and the Charleston, which we used as our choreography for the song Getta Loada Toad in the show.

All nine students had at least one line to memorize and the two boys who played Frog and Toad went above and beyond memorizing dozens of lines and songs.

These first four photos were taken on my iphone during our fifth rehearsal.  I taught the students a Dance Etiquette game that they loved.  The boys would bow and ask a girl to dance, then escort her to the dance floor where he was expected to ask her one question about herself, then walk her back to her seat.  If he remembered to do all four elements she would reward him with a star sticker and he was able to move on to the next girl.  The boy with the most stars won a prize every week.  We mixed the game up on the final day by having a girls choice version of the game and the boys loved having the girls do the asking.  It was very fun.

My heart was overwhelmed as we performed for an audience of about fifty patrons on Friday night.

They played to that audience like pros, using great comedic timing as they delivered lines and allowed the audience to laugh and applaud at the hilarity of the story before moving on to the next scene.

The concept that I developed of working with Home Schooled Children in an intensive three hour block once a week was just theory until we did it these past six weeks.  I had a sense that we would be able to pull it off, but without any practical  evidence that it would work, I had no proof until we performed the show.  I should insert here that we used the first two rehearsals to simply work on theatrical triple threat skills and did not even hold auditions until the third week into our six week intensive.

I began teaching the three production numbers from the show during week two, but the children did not even begin to memorize their lines until after auditions the third week into the class.  Over the past month we systematically put the show together while gradually adding layers of theatrical elements always with the goal in mind to keep everything simple, upbeat, and fun.  We used many of the production ideas that the children themselves came up with, and the show ended up being entertaining and fun.

The Kimber Academy is built around the idea that time with Family is the most important part of a child’s life, and so when I pitched my idea to Bob and Threesa, who run the Cedar City School, they immediately warmed to the idea of simple modest costumes for rehearsals and the show, just a few intense three hour rehearsals, one performance followed by a family dance, and no last minute panic rehearsals or any extreme expectations for parents to sew elaborate costumes, help backstage, or build scenery.  The children themselves were encouraged to create their own costumes using just one or two elements…a vest for Frog, a simple construction paper hat for Toad.

I did not micromanage this, but let them use their own creativity and style and assumed they would figure it out.  One of the moms made some simple Christmas scarves using a large piece of red fleece and I bought a few pieces of fabric to add some texture to the backdrop and a few white bedroom sheets to portray snow and water.  We used real leaves for the autumn scene and our squirrels really enjoyed throwing them around the stage during He’ll never know.

I believed that the families would stick around and participate in the dance after the show for an hour….and they did!  It was so fun.

We did not bother with refreshments, decorations, or any of the other trappings of a party. We simply turned on the music and invited them to join our students in the Foxtrot, Waltz, Four Beat Swing, and line dances that we had worked on during class.  To finish off our party we danced the Israeli Folk Dance the Hava Nagila to the song Happy by Pharrell Williams.  Everyone pitched in to break down our stage and put away the chairs and set up the classroom for school on Monday.  We were all home by 9 pm after spending three hours in wholesome, fun, family entertainment.

Here are a few photos taken by my husband from our Final Dress Rehearsal on Friday Morning:

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Here is a video playlist.
I always begin my shows with A Prayer, the Pledge of Allegiance, and the National Anthem. The curtain call from the show and a few clips from the Family Dance are also in this playlist:

Glenn Kimber lives in Cedar City and he and his wife joined us for the performance and our night of fun! It was a blessing to have them in the audience.

And here are a few photos from the evening taken by my husband Paul:

I served as the Sound tech using the Mp3 Accompaniment tracks on my phone attached to my portable sound system. My 11 year old son Benjamin worked the whole six weeks as my tech crew lugging the equipment into the space, and setting everything up for me every week.

I am still on oxygen a good portion of the day and could not do the heavy physical work by myself. We used a few lamps, one from my bedroom, for our onstage lights, and a chalk board to create a sound booth hidden away from the audience. My daughter Michelle said she did not even know I was behind the chalk board doing the sound until after the show. I also cued the children once or twice when they forgot an entrance, but mostly they remembered all of their lines, songs, entrances, exits, and props without me saying anything.

I learned from a director during my childhood whose company I acted in for two summers, how one person could produce a show with very little outside help. Her example and expertise has always been something I have aspired to as a director. While I would have loved to be in the audience watching the show instead of doing the sound, I was able to watch a little from the side, especially as my son Ben acted the part of Lizard…Mama had her eyes on the stage during that scene!

Overall this whole class and the show were a blast to put together and I look forward to many more years of producing high quality children’s theatre in the future!