An adage in Hollywood is that you should never work with kids and animals. I'm finding this out all too clearly. My family is currently involved in a production of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever. Most of this cast is children, about 20 in total. And oh, my gosh this is crazy!
I wasn't planning on being in another play so soon, but got talked into it by my darling wife and the director. Thankfully I only have five lines in one scene, so it's a pretty quick and easy appearance. Unfortunately, that means that I spend most of my time backstage, trying to wrangle a couple of dozen teens and pre-teens that don't seem to understand the meaning of the words "keep quiet". There is constant chatter and noise, which can be heard in the theater if we're not careful. So I am constantly "shhhhh"ing the kids, snapping my fingers, and otherwise trying to get them to understand that a true whisper can't be heard across a room. All of a sudden I feel like I have 20 kids of my own!
The first show is this Friday, and we'll have a total of seven performances over the following week. Hopefully we can get through this without me duct-taping some of the kids to their seats.
