I was so excited to receive the newsletter from my local drive-in movie theater this week, and I’m so glad I checked it when I did – tonight there is a special showing of Wizard of Oz (which just happens to be my favorite movie of all time) at the drive-in!  I can’t wait to watch it under the stars!  I am so glad that I didn’t wait to open the newsletter; I can’t imagine how disappointed I would have been if I had missed the email or had something else planned!  I only checked it yesterday otherwise I would have put together a costume.  But that’s ok, I’m just happy to be going, and I will bring along my hard-cover coffee table book that just happens to have the full script printed inside it.  Boy, will that drive my fellow drive-in friends nuts, but then again, it’s not like I  need the script in front of me to recite the movie.  😉

I am so excited!!

If you’re a fan of Wicked, stop reading because the following post might offend you, by no means am I pulling any punches.  I had kind of a stressful day that I can’t post about, and then I read this article, so that was the icing on the cake.  Think I’ll take out my frustrations on pop culture – things that don’t really matter in real life.

I just read an offensive (to me) article detailing the no fewer than SIX Wizard of Oz spinoffs currently being developed in Hollywood.  Luckily for the world and movie fans abound, most of them won’t see the light of day, but unfortunately at least one or even a few will make it through production and be released into mainstream society, poisoning the legacy of Baum’s characters and the 1939 MGM cinematic masterpiece we true fans hold dear.  Before you think I’m overreacting, read the synopses I included below.  If you’re still not offended, do a google image search to dredge up the action figures from the Twisted Oz series, but make sure your kids aren’t in the room first.  What is this world coming to?

I bring Wicked into this because I blame the franchise – once someone decided to write a book imagining their own version of Baum’s characters, the door was blown wide open.  Sure, there have been uncountable Wizard of Oz spinoffs.  The Muppets had one, the Veggie Tales had one, and countless sitcoms from the last 7 decades had their shots at putting their main characters in versions of Munchkinland.  But not until Wicked took off in popularity have people really started abusing the integrity of Baum’s original characters and, more importantly to me, massacring the sweet and innocent 1939 MGM movie – my favorite movie for many reasons, the main one being how advanced in many ways it truly was for its day.  Sure, 1985’s debacle Return to Oz was no picnic, but did it really do any significant damage?  Not really, it was never really liked nor taken seriously.  I like to make this comparison:  take another movie classic, say, Gone With The Wind.  Now take an “author” (really just some who is literate enough to be able to put words together to  make a story) and imagine them creating a  “backstory” for the Civil War characters Rhett Butler and Scarlett O’Hara.  Let’s make Rhett, oh, let’s say he was an astronaut before he met Scarlett and let’s make her an ER doctor – that’s why she has trouble attaching to people; it’s because she loses them in the ER.  Doesn’t make much sense, does it?  Probably because Gone With the Wind is what it is –  an epic story set during the 1800’s when those professions did not exist as we know them today.  Do you see my point?  Wicked has the witches going to school and other ridiculous scenarios – I’m not going to falsely claim to be an expert as I’ve never read the book nor seen the show.  Perhaps if I saw the show, I would like it –  everyone seems to rave about it, and the costumes are supposed to be amazing.  Maybe so, but they should have left my favorite movie alone!  They could have started from scratch, wrote their own stories with their own characters, and I would have been perfectly happy to check out Wicked the show.  But they had to steal Baum’s ideas and MGM’s visions just to put a brand-name on a product to sell, and this my friends, is called “selling out”.

And as a result, we might be faced with the following junk polluting our theaters in the future (taken from this article from moviefone):

•’Surrender Dorothy’
Who’s behind it? Drew Barrymore’s production company, Flower Films
What’s it about? According to Pajiba, the latest version of the script, by Zach Helm (‘Stranger Than Fiction’) is an ‘Enchanted’-like story that sees the Wicked Witch of the West still alive and threatening to take over our world as well as Oz. It’s up to Dorothy’s great-great-granddaughter to figure out how to use the ruby slippers to defeat her.
Status: Barrymore’s been developing this project since way back in 1999, when she was still a fresh-faced ingenue who’d just played Cinderella in ‘Ever After.’ Today, Pajiba says, the 35-year-old is unlikely to star in it, but she would direct it as her follow-up to her directing debut in last year’s ‘Whip It.’ Pajiba imagines she might cast ‘Whip It’ star Ellen Page, who would indeed make a fine Dorothy. Still, with 11 years having gone by, it doesn’t seem like Barrymore’s exactly in a hurry to get this off the ground.

•’Oz the Great and Powerful’
Who’s behind it? Disney and ‘Alice in Wonderland’ producer Joe Roth
What’s it about? The script by Mitchell Kapner (‘The Whole Nine Yards’) tells the backstory of how the wizard went from earthbound carnival mountebank to becoming the fearsome and mysterious sorcerer of the Emerald City.
Status: Given the success of the Roth-produced ‘Alice,’ Disney is likely to fast-track this movie, which was formerly titled ‘Brick’ (as in “yellow”?), according to the Los Angeles Times. Now that the next James Bond movie has been postponed and his schedule freed up, Sam Mendes has been approached to direct and Robert Downey Jr. to star, reports FirstShowing. Neither has yet said yes.

•’Oz’
Who’s behind it? Temple Hill, the production company behind the ‘Twilight’ movies
What’s it about? According to the Los Angeles Times, the script by Darren Lemke (‘Shrek Forever After’) is a faithful retelling of L. Frank Baum’s first novel in the saga, ‘The Wonderful Wizard of Oz.’ Imagine the Judy Garland movie, but with more action and no music.
Status: Coming from the New Line division of Warner Bros., this has the potential to launch a vast franchise based on the 22 ‘Oz’ books. Which is why it’s the most likely of the three competing ‘Oz’ projects at Warners (see below) to see the light of day.

•’The Twisted Land of Oz’
Who’s behind it? Comic book gorehound and toymaker Todd McFarlane (‘Spawn’)
What’s it about? Based on McFarlane’s own decidedly R-rated ‘Twisted Land of Oz’ line of figurines, his Oz includes a Scarecrow who’s torn apart by ravenous birds, a Tin Man who’s a junkpile of Edward Scissorhands-like limbs, a flesh-eating Lion who’s not at all cowardly, a Wizard who’s a gas-mask-wearing mad scientist, a carnivorous creature dubbed Toto after it eats Dorothy’s dog, and a nubile Dorothy who’s bound and molested by depraved Munchkins.
Status: There was confusion in the trade press (including some strewn by McFarlane himself) between this project and Josh Olson’s, (see below) since both were pitched to production company Thunder Road, with an eye toward distribution by Warner Bros. Last we heard from McFarlane (via MTV), back in September, he was grumbling over Thunder Road’s apparent decision to go with Olsen’s more family-friendly script instead of his own. McFarlane also claimed at one point that Michael Bay was interested in directing, but we imagine he’s a little too busy making movies based on another line of toys.

•’Oz: Return to the Emerald City’
Who’s behind it? Screenwriter Josh Olson (‘A History of Violence’)
What’s it about?In a plot that sounds a lot like ‘Surrender Dorothy,’ a descendant of Dorothy Gale (this time, her granddaughter) living in contemporary America (she’s a young associate at a top Chicago law firm) is called upon to defeat a new witch making trouble in Oz. Aiding the young woman are the Scarecrow, Tin Man, and Cowardly Lion that she’s been hearing her grandmother talk about for years.
Status: Olsen has denied ever being affiliated with the McFarlane ‘Oz,’ telling MTV in January that the script he delivered to Thunder Road and Warner Bros. was based on his own original pitch. Dakota Fanning was rumored at one time to be up for the younger Dorothy, but that rumor proved false (makes sense, since Olsen’s granddaughter character is an adult). Of course, both Olsen’s and McFarlane’s projects have to compete with Temple Hill’s for Warners’ favor.

•’Wicked’
Who’s behind it? Universal
What’s it about? It’s a film version of the Broadway smash about what Glinda the Good Witch and the Wicked Witch of the West were like when they were schoolmates, well before Dorothy showed up. (Think ‘Mean Girls’ with green face paint.) Winnie Holzman, who wrote the book for the musical, has also written the screenplay.
Status: Universal is a co-producer of the stage show and has owned the film rights since the play opened seven years ago. Despite an IMDB listing that cites a 2012 release date, there’s been no sign of progress beyond script stage. No one has been cast, though let’s hope this gets rolling before original stars (and recurring ‘Glee’ guest players) Kristin Chenoweth and Idina Menzel are too old to reprise their stage roles.

WHEW!  I have to admit that we totally overdid it on Halloween, but in a good way – at one point in the evening, my 5-year-old said “how many parties are we going to?!?  We threw a Halloween-themed game night on Friday, complete with things like spider venom, truth serum, and rat vomit for drinks and snacks.  Most guests wore costumes, and there was a wide collection of characters, from witches to fishes to Star Wars characters and a vampire – we even had a gay construction worker!  Fun was had, but as usual, we stayed up too late and failed to rest up for our huge day ahead –  HALLOWEEN!

We began Saturday by making the rats costumes and taking them to the pet store for a costume contest.  No word yet how they placed in the contest, but Bobby Jack dressed as a zebra while Oreo was a Pink Lady from Grease – the kids had a blast!  We took  the rats home and headed out to the ice rink for the annual community Halloween party – one of my favorite things about living here.  We get there right when it opens and head straight for the hayride, where we are driven around the huge park.  Occasionally, creepy creatures run from hideouts among the trees and chase the wagon!  Not as many people were in line this year, so we got to ride the hayride twice, and then the kids tried some of the games, the maze, and the bouncy castles, while Mom and Dad chatted with long-lost friends and sipped slushies and hot chocolate (everything at this party is free and donated by local businesses and organizations!)  We got our hot dogs to go this year, and they told us to take a huge pumpkin home – we still have to carve our pumpkins, so we were more than happy to get one more!

We were able to rest for about an hour, then it was time for trick-or-treating.  We moved into our neighborhood 3 years ago, and we learned the first year that it’s not good for trick-or-treating.  We love where we live, but come Halloween, it seems like many neighbors aren’t home, so we’d have to make the kids walk blocks for only a few houses with porch lights on.  So we drive across town and trick-or-treat in a friendly neighborhood where some friends live, and we started with  their house.  Our little guy dressed as Barney, Disney was Dora the Explorer, Sammie was a princess, and Taylor was a bloody prom girl.

Oh wait, you need to see Barney with his tail 😉

I absolutely love Halloween – of course I think my own kids were the cutest, but I  love seeing all the kids dressed up.  An honorable mention goes to the 4 teenage boys who were dressed as the Teletubbies – my 3-year-old daughter was asking where the Teletubbies were all night, but we never did catch up to them…

We took in quite a haul with the 4 kids, and after the second house, our 15½-month-old had the hang of taking candy from strangers.  Ok, that sounds really bad, but Halloween is a unique event, he was allowed, and it was really cute!  We got in the car after we were done trick-or-treating and headed over to a party at our friends’ church.  The kids had a blast there as always, and we made out like bandits in the raffle!  Years of not winning anything we entered apparently caught up with us on Halloween night because a few bucks in raffle tickets won us 2 value meals at Burger King and 3 really cool brand new toys for the kids!

But here is where things start to change from perfect to overwhelming – at the church we ran into my Kindergartner’s friend Hannah from preschool.  This child has many medical issues, and she’s been in and out of the hospital her entire life for brain surgeries.  Her mother was telling us how she doesn’t like her preschool anymore and how she’s been depressed because she doesn’t have any friends.  So who could possible tell this little girl “no” when she asked if she could come sleep over again?  Certainly not us, no matter how exhausted we were from the weekend’s activities…

After the church, we headed over to the community theater where they were having a Wizard of Oz party.  I  was completely exhausted, and we had to hurry home to meet up with my daughter’s little friend, but I really enjoyed the Wizard of Oz party during the short time we were there.  They did an AWESOME job with the decorations, and there were so many neat Oz-themed games and activities – even a yellow brick road! -that I will forgive the inclusion of some things from Wicked.  I guess I should say for any readers who don’t know – I’m a huge Wizard of Oz fan, but it’s the movie that I really enjoy.  I don’t remember the book much, and what I’ve seen of Wicked did not impress me, to say the least, but that’s another blog post altogether…

So FINALLY we get home, and Hannah is waiting for us.  At this point, I was SO incredibly tired, not to mention my car full of garbage, pieces of costume, and spilled candy.  All I wanted to do was end Halloween my favorite way –  watching a scary movie with Hubby.  So we got the kids (all SIX of them, since two daughters had friends over) as settled as was humanly possible after I-don’t-even-want-to-think-about how much candy and were about to  start our movie when Hannah comes down the stairs.  We sent her back up, and checked email and basically killed some time until we felt confident we could start a movie without any kids coming downstairs or calling for us.  Well, that never happened.  Somehow, we had forgotten that Hannah is a friend who is very needy and also one who outright REFUSES to go to bed.  We started the movie anyway, and we only had to interrupt it like 5 times (a late 80’s thriller called I,Madman – both hubby and I recommend it!).  But Hannah began one of her many descents down the stairs right during a climatic moment in the movie, which made my husband jump a mile high, which in turn made my heart stop and stomach drop.  And that was when I  knew I wouldn’t be falling asleep for hours.  Hannah finally fell asleep when there was only 15 minutes left in the movie, but she outlasted every one of the other kids, and by then, it was 2 am!  I guess you could say I put my extra daylight savings hour to good use; I think it’s the only hour of sleep I got!  I had trouble falling asleep, then I had terrible nightmares all night and kept waking up –  one was about Hannah; I’m not even kidding!  I woke up early to the sounds of kids playing and couldn’t fall back asleep.  So here we are, the Sunday after Halloween, dead tired with a messy Halloween-themed house and a trashed car.  But at least our house once again contains only the 4 kids who live here, and the main trouble-maker has been sacked out all day – told you we overdid it!

Hope you had a GREAT Halloween!!!

Well, Halloween is just around the corner, and I have yet to pick out a costume.  Err, costumes… um, for the kids, of course…  Ok, I’m caught – I dress up for Halloween.  However, I don’t go all out.  I take pride in wearing cool costumes that I can obtain on a shoestring budget.  For example, I’ve wanted to  reprise my Kindergarten Halloween costume for years (“Dorothy from the Wizard of Oz”), but I have yet to find the dress for free in my size (I’m not about to spend money on my own Halloween costume when I have 4 kids I’d rather see dressed however crazily they wish).  I’m not too worried about my costume though; I always have a back-up Halloween costume plan.  I have a witch’s hat, complete with orange hair.  And I can wear almost anything clothes-wise, which will ensure that I’m warm and comfortable, no matter what the Halloween weather up here in Bufu Ohio.  Being a witch also means that my kids can do my makeup, however madly they would like to do it – all the more fun to add to one of my favorite holidays.  So, my Halloween bases are covered…  now I just have 4 little kids to deck out…

My oldest (going on 10) wants to be a ‘bloody prom girl’ (her words).  I say, go for it.  It may not be the most innocent of costumes, but it could certainly be worse (have you seen  Mean Girls?  Remember the quote that begins, “Halloween is the one night a year when girls can dress…”  This is not the type of blog where I would want to continue the quote, but let’s just say that I both celebrate and am thankful for my daughter’s kid-inspired creativity.

Our second-born, who is 5, wants to be a princess.  Being a family with 3 little girls who love to play dress-up, that should be a cinch.  We have a couple of tiaras to choose from, as well as princess dresses.  The key will be to find one that she will agree to wear over her other clothes so she doesn’t freeze!

And our youngest daughter, who will be newly 3 by the time Trick-or-Treat rolls around, wants to be “Dora, and Boots, and Diego, and the Marshmallow Monkey.”  I don’t think she remembers what it’s like to dress-up for Halloween – I don’t have the heart to tell her that she can only be one character.  For now, we have a  Dora costume ready and waiting, and we also have a back-up princess dress in case she decides she wants to be like her sisters.

The little dude will wear whichever costume I can find in the basement that is in his size – I’m thinking it’s a lion.  I  know I also have a size 18-months Minnie Mouse costume, but I am not going to dress my little man as a female character – poor guy has 3 older sisters and is already concernedly obsessed with headbands and necklaces.  But that’s another blog altogether…

Happy Halloween!

I found a big behind-the-scenes book about my favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz.  I remember getting this book as a kid, but I read the juicy parts (many of the rumors about wild Munchkin behavior are true), skipped the rest of the book, and forgot about it.  So I came across it as an adult; it’s one ofthe few things that somehow clang to us through more than a few moves throughout the midwest.  I’ve been enjoying reading many Oz secrets lately, and I’m currently on the chapter about the script.  In the ’30’s, MGM (the movie studio that made the Wizard of Oz) had salaried writers, so they would assign a few to write a “treatment” of a project, or a sample of script.  Several of the writers had some interesting ideas for L. Frank Baum’s Oz project; including bizarre characters.  For example, one writer created a son for the Wicked Witch of the West – a dimwitted guy named Bulbo.  She wanted to attack Oz with “ten thousand armies, 2 thousand wolves, and 200 flying monkeys” to defeat the Wizard and make Bulbo the king of Oz.  In another treatment, the cowardly lion was actually a man who was to marry a girl named Sylvia.  The witch wanted Sylvia for her son Bulbo’s bride, so she turned the man into the cowardly lion.  A couple of the writers who were working as a team decided that there shouldn’t be any death in their family-friendly picture, so they decided that when the house falls on the Wicked Witch of the East, she should turn into something less threatening; like a parrot or a white tabby cat.  That would have been silly!

While all of these possible Oz variations are fun to read about, I’m really glad that the Wizard of Oz ended up as the movie its legions of fans are familiar with – we love it just the way it is!

I’d think these are the same person:

The Cowardly Lion, fictional movie character, 1939

Drew Peterson, suspected wife murderer, 2008

I got an email a few months ago comparing a bunch of people’s faces to other pictures.  It was funny to see the resemblance between people you wouldn’t have otherwise thought about – like the two pictured above.

For those of you who don’t know, Drew Peterson is a former police officer who lives in the suburbs of Chicago.  He is somewhat of a celebrity these days because his young 4th wife Stacy went missing over a year ago.  During the search for her, his 3rd wife’s body was exhumed and another autopsy was performed.  Following this autopsy, they changed the 3rd wife’s cause of death from accidental drowning to homicide.  This and other aspects of this case always point to Drew being responsible for some sort of foul play on Stacy.  The man is very smug, and some of the things he’s said to the media are shockingly rude and callous toward Stacy.  He is an infamous jerk, and I think he actually likes the public and media attention.  I’ve take an interest in the case because I’m originally from the area where they lived, and during the national coverage of this case, I follow along, knowing the towns and areas they’re talking about.  Drew was on the Dr. Phil show the other day, and he was smug as ever…  He is in court currently on a weapons charge, and I got the idea to compare his picture to the cowardly lion when someone posted a comment on the story on dailyherald.com – good observation!  If I can dig out that original email comparing the pictures, I should post it on my blog and add these two to the email!

This post is titled after a line from my favorite movie, The Wizard of Oz.  In case you live in a hole or you’re Amish, the movie is about a girl named Dorothy who runs away and gets swept into a mystical land.  Of course, if you’re Amish, I don’t know why you’re reading my blog, but I’m glad you are.  But the reason I’m writing this is that it’s happened – we’ve had our first threat of running away from a kid.  For those of you who know our family, you get only one guess as to who it was.  Got your guess?  Ok, it was Samantha – SURPRISE!  It’s funny because my husband and I were just discussing this a few days ago.  We talked about how seemingly every little kid plans to run away at one time or another.  We also talked about how if any of our kids were going to run away, we both thought it would be Samantha (she’s 4, by the way, if you don’t know us, and she’s always been a firecracker, even as far back as her womb-dwelling days).  And now here we are, mere days later, and she brings it up.  She didn’t attempt it or say it out of anger; what happened is this:  She was bouncing on our bouncing zebra toy, which actually belongs to her little sister, Disney.  Since Disney is almost 2, seeing Samantha on the bouncing zebra made her suddenly decide that she wanted to play on it, of course.  So I asked Sammie to give Disney a turn, and she refused.  I started threatening things like making her take a nap, time-out, and taking toys away, and for each punishment, she had an answer.

“I’m going to have to make you take a nap then.” was met with  “I won’t sleep.”

“Then I’ll have to take away one of your toys.” was followed by “Then I’ll run away.”

Well, the situation was resolved when Disney asked for a popsicle.  I was more than happy to give her one because she is being SO good today; polar opposite of the hellish day she made for me yesterday.  The new popsicles I bought today weren’t frozen yet, and all we had was some random soccer ball popsicle I found in the freezer.  I gave it to her, totally over-emphasizing what a good girl she’s been today so hopefully she’ll get the message and stay this way.  But I gave it to her knowing we might have a problem when I didn’t have any for the other kids, which is a golden rule of parenting that must not be broken:  if you have 2 kids, obtain things and give them out in twos.  If you have 3 kids, you must always have 3 treats, toys, what have you.  Whatever it is, there always has to be one per kid – I call this the ‘separate but equal law of parenting’.  So today I broke the separate but equal law, and guess what I got in return?  A tantrum, of course.  I explained to Sammie that Disney got the popsicle because she was being good, and that Sammie was not being good.  She said, “But I’m being good now!”  And I agreed, but I also explained that I had said she would be punished for not doing as I said by sharing with her sister and so this was her punishment.  She threw a tantrum, but got over it rather quickly.  I think she might have actually learned a lesson.

But back to the running away.  I think every kid tries it or at least thinks about it.  But of course, since they’re kids, the plans are never very well thought out.  Like everyone, I tried it to, and my plan was packing a can of spaghettios in a suitcase.  I was thinking ahead about being hungry, but of course I hadn’t planned where I would be going or even how I was going to open that can of spaghettios.  I don’t even remember what prompted my decision to run away, which says something about how insignificant my parents’ wronging me really was.  One time when my sister wanted to run away, she went so far as to call our aunt to come pick her up – luckily my aunt called my mom to double-check, but at least my sister had a plan.  Most kids who think about running away don’t have a good solid plan, and many of them realize this before they actually leave the house.  Let’s hope we are lucky enough to have that happen with Samantha if she decides to follow through on her threat.

Reading the post on Jamiahsh’s blog about his favorite things, I started to respond to his post then realized I probably had enough information for my own post, so here goes.  While I was in a school play when I was 7 and in the chorus of one when I was 10, theatre didn’t really enter my vocabulary until I was 16, before my senior year in high school.  Here are some of my milestones and interests in this regard:

Cheaper by the Dozen [note: link is not my production] (yes, it was a book, play, and movie before Steve Martin came along…) was a play my church at the time did as a student show.  I got to play the role of a 10-year old (I was 16 at the time, but then none of us were younger than high school) and had such a blast at it I would delve into theatre big time after this.

Scapino! was the first show I acted in in high school.  I played the part of Argante.  Very fun, and probably the most interesting audition I had ever.  This included theatre games and improv in addition to a little singing and script reading.

South Pacific was another high school show I didn’t try out for since it was a musical (hadn’t been bitten by that particular bug yet), but it was the first and only show I ever played in the pit orchestra.  I used to play trumpet but I wasn’t very good at it.  I never could get past moving my jaw as I played, a big no-no in technique.

Bishop of Aahs was written in-house (in-church I guess) as a parody of, you guessed it, Wizard of Oz.  This was the second show I did at my church and the second show that opened new doors for me, this time into musical theatre.  I played one of several “munchkins” (teenage kids).  Unfortunately that’s about all I remember of it.  Of course we sang munchkin songs with new lyrics.  Of course I started trying out for musicals after this.

Finian’s Rainbow was the first community theatre show I ever performed in.  Well, it was youth community theatre and not really a very well-run group (though it still exists today).  Anyway I was just in the chorus for this one, but hey, chorus members are people too!  After this show I would start private vocal lessons.

Phantom of the Opera was a show I have never been in, though I did do a different Phantom about 12 years ago.  Rather, this was the first professional musical I heard on CD, and later saw in Chicago.  This would be the only musical I listened to for awhile, though I did eventually broaden my horizons first with other Andrew Lloyd Webber shows including the dreadful Aspects of Love, and later with other shows.  Les Miserables would become my new favorite a few years later.  I still want to be in that show- come on, release the amateur rights already!

Speaking of Les Miz, it was the first and only show I ever auditioned for professionally.  They never called me…

Grease was a show I was in twice and didn’t perform even once.  Both times the rights were pulled when the tour came to town.  If you ask me, the second time the group should have done it anyway- pulling the rights is just evil.  Once give, the publisher shouldn’t be able to go back on it.  The first time they lost the rights immediately and so were able to do another show with the cast they had (Do Black Patent Leather Shoes Really Reflect Up?).  This became the first show I had a solo song in.  I was never told what role I had in Grease, though a friend tells me it was a combination of the Teen Angel and another role.  The second time I was actually asked to be in the show and was given the role of Roger.  We made it about halfway through rehearsing before we lost the rights.

Little Shop of Horrors… Okay, let’s not talk about this one.

Oliver! was a show I had a huge interest in at one time (I still have multiple CDs of this show).  I did try out for it a couple of times previously, but just a couple of years ago it became the first show I ever had a true lead in.  I was offered the role of Fagin, and according to several people I did an outstanding job at it.  Life has kept me from community theatre since, but I have been doing drama at my church so it hasn’t been all bad.  Next show…?  I would like to do Secret Garden I think, but who knows what the future will bring?

Yes, Spring has finally arrived. For most, that means looking forward to making plans for the summer getaway. For me it means looking forward to auditioning for one of two (or this year…. three) big musical productions in the area. I narrowed my choices down to two this week. I really wanted to audition for a production of The Wizard of Oz. I have always wanted to be the Cowardly Lion…. a fantastic character role if ever there was one. I contacted the director of the show to ask about performance dates. Alas, they begin in mid-July (after auditions for another play I am extremely excited about trying out for (now be nice)… The Nerd. And yes, I will be auditioning for the title role, but of course will gladly accept any part offered to me.

Even while considering the possibility of dreaming that “If I Were King of the Forrrrrrest” (not Queen, not Duke, not Prince), the more logical option seemed to be to try out for the musical that is closer to home with the group I have been involved with for the past two years. It will save a bit of money on the gas tank as well. So…. according to an email I received earlier today, I will make my way tomorrow to audition for a role in Little Women (and yes, there are male roles in the production).