I’m a Good Man, Too, Charlie Brown!

You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown played its entire run this week. We moved into the Covey Center on Monday for an afternoon/evening dress/tech rehearsal, and then had performances every night from Tuesday-Friday, and morning performances on Tuesday and Friday for schools.

The kids did an awesome job, and I was very proud of them. I was grateful to the friends/family who came to support the show, too: Trash Ball, Ashley, Matt, Heidi C., Mom, Mike, Lori, Kaylee, Braden, Jason, Alyssa, Eric, Elijah, Nicholas, Zach, Teri, Quincy, Bristol, Madi, Melinda, Skylar, and Lindsay. (Those are all of the ones that I know were there because I invited them. I think. I hope I didn’t forget someone…)

Here are some things that I want to make sure I remember about the show:

• I loved my tracks. I don’t care if I go to Hell for being prideful, but I LOVED them. I love how real my new instrument patches sounded in places. The patches kind of ruined my concept of jazz combo with toy instruments, because the “toy instruments” ended up sounding too realistic in spots, but I don’t care. I loved my tracks. I want to do the show again right now just to use them. (Eh, Amesily?)
• I had fun with sound effects again. Best prank: demonic voice calling for Linus during “My Blanket and Me”. (It’s surprising how little I doctored my voice…) Runner-up: Charlie Brown’s loud, juicy, echo-y fart at the beginning of the show.
• Best non-sound effect prank: replacing the Little Red-Haired Girl when Charlie Brown had a bag over his head. When he pulled it off and saw me, I thought he was going to die of embarrassment. Good thing we caught it on tape for the backstage DVD!!! (The sound effect gags should be on the DVD, too.)
• One day at rehearsal, I got to play with a Wooly Willy for the first time ever. I made a Wooly Don King, a Sick Willy, and a Wooly Adolf. It was fun!
• Load-in day was actually pretty painless. Of course, my allergies flared up MAJORLY that morning, so I got there after the bulk of the work was done. I got to have fun with Lauren and Nick, and we watched fun Charlie Brown videos on my iPod. (“Say hello to the Kite-Eating Tree, you son of a….!”)
• The motto of our show (in-joke I started among staff) was “Keep It Straight”. If you saw the show, you might know what I’m talking about. If not, your loss!
• Sally saying “Betch” instead of “Bench”. “You’d be a great betch manager! You could say ‘Betch do this’ and ‘betch do that!’”
• Lucy saying “slut” instead of “slot”.
• Schroeder telling Lucy that she’s a “very crappy person” instead of “crabby.” Wow. Our kids had MAJOR diction problems. I won’t even tell you what it sounded like when Rerun first told Snoopy to fetch “this stick”…
• The parents!!! It’s funny that out of 65 kids, only the parents of 3 can have issues, and yet it means our program is awful, or else we have it out for their kids. Best parent moments:
• When one was totally yelling at one of the producers (do NOT mess with my ladies!), and she stormed off because she KNEW she was in the wrong, I blurted out “I LOVE being a grown-up!” and clapped my hands like a cymbal over my head.
• When a couple of families were angry closing night over something (that was their OWN kid’s decision) and they got up and marched out with their entire families in the middle of the show. *overhead hand clap!*
• I’ve NEVER had a youth theatre cast that got along so well. As far as I know, there were no problems with kids getting along. In fact, closing night, the kids were all BAWLING. It was hysterical. They were horrified that they weren’t going to see each other on a regular basis anymore. Well, at least until fall. I suppose it’s pretty sad for the three kids whose parents have seen how horrible our program is, and won’t be coming back. I pity those kids a little. Their parents are keeping them from reaching their potential. Oh, well. Back to the bawling: I got to the point where I would walk up to kids and pretend to be mad and tell them to knock it off or I was going to get them. That fixed it for some. To others, I told jokes. I also pretended to bawl to show some of them how ridiculous they were being, and I freaked one little girl out and made her think she had made me cry. Oops. Oh, well. She stopped crying. (Before you think I’m too much of a jerk, some of the parents were threatening to punish their kids if they didn’t knock it off. The bawling was THAT bad.)

There were many more good things about the show, but this is all I can think of right now. I may come back and add some more.

This very well could have been the last show ever for me with CSYP, and it was a near-perfect experience. It would be nice to come back (and I hope I can), but if not, what a way to go! If the kids cry when they find out I really might be leaving, I’ll probably bawl, too. Just to be safe, would you mind texting me Wednesday afternoon and telling me to knock it off? Or telling me jokes? Thanks.

PS – PICTURES!!!