So…. the “Disneyfication” of Broadway continues. There have now been 5 Disney movies made into Broadway shows (Beauty and the Beast, The Lion King, Tarzan, Mary Poppins, and now The Little Mermaid). Many critics suggest that these will be the downfall of the musical itself because the shows are not original and are only tailored to little children. I feel that any chance to introduce a ten year old child to a theatrical experience is well worth the critics panning. After all, there are more than 5 theatres on and off-Broadway.

I was fortunate enough to have seen Beauty on stage during its final previews on Broadway. It was an excellant spectacle (which is something else which has been another favorite critical complaint). The set draws the audience into the world of a small French village and to the dark castle in which the Beast resides. All of the characters from the movie are there. The music is fun along with a few new numbers added to the show. “Be Our Guest”is a show stopper with the dancing plates, cutlery, and other enchanted household objects. “If I Can’t Love Her” is sung by the Beast at the end of the first act as he falls into even more despair. Actually a fun show which will delight everyone.

The touring cast of The Lion King is coming to the Toledo Stranahan theatre this weekend through March 30. I do not know of any other show that has been performed for that long at this theatre. Apparently, they are expecting sell outs the entire run.

From everything I have read and heard, this production is supposed to be magical. Realistic puppets for background characters while other actors perform behind masks and other costumes. Again, all of the songs from the movie are featured as well as new songs such as “Morning Report” and “Endless Night.”

Beauty and the Beast and The Lion King are just two of the 5 Disney movies turned into musical extravaganzas. I do think that there should be some point at which more original productions are created which introduce children to theatre as well as entertain adults. Beginning with the END OF HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL (but since that is already a stage show…. UGH!!!!). But I do not think Broadway is in any danger of being overrun by Disney. What would be next…. DisneyYork?

Ok…. so there are 10 days until Williams County Community Theatre presents an evening of MURDER and dinner, too. Our first show is for a group of Kiwanis members at Orchatd Hills Country Club on March 1st. We also have two performances at Rita’s on the Square in Bryan, OH for the general public on March 7th and 8th.

I have never before been cast in a dinner theatre performance. I saw a performance of Nunsense in which the actors interacted with the audience between dinner courses while on my high school senior trip and it was fun. The performers kept picking on ME?!. That may have been because I called attention to myself and was sitting in the front row.

Murder with a Silver Spoon was written by one of our own community theatre members. It is just a fun, very light bit of theatre. It involves a 3rd rate (or maybe 4th rate) novelist who comes to a small town in order to promote her new book, Murder with a Silver Spoon (ironic, isn’t it?). During the course of the play and meal, there is a murder and everyone is a suspect. The bumbling sergeant and his ever-reliable, very intelligent, and quite dashing deputy attempt to solve the case.

SO….. for an evening of dining, murder, singing, and comedy be sure to call for reservations: 1-888-569-9228.

Ok, OK, OK!!!! Some people may get sick of me talking about this (hopefully not many) but for the past month the Bryan Times (a newspaper in rural Northwest Ohio) has had a feature entitled “The Love of My Life.” Various people have commented on their spouses, families, other people, and a few have described activities they enjoy. While I have yet to find that special female, I would find it very difficult to distance myself from the theatrical world. There is just something so magical about stepping onto a stage and transporting an audience into another place and time and allowing them to see into that world for a brief moment. I believe that the goal of any performer should be to entertain. However, there are times when the people on stage have the power to move and to educate an audience.

The magic of theatre is not limited to the performance. The sense of camraderie people feel who have been in multiple shows together creates a sense of family. There is set building, set unbuilding, rehearsals, show planning committies, and countless other aspects of preparation to undertake. Most important of all (well…. maybe not) come the parties!!!!! There does not even need to be a reason to have a party just a chance to get together and play games (Balderdash is a good game, “spizzerinctum” anyone?). The spizzerinctum at the party emitted a very strange odor. I dunno… can spizzerinctum have an odor? Yes, but of course.

But no matter if you are willing to stand upon a stage in front of 10 or 10,000 audience members, work behind the scenes, or just sit in the audience there is always a place for everyone in the theatrical family. Not all of us can paint a wall and make it look pretty.

She finally did it!  Tonight was Disney’s first serious attempt at walking!  Well, she has tried before, but tonight she was doing it over and over, 5 steps or more at a time!  I tried to get it on video, but as soon as I took out the camera, she got all distracted and started crawling toward the camera saying “cheese, cheese” – it was really cute, but I had to put the camera away and get back to walking!  It’s like she knew the deadline was nearing, because we have a Dr. appointment on Monday just because the Dr. wants to make sure she’s walking – she was really surprised she wasn’t walking at her 15 month appointment so she asked to see her again in a month to make sure…  Now she has until Monday to practice, and her sisters are a big help with that!  Since tomorrow is her 16 month birthday, I was wondering, how late is she?  Beyond average, I know, but I’m curious about how late kids start walking…  let me know if you know of any lazy late walkers – it’s kind of like a poll, let’s see the latest we can find, hope it’s not Disney though 😉

Ok, with a baby on the way, I’ve got baby names on the brain.  With 3 girls already, we’ve exhausted our supply of favorite girls’ names.  Since we just found out this one is also most likely a girl, we have been pondering ways to name the baby.  Our first 3 all have middle names that start with “A”s, so we’d like to keep that pattern.  The problem is, since we’ve used up all of our top choices by now, I would like to name this baby after a relative.  My relatives don’t have the best sounding names…  I don’t want to offend anyone here, so no offense, but Dolores (my grandmother), Phyllis (my mother), or even Lisa (my name = my husband’s idea to use it) just don’t appeal to me, to say the least.  I was very close to my deceased grandmother whom my husband never met, but her name was, GULP, Frances.  Now, I do not regret using the middle-names-start-with-A pattern at all, I think it’s cool and all of our girls have pretty names; so far anyway, but if we didn’t have to stick to the pattern, we could name her something we like with Frances as a middle name to use as the namesake.  But, with our lovely pattern at stake, if we’re going to use the name Frances, it has to be a first name.  After being blessed with 3 beautiful girls and getting to give them 2 names each of our choosing, I think it’d be nice to use a namesake this time.  But my husband HATES the name Frances.  I can’t say I blame him, he never met my grandmother, and I’m not a big fan of the name either, but I think it would grow on us and we could also call her by her middle name or a nickname.  And, let’s face it, we can’t get more flak than we’ve already gotten for naming our third child Disney!  That’s a long story, best to be saved for another post…  but let’s just say little Disney is our happiest baby yet, so who has any right to say what’s in a name?

Well, I suppose since this is my blog I can write about more than just subbing.  There is the retro-gamer in me, and I might say a few things here and there about it, but I think I should really just start another blog about it once this gets going.  There is also the church-goer in me.  I sing, do drama, and teach 4th/5th grades there, so it is sort of on-topic anyway, not that on-topic is a requirement for me… 😉

Tonight is the first night for Easter choir rehearsal.  Now, my church is a very large church meaning I will be one of 100+ in the choir, or one of about 30 men.  I will find out tonight whether or not I can actually do it- it all depends on whether or not we would have to sing at the end of the service- they do that from time to time.  If we do, then it would conflict with the kid’s ministry.  I can always be a little late to the class (I am one of several leaders actually as there are around 40 kids in the class each service) especially since they start with a game time, but it would be irresponsible of me to not show up for the teaching and small group times.  This is especially true on Easter, one of the two days of the year when typically more people show up than the norm.  To you who do: Jesus wants to see you in his house more! 🙂

Beyond choir, I also do drama for the younger kids, but we have next month off from that so there is no interference with it.  Well, gotta go.  It’s nearing rehearsal time.

Dr. Phil is one of my favorite tv shows, especially during the writers’ strike.  Thank goodness that’s over because my FAVORITE show is The Office, which I also plan to write about once they start airing new episodes – CAN’T WAIT!  I also enjoy Lost and what I call “junk tv”, meaning whatever is on like Moment of Truth, other fly-by-night reality shows, and shows like Cops and Dateline.  Enough of the tangents (wink, wink ;)) – back to Dr. Phil.

First, let me talk about how lucky I am to be a Dr. Phil fan living where I live, in the middle of rural Ohio, halfway between Toledo and Fort Wayne, Indiana.  That means we get two of each of the major networks, one out of Toledo, and one out of Fort Wayne.  Dr. Phil is on in Toledo at 10 am, and it’s on in Fort Wayne at 3 pm AND 7 pm.  The 10 am and 7pm airings are the same episode, so if I miss the morning one, I have another chance to catch it.  And if I miss both of those, the 3 o’clock airing from Fort Wayne is a week behind the others, giving me yet another chance to see a missed episode!

Anyway, today’s episode was disturbing.  Not like people-who-harm-children disturbing, but there was this husband who was a “right-fighter” and a “bully” – if you’re a frequent Dr. Phil watcher you will know that these are two of his favorite terms.  These and “hero”.  Hardly a week will go by when he doesn’t say “this relationship needs a hero”.  So anyway, today’s “right-fighter” was probably the worst husband I’ve ever seen on the show.  I don’t understand the point of their marriage, to be honest…  I can’t believe Dr. Phil didn’t pull out another of his favorite sayings – “Children would rather be from a broken home than living in one.”  This guy verbally and emotionally abuses his wife about her weight, cleaning, everything, then justifies his every action.  I think you probably had to watch the show to even get the severity of what was going on…  If you live near Fort Wayne, catch it next Wednesday at 3!

One problem that comes with subbing is scheduling errors and cancellations with little to no notice. There was one day last year when I signed up to sub for a social worker only to find out when I arrived that the social worker is a position that doesn’t get a sub. Okay, you might say to yourself, “how obvious,” but in that same district earlier I had subbed for a speech/language pathologist. Obviously a sub can’t really fill in for that position either, but as it turned out there was a student teacher so they needed a sub just to have a certified person in the room so I just figured this would be the case again. Well, at least they paid me for half a day’s (non)work.

Anyway, today there was another error, only it wasn’t an error. I was called in for a full day, but when I got there the plans were only for a half day. I checked with the office and it was indeed a full day they scheduled. Fortunately they had another teacher that would need me in the afternoon so they could keep me the full day. But wait, it wasn’t over. The team partner of the one I subbed for then told me shortly after that she wouldn’t be there in the afternoon and was wondering about her sub. I had to go to the office anyway about a small problem with the arrangement to work for the afternoon teacher, so I said I would ask about her sub while I was there. Well, it turned out there was no sub arranged for her. To make a long story short (yes, I know…) apparently the original teacher had requested a full day sub to cover for the two of them and her partner either wasn’t told or forgot, so they changed the arrangement again and so I wound up actually subbing for three teachers throughout the day like a floater. As you can see, the classrooms themselves aren’t the only source of drama.

And now we present…. Deep Thoughts by Jack Handy. I remember these bits from Saturday Night Live back a few years ago when it was worth watching… haven’t caught it for prolly 5 years.

An interesting question was posed to me about Star Trek. Where does one go when he/she has to go to the bathroom? I asked myself this question when it was brought to my attention that in Star Trek II, there was no way that Khan could have known Chekov when they were in the same scene for the first time during the movie. Khan’s first words to the Enterprise crewman are : “I never forget a face. Mr….. Chekov, isn’t it. I thought never to have seen your face again.” The original television episode “Space Seed” was shown at least one season prior to Chekov coming on board. I came up with the wild supposition that Khan and Chekov had to have met somehow. Why not while in the little spaceman’s room? A five-year mission is an awful long time to have to hold it in. Laugh if you must and I know that it is just a movie/tv show. What would you do if you were on a 5 year trip and didn’t know where to go? So…. where does one find relief aboard a starship? The universe may never know. Maybe they used the transporter to “beam it up” into deep space. That would give new meaning to the term…. space garbage.

Saw the movie Gone Baby Gone the other night…  Had a free rental at the video store; every once in awhile they call and give us one…  but I hate standing there forever trying to choose a good movie!  So we had Saw IV in hand, and my husband’s like, you know, we really haven’t liked the last 2 Saw’s all that much, compared to the first one.  So I said yeah, and I saw Gone Baby Gone, and since I’d heard it was supposed to be good, we went with it.  Besides, it got Oscar nominated, and I always like to be in on Oscar buzz…  Not my kind of movie.  Not that it was bad, but just a lot of dialogue and violence…  not my kind of movie.  It was entertaining, and I appreciated the twists and turns without seeing them coming, though I can’t say the same for Hubby.  We like to give movies we watch our own imdb (interent movie database – cool site!) ratings, so I gave this one a 6.2.  Hubby gave it a 4. 2.  I appreciated the movie for what it was, and I can’t say much more without spoilers, so I won’t.  The bottom line is, if you like violent crime dramas with intense dialogue, this movie is for you.  I personally have trouble following movies where they talk about a bunch of characters and the audience is expected to keep them all straight, but that’s just me.  A few plot inconsistencies, but my rating was kinda high because I did appreciate the complexity of the plot, even if it was a bit difficult for me to follow at times…  so to quote one of my favorite movies, That’s all I have to say about that.