It is amazing how fast time flies especially when you are having fun. I can't believe it has been a month since I wrote. There were lots of good intentions but it seems like when I got involved in Mary Poppins a lot of things sort of got put on hold. What an amazing experience it was.
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| Let's Go Fly A Kite |
Back in June I wrote a story about going to the auditions for Ardmore Little Theater's production of Mary Poppins. It had been many years since I had gone to actual auditions for anything, had never been to a production there and only knew one person who was going to try out. To top everything off I had only gotten permission from the orthopedist four days before that I no longer had to have my broken arm in a sling after twelve weeks. Actually since I did not have any music for the singing audition and my arm would only bend up and down at the elbow for the dance audition I decided to just go and see what it was all about.
It was a very strange feeling that swept over me watching other people audition. Memories of my first week of college sort of flooded back. I had decided to major in theater and dance at college until I went to the classes the first week of school. I was attending an all-girl's college rather well known for it's theater and dance programs. They actually had a summer stock theater and an awesome dance program. My only problem was that "preppy" little me was overwhelmed by the multitude of beautiful girls in their leotards, capes and long flowing hair. After a week of agony my advisor suggested I switch to TV, Radio and Film Production. That worked for me.
Somehow I managed to get through the Mary Poppins auditions and did get a call back and a place in the show. Even managed to have two lines and as a member of the ensemble was in all the musical numbers. I can't praise the cast, directors or the stage and set crews highly enough. It is hard to believe that in thirty-eight days from auditions to opening Mary Poppins was a smash hit. One gentleman told my husband, Marshell, that it was the very best musical production he had ever seen at the Ardmore theater.
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| Step In Time |
Being "newbie" as I was called early on in the rehearsals was not always easy. It was always hard to answer the questions about my theater resume which is pretty nonexistent since high school and college. Also just a little difficult to realize that I was at least fifteen to twenty years older than anyone else in the cast. But I had spent a good thirty years writing and directing plays for children and organizing talent shows at my children's schools so they had the same opportunities that I had growing up. Then there were years I spent with the Southfield, Michigan Ice Company. If I could go from only being able to stop and start on ice skates when I got into the show to four years later joining a competitive Precision Ice Team, I could do this play.
A song from the play goes:
Anything can happen of you let it
If you reach for the stars all you get are the stars
But if you reach for the heavens, you get the start Stars thrown in
I sort of disagree with the "let it happen" idea. No one involved with this show just "let" things happen. From the little boy who played Michael who could not even read the words in the script to begin with but delivered seven flawless performances to the college freshman who played Mary Poppins who was bruised and sore after two nights of "flying" practise in addition to her father being in a bad accident but never missed a rehearsal and was always perfect in every way. They didn't let it happen, they made it happen.
The cast of fourty some people, the director who kept changing things to make the show perfect, the musical director who could teach anyone to sing with constructive and not hurtful words, the choreographer would could get dancers to go beyond their limits, the two costume ladies who kept their composure with constant problems, to the set guys who kept building and rebuilding the sets to make them work, to the sound and lighting crew that made the show sound and look great and to the stage manager who held everyone and every thing together none of these people "let" this play happen. They all worked hard and MADE it happen.
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| Cast Of Mary Poppins |
There is a Mary Poppins Facebook page where during the show we were all kept up to date on rehearsal times. It has been changed to Mary Poppins Post-Show Blues Support Group. It is amazing how down everyone gets when a show you spent every waking minute working on or thinking about is suddenly over. People you spent so much time and laughter with have suddenly gone back to their before-the-show lives. So we all keep in touch and tell each other it is okay to wake up in the morning singing Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious or Step In Time and how to deal with what to do every evening now that there is no rehearsal to go to.
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| Bank Scene |
I told one of the cast members that I had driven 2,509.7 miles to get to Ardmore for the auditions and the show. She said that I could have taken a nice vacation driving all those miles. Maybe but it was actually a lot more fun making the drive singing at the top of my lungs (good practise) and being a part of Mary Poppins.
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| Lily and Ben with Mary Poppins |
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