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Pumplin Carols

9/29/2022

Fall Festivals, Corn mazes, colored leaves, pumpkins, apple cobbler, and Halloween. For some people, Fall is the favorite time of year. There are those in my family that love Fall because it's Football Season, and others that endure football season because of their love of the Marching Band field shows. In any case, the cooler weather is much appreciated!

We raised our family in places that did not have Music Programs in the schools. So, in order to give our children (and many interested other's kids) the musical opportunities we didn't want them to miss, I volunteered at the schools. Through the PTA, I was part of a team that offered Art, Music and Physical Education to our Elementary School children. We couldn't do very much, but we hope what we offered helped.

One year for a Fall Festival, we set up rooms throughout the venue of different experiences for families and friends. There were "booths" for games and activities, tasting, and contests. One of the favorite activities was a cardboard box maze. The children crawled through an area filled with connected cardboard boxes with glow in the dark surprises around each corner. There were pumpkin carving contests, bobbing for apples, a chili cook off and so much more. Fun for all ages!

My "booth" was teaching Halloween songs or as was advertised "Pumpkin Carols." So, depending on the ages of the singers, we sang cute little finger play songs, or for the older participants, we added in some more advanced spooky tunes.

I even wrote a few original settings for the occasion. Enjoy "This is Halloween" and "We are Out to Scare You"

Costumes and Dress-Ups

9/19/2022

Costumes and Dress-Ups are hot topics around this time each year. There are those children and adults who love planning what they will wear for Halloween. Some whole families like to dress up in coordinated costumes on a theme like characters from a movie or favorite television show. I know that one of my children's families are dressing up as characters from "Frozen" this year. They have been scouring various stores for costumes for several weeks now. It is quite the popular "thing" apparently.

Some families like to make their costumes from "found" items. In other words, they like to participate but don't like the hefty price tag of buying pre-made costumes. The bins in my shed have been raided many times for costume pieces. I have random parts and pieces that can be used in various ways to create different "looks." And, believe me, my kids and even some neighbors have come up with interesting characters from my random costume pieces.

Then, of course, I have gone to thrift stores when they put out the costumes in time for Halloween and have found wonderful complete costumes that I just couldn't resist. I found this darling bear costume that I just had to use for "Parizade's Quest." And one year I found an adorable yellow bird ballet costume. We put it on my young granddaughter during "Chicken Licken." last year. At age 4, she was really too young to be in the show, but she insisted on running onto the stage to dance. So we dressed her in that costume and called her our little canary.

I've found Pirate hats, Chinese kimonos, cowboy boots, wands, beards, wigs, tiaras and a lot of other good stuff while scouring the thrift shops at Halloween. I love looking for "found" objects I can turn into costumes for my shows during this season.

One year, my sister was looking to make a Harry Potter costume for her boy and needed a cape. She asked me for help making one. I said, "Capes are so easy. Just go to the thrift store and find a black woman's skirt. Take apart one seam, and add a black ribbon tie. Voila' - a cape." It was a revelation to her.

Yup. When you have to make a lot of costumes without a commensurate budget, you learn to be creative!

Happy hunting for costumes!

Enjoy this track from "Parizade's Quest" with a cameo performance from Bobak the Bear.

People Who Make Things Happen

9/9/2022

Where would we be without the people who make things happen? You know the ones, those people with the energy and bubbling over enthusiasm that can convince others that they should be involved in this or that activity, those individuals who by their sheer presence can get couch potatoes and introverts to leave their comfortable homes and exert a lot of effort to develop their own talents.

My mother was one of those types. Her charisma, charm, and abundance of talent made her irresistible. She was so good at engaging with people that with seemingly no effort on her part, she got people involved in all kinds of projects and most of the time they agreed before they could come up with excuses not to.

Janie, Dorothy, Lora, and Carolyn Thompson about 1946

Carolyn Thompson Lee came from a long line of entertainers and many talented singers who were sadly only recognized in their small communities. However, her mother, my Grandmother Lora Harmon Thompson while growing up was known as the Carbon County Nightingale. She sang for events all around Price, Utah and then went to the big town of Salt Lake City and became a member and often soloist with the Mormon Tabernacle Choir. While on her mission in Independence MO, she entertained many dignitaries that came through town. Her highly trained operatic voice then went on to delight the people and livestock in the tiny community of Malta, Idaho. But through her example she helped her children see that there was more to this world than just sage brush and jack rabbits.

Another "doer" was Dorothy Thompson Collier. She became an elementary school teacher and made sure her students (and anybody else just standing around) had many opportunities expand their talents by being in shows. She was hard to turn down. We called her "General Dot."

But probably the most famous "doer" in our family was my Aunt Janie Thompson. She was a big band singer who toured all over the world at the end of WWII. Then she came to BYU and started the many show groups that also toured all over the world. She was a Force of Nature. You just didn't say "no" to Janie!

The Thompson Sisters about 1960

Janie, Dot, and Carolyn liked to sing together. They formed the Thompson Sisters Trio and performed all over during the 1950s-60s. They sang many songs made famous by other girl trios of the era as well as special arrangements created by Janie.

I had the privilege of listening and learning from the best. Sure do miss these wonderful women!

In the musical "Never Cy Wolf" the Muses sing in a style reminiscent of the girl's trio's of the 1950-1960s. (I confess this song is more Supremes than Andrews Sisters, but it is still very fun to sing! I also got a little help from my very talented son Matthew Bailey on guitar for this one.)

Enjoy "Set It for Posterity."

Permissions

8/31/2022

At a post performance lecture I attended at an Arts Festival last week, I asked a question. We saw a performance of "The Sound of Music" done in a very unfamiliar way. I asked why so many liberties were taken with the script. The presenter said that they bought the license to do the 1959 script and she added that it was very different from the movie, but she assured me that they did not take liberties with the script. And yet they clearly had added in songs from the movie and put a decidedly Woke spin on the material. I had actually performed in that musical once upon a time. I did not remember many of the tidbits they put into this production.

My understanding of permissions is that you may cut out words and snippets of songs or absorb lines into other lines if you have to delete a character (because you haven't got enough actors). But, what we saw clearly showed how determined the director was to "bring this piece into the 21st Century." In other words, they basically disregarded the historical mores in Austria just before WWII.

For example, the girl playing Maria was very "down home" and dished out a lot of hugs in her scenes of first meeting both the children and adults, even in scenes with the Mother Superior. People were more formal in public in those times and maintained proper distances especially before people in authority such as the Mother Superior and the Captain. Other actors also were very free and casual with their touching and close proximities. Unfortunately, the actress who played Maria was a darling black actress whose Southern charms didn't really fit in 1938 Austria during the Anschluss. (Not to mention the bias at the time against mixed race relations and persecutions against people of non-Aryan races.)

The Mother Superior was also a black actress. Her performance was very good until they had her perform the wedding ceremony. That would have only been done by a priest in those days! In fact, the Nazi invasion that prompted Captain von Trapp to leave Austria was pretty much downplayed, too. We didn't even get the sense of how love could have blossomed between Maria and the Captain. The pacing of the show raced along so fast clipping any hopes of providing time for the audience to savor any "beautiful moments." There just weren't any.

This production was very disappointing. The directing could have been better even with the casting choices they made. I saw another show done with members of this same company. That show suited those actors much better. It was a comic romp where they could play as sassy and casual as they wanted and it suited the characters in the script. I just wish they had played "The Sound of Music" with more respect to its time period. After all it is definitely a "period" piece.

Fifteen+ Years Between Visits to Broadway

8/12/2022

During the summer when I was 17, freshly out of High School with a brand new driver’s license, I drove my aunt Janie from Ohio to New York City in a little VW bug. The adults in my life had more faith in my driving skills than I did, or maybe they were just naive. I had barely any experience driving on a highway, let alone on a freeway, and definitely NO experience driving in a crowded city. (No parent I know today would agree to that!) Somehow we made it and parked Uptown at an apartment house where we stayed with Janie’s friends. We were there to go see Broadway shows.

We rode the Subway and buses, but mostly we walked. The Theater District in those days was pretty run down and raunchy. I felt like such a hick from the sticks. My aunt was downright embarrassed that she was allowing me to see such terrible sights. She had lived in New York for a time in the 1940s and 1950s. It was the hey day of Broadway with wonderful musicals that anyone could feel comfortable seeing. Not so for us. We saw “Pippin,” and a show starring Debbie Reynolds, and a couple of others that we almost walked out of. Unfortunately, in the early 1970’s Broadway was almost dead.

Over the years, probably due to Disney shows, “Les Miserable,” and “Phantom of the Opera,” Broadway was revitalized with many more family friendly shows. Early in its opening run, my girls and I ran up to see “Wicked” with the original cast. We lived near Baltimore at that time, so we drove up and back in one day. Here it is at least 15 years later, and I got to take my daughter and her 5 daughters to see “Wicked.” Same show, same theater, same excitement from the audience. Different cast, of course, but very good performances.

I am always so delighted at the consistency the producers strive to achieve to keep a show running for so long. And they utilize a live pit orchestra and conductor. It is so nice to feel the vibrations from the music of live musicians.

I appreciate how difficult the situation has been for the performers who couldn’t work when Broadway was shut down due to COVID. Now that shows are up and running again, I am certain they worry that they can keep audiences coming. They had just barely reduced the mask mandate in the theater when we went the other day. The next day they sent out a survey asking the patrons if they felt safe attending the show and if all of the precautions they had in place made a difference. I actually didn’t notice any precautions, or people acting worried. Then they asked if we would be returning soon to see more shows.

Well, I live in Utah. I hope I don’t have to wait another 15 years before I get to visit NYC again. But until then, I am glad that live theater in Utah is up and running and every bit as professional and amazing as what I just saw on Broadway. And we don’t have to expose ourselves to questionable fumes when waiting to get into the theaters! Yay!

New Version of an Old Favorite

7/30/2022

Some friends and I attended the Sundance Summer Theater production of Rodgers and Hammerstein's "Cinderella" last night. The mountain setting was delightful. There was a lot to enjoy about the production, especially the dancing, but I must confess I hardly recognized the show. The story line and songs had been completely reworked to be a rather far departure from the original. (I wonder where that renovated script and score came from? There was no mention in the program credits.)

What is always interesting to me in watching a live production of a fantasy show is how will they achieve the MAGICAL EFFECTS. It was fun to watch the Fairy Godmother's and Cinderella's dresses change from rags into beautiful glittering gowns. It was also fascinating to watch how the actors moved around the set pieces throughout show to change the scenes. That was pretty magical, as well, but watching the maneuvering made me tense and nervous.

Early in my experience doing live theatrical shows, I had an unfortunate accident involving the "movable" stairs of the set. Watching how the dramatic curved staircases were positioned last night and how the cast members moved around all over them brought back memories of my accident.

In my case, the crew had not moved the set pieces close enough together for a child to negotiate the gap between sections. One of my legs slipped through the gap and on the way down I got all scraped up. Fortunately, I caught myself so I didn't fall all the way down to the stage level. My fall was on the way out of the scene so some crew people were able to rescue me and quickly apply bandaids before I had to get into the next scene. "The show must go on" and all that, you know. But my 9-year-old self was pretty traumatized.

Watching the large staircases last night kept me in a state of apprehension. Oh, how I hoped the crew members would hit all of their marks and get the set pieces locked into place so the actors wouldn't have troubles. Fortunately, there were no accidents and I was able to finally relax at the end of the show.

(But I still wonder why they felt they had to so drastically rework the script...This new version was not the old favorite I remember.)

Short Orders

7/27/2022

If you came to my house for a meal you would realize that I am but a short order cook. If I can't get a meal from pantry to table in a half hour, it just doesn't happen at my house. Oh, sure, a few times a year we do special meals like Thanksgiving or Christmas that take a long time and a lot of planning, but I don't do the entire meal by myself. I cook because we have to eat, but I don't really enjoy cooking for cooking's sake.

In musicals, too, I think I prefer short, catchy songs over long, drawn-out production numbers. I was watching an old movie musical the other night where one of the songs went on and on and on for at least 15 minutes, maybe longer. The main characters sang various verses, then danced, then the dance ensemble danced and then there were more sung solo verses, then, other dancers came on in different costumes and continued to dance. There were no drastic changes in rhythms or modulations, just the music going round and round and on and on. I think it could have been plenty satisfying at 5:00 minutes or less.

Songs for Children's Musicals really need to be short and catchy. They basically have to "sing themselves" and evolve seamlessly right out of the fabric of the plot. But they also have to have variety in styles and rhythms and have unique characteristics so they are easy to remember.

One of the best compliments I ever got was during the premiere run of "The Adventures of Dick Whittington." This show was such a departure for me. I had never attempted to do Old English Pantomime before with all of its parts and pieces. Not only did the show need the flavor of England in 1605, with period costumes, and orchestration using period instruments, but it had to have the Stock Players and AUDIENCE involvement. But the biggest experiment of all was including AUDIENCE SING-ALONGS. This was risky because the audience would be asked to sing along to songs they had barely heard once in context of the show!

So, the compliment was offered by a guy who was intently watching the audience to pick up signals for me about how this SING-ALONG experiment was working. He said that he noticed that the audience was leaning forward READY at any minute to burst out singing. He said that the songs were so singable that the audience had no trouble singing along when cued. He told me that they really seemed to enjoy that part of the show and everyone he could see was definitely singing!

Well, there's a vote for a Short Order if I ever heard one!

Believing in Potential

7/18/2022

Red Guards

When you spend two weeks suspending your unbelief and imagining young children as characters in a play, seeing the kids again in a different setting can suddenly snap you back to real life. I spent weeks helping these little people assume roles of Emperors, Military Leaders, and Court Officials as well as other grown-ups. I was actually jolted back to reality when I saw some of them at Church yesterday. They really were still young, little people. I like to believe, though, that I had caught of glimpse of them as their future selves with grown-up abilities.

Doing a musical play requires the actors to do a lot. They all must sing, and dance, and learn lines, but more importantly, they must learn how the show goes together. They must learn the order of the scenes and look ahead to what comes next and where they need to be and what they need for their next entrances and to be absolutely QUIET backstage. They need to keep track of their costume pieces and props. They need to remember their places backstage and when they go on stage. There is much to learn and much to remember.

Probably the most gratifying part of directing a show is watching how these young actors help each other. I saw them help each other change their costumes and make sure everybody looked good before they went onstage. I saw them trying to take good care of their costume pieces and attempt hanging them up on their hangers. (Have you ever watched a 5-year-old try to hang up his clothes? Even trying, he gets a A for effort!) I watched older kids (9+) take care of the younger kids, shepherding them into positions. It really is a glorious thing to witness all of these selfless acts.

Seeing a few of my "grown-up" character boys yesterday at Church, I realized that they are still less than half the sizes of their fathers. As a director, I suppose you have to be able to BELIEVE that these kids can become their characters. I guess that my part, as the Director, was actually putting into practice seeing the POTENTIAL of a child.

"Summer Comes" field workers wiping the sweat from their brows

Adrenaline Rush

7/15/2022

The rush of adrenaline comes to different people at different times and in reaction to different stimuli. Gearing up for a performance does it for me. I seem to get driven by unknown power to get things accomplished heading into a show. The trouble is that after the performance is over, the adrenaline rush drains away and I am left wilted. That's when I wish I was younger and could bounce back easier.

Though, I admit that doing a production takes a lot out of me, it also feeds me. How I love doing something that takes a lot of creative energy. It makes me feel so alive. To go from basically raw material and turn that into something worth presenting to the public is definitely stimulating to me. I love seeing these young children come out of their shells. I love seeing their talents and abilities blossom.

For example, we had some surprises in our last show. I had written some new material for some older boys that had signed up to do the Camp. But, then those singing boys couldn't do the show after all. So, I had a problem. Do I take a chance on casting other boys in those parts or just eliminate the new song? Do I give a difficult partner song to boys who had never sung in public before let alone had never tried to hold their own while another melody is happening at the same time? In the end, the new boys rose to the challenge and did fine.

The choreographer had her own battles with the little girl dancers. It turns out that some 7-year-olds have interests and skills that others haven't developed quite yet. Instead of six parasol dancers, it was reduced to three. Then one girl volunteered to learn two specialty dances to fill in as the fourth parasol dancer. (That balanced our stage picture better.)

I usually don't give speaking parts to 5-year-olds, but this time I had to. And it was a good thing I did, because they were our "cute" factor. They did such a good job!

"A Successor to the Throne" has parts for many children of varying ages and with varying degrees of difficulty. There were many moving parts that had to be coordinated in this show. And, due to the incredible swiftness of a 2-week intensive Theater Camp, I was rather worried that the show wouldn't come together. Yet, these kids were real troupers. Even with intense summer heat, distractions with toys out in the backyard, and not really enough rehearsal spaces, they still pulled off a beautiful show.

I am so proud of my little performers! Apparently, many are already talking about doing next year's show!

(I wonder how long it will take for me to recuperate and get some adrenaline back?)

Successful Successor 2022

7/12/2022

It was tenuous for a time, but the show went on as planned. "A Successor to the Throne" Summer Theater Camp 2022. We had many troubles along the way, but somehow we forged onward and came out on top. Never before had I had a Summer Theater Camp beset with so many problems. We had to basically recast the show six different times due to people signing up, then pulling out, or just not showing up during Camp. Then we had last minute illness that took two girls completely out of the performance. Fortunately, we had a couple of other girls who could quickly fill in their essential parts.

All in all, the performance went well. We did have some potentially disastrous costume malfunctions, though, such as shoelaces coming untied, actors running out with their costume pieces on inside out, or one poor kid who didn't have his outer coat because another kid went out in the wrong costume. The kids went on anyway like troupers and stayed in character. Apparently, the audience didn't notice those things.

From the audience perspective, they told me that all they saw was a polished show with a wonderful message and singable songs. They were so blown away by how the children seemed to know exactly what to do and when to do it. In their eyes, the show flowed seamlessly. The parents and grandparents who sought me out told me that they simply could not believe how we could get kids to learn such a lot in such a sort time - 2 short weeks with so many very young children! One woman told me that she had never seen such a polished children's theater production even in the well-funded community theaters in our town. She loved "A Successor to the Throne" a retelling of the Chinese Folk Tale "The Empty Pot."

One comment I especially appreciated. The mother said that she loved the song at the end where the Emperor sang about comparing the potential of a seed to the potential of a child. She said that made her cry.

So glad that the message came through!