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A Little Personal History

6/26/2020

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     We have decided to go ahead with our Family Reunion despite the Covid-19 social distancing and quarantine regulations this summer.  We are doing some of the familiar things, but definitely not the high adventure activities we usually try to do.  Most activities will be close to home and won't involve spending much money.  I guess that is a good thing in the long run.

     As part of our Family Reunion, we are doing a Cousins Theater Camp.  Many of my grandchildren live on opposite coasts of the country.  As a result, they have not been involved in any of Grandma's shows before.  In fact, I realized that these young people really don't know any of my background and history.  With that in mind, I decided to write and illustrate a few formative stories from my youth and put them into an Early Reader Chapter Book format.  These stories are about how I got involved in singing and doing Musical Theater.
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My mother, Carolyn Thompson Lee was extremely talented.  She could sing and dance, could play the piano effortlessly, and could throw together a show at the drop of a hat.  She had her children performing from practically the day of their births.  Even though these are memories from my own childhood, in a way, these stories honor her most of all.  She was such a driving force in making exciting things happen for me, as well as my siblings, and anyone else within her sphere of influence.
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​The first story, Betsy Takes a Bow, tells how my mother taught me little songs to sing and had me performing from the time I began talking.  She always told people that I learned to sing before I learned to talk. When I was two, she coaxed me into singing by allowing me to wear what I considered my fancy costume --- my "ruffly, fluffly" white petticoat.

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The second story, Betsy Loves to Sing, is about how Aunt Janie Thompson began including me in a children's trio when I was 5.  We sang for some pretty big gatherings in front of very large audiences.

Janie Thompson was actually quite a famous entertainer and director in her own right.  At the end of World War II, she toured the world as a Big Band singer with the Ike Carpenter Band.  She and Tony Bennett were the singers.  Janie was asked to return to BYU to train young performers in the early 1950's.  She then took those talented college kids performing all over the world.

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The third story, Betsy Takes Piano Lessons, is about the problem of being the 6 year old daughter of a talented mother who desperately wanted her own daughter to have advantages that she did not have growing up. 

​Unfortunately, I did not think any teacher measured up to my own mother and I did not appreciate piano lessons very much.

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The fourth story Betsy Directs a Musical is actually dedicated to a favorite Elementary School Teacher.  Mrs. Richardson not only allowed, but encouraged a group of over-zealous 5th graders to put on their own version of Peter Pan in front of the entire school.

​I hope my grandchildren can humor their Grandma and get to know the reasons why I do the things I do.  I blame it all on my mother!


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Cousins Theater Camp

6/9/2020

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         Our Bailey Family Reunion is coming up in July.  We are determined to get some new Family Portraits taken that reflect the changes in our family.  Since the last picture we have gained three new members!  That needs to be documented!  We also plan to do anything fun we can think of that is allowed in this time of Covid-19 Pandemic Social Distancing.

          I recently pitched the idea of having a Cousins Theater Camp as part of our Bailey Family Reunion in July.  I was feeling deprived that I wouldn't be able to have regular Summer Theater Camps either in my backyard or in Pennsylvania for a daughter's Church group.  

​            Looks like everyone is on board!

          This is the perfect year for having the cousins camp for our 8 boys and 16 girls.   We have a big core group of children that fall into the right ages between 4-13.  We have a few older siblings who have agreed to be helpers and a few younger who, no doubt, will lend some refreshing comic relief with their inventive creative dancing.  (The youngest girls are ages 18 months and almost 3)
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The show is a musical retelling of the Aesop Fable "The Country Mouse and the City Mouse."  Not everybody is invested enough to spend a lot of time learning staging and memorizing parts.  Some would rather not be on stage at all.  But that is not the point!

​          The point is that a few of the 8-12 year old girls had significant rolls in cancelled school shows, and had also been signed up to do a Theater Camp this summer.  But due to circumstances beyond their control, they have been denied these opportunities.  So, I have simplified this little script so that these girls can do the parts that require more preparation and the others kids can just do the lighter fun parts.

            We are doing  a Theater Camp in a day, or rather 4 hours, start to finish.  Most will come with their songs learned and their one-liner parts memorized. We will spend the morning learning some simple staging and movement.  The oldest girls are teenagers --- two are theater geeks who will act as Narrator/Prompters, and the other two will be little Kid Wranglers. The older boys will be stage hands and sound techs.  Fortunately, these children  have mothers who have all had a lot of theatrical experience and will help make this happen.

            That leaves very few in the audience, just the dads basically, but we don't care!  They just better laugh and applaud ---- ON CUE!

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    Author

    My name is Betsy Bailey.  I have sung, written and taught music all of my life.  I enjoy writing and directing Children's Theater shows.  This blog will be directed to topics on creating the magic of Children's Theater.  I would love to hear your comments!

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