Good 'ole Weathervane

Yesterday my sister got me a comp ticket to Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat at one of Akron's community playhouses, Weathervane. My sister is the educational director there, and this particular show is an annual youth production. It's a crazy 6 or 7 week run, but only Fridays/Saturdays/Sundays, and each two weeks they use a different children's choir for the echo chorus parts.

So yesterday, the last show, my niece Calista (Kah-LEE-stah) got to perform. She isn't in any of the choirs that were chosen, but they were a few kids short and it was the final performance. Naturally, she had been in the building for a zillion rehearsals, so she knew the show very well, rehearsed a few times and was inserted in. When she got on stage, I waved (of course), and Calista (who hasn't done much theatre) waved back. I started giggling, I couldn't help myself. She watched me during the whole show though, because she asked me afterward if I liked it because she saw my furrowed brow throughout the whole show. She's so observant. I guess I was a bit shocked at some of the scenes and some of the teen actors' behavior on stage. It was very, very good, it's not that it wasn't, but some of the kids OVERact to the extreme, so she probably saw my expressions as I reacted to them. Oh well.

I was very proud of her. She's naturally shy talking to people, but hanging out at the theatre is helping her to break out of that. She held my hand and dragged me around the lobby afterward introducing me to everyone in the cast as her aunt. It was very sweet. She's 8 years old and will be 9 in April. She's growing up so fast...

Anyway, here's a snapshot of us after the show. My little Calista...