The Darndest Things

Despite being really annoying or a pain in my ass sometimes, the kids that I am in charge of for Christmas Carol actually say and do some absolutely adorable things sometimes.

-Today, there was a problem with the lift (elevator from the basement to the stage) and a prop. The stage manager and deck manager couldn't see exactly why the lift got stuck and what was keeping it from coming all the way up, but they knew that The Ghost of Christmas Past's lantern was involved somehow. (Christmas Past arrives on stage via the lift. The crew burries him with the snow that covers the stage, and he sits up once the lift is up to surprise Scrooge. Also, his signature prop is a lantern). Tiny Tim, who was sitting backstage waiting to go on to be little, tiny Scrooge, saw it happen, and while SM and DM were on headset trying to figure it out, Tiny Tim comes over and says "deeter, deeter, Past's lantern got smashed inbetween the lift and the stage cuz it was hanging over!" I was then able to tell the SM and DM what had happened and here the problem was all because of this adorable (and sometimes obnoxious) 7 year old. He was SO proud of himself.

-The kids who play Betsy and Henry Cratchit also play Want and Ignorance. They wear these really cool ratty lace costumes with big, full face masks. Today while walking from the trap room to stage right to change back into their Cratchit costumes, the Betsy says "this mask is really scary. It's so scary that I scared myself today."

-There are two snow drums over the stage, and the SM (who calls the show from one of the wings) has a box with controls for it. Today while we were waiting for the kids to go on for the fnally, the Peter Cratchit boy (the oldest of the kids, 11 years old) was looking at the SMs station and watching his monitors. SM then said "hey, do you want to turn the snow on to make it snow when it's time?" and Peter was all "YEA!!!" . So SM said "ok, when I tell you, push this button". Peter pushed the button and his face just ABSOLUTELY lit up. He said "thank you very much" and then was ready for his entrance. I whispered to the SM (who has a 12 year old daughter) via headset "that it was the sweetest thing I've ever seen" and he replies "well, I AM a daddy". It was too cute.

It's the little things like this that make the frustration of Tiny Tim's (brand new) leg brace breaking TWICE today managable.