Actress in the making

It is pretty neat when your kid figures out what she is good at and what kind of extra-curricular stuff she wants to participate in.  We did the "try everything" thing--soccer, gymnastics, ballet, baseball, basketball, piano.  None of those stuck out as something Kendra liked a lot or excelled at.   For a long time, Kendra has said that she wanted to be involved in theater arts when she gets to middle school and beyond.  This year, myself and another teacher friend started an after-school club called PACK--Performing Arts for Kids.  Kendra joined, of course, and yep.  We found her talent and her interest.  The cool thing is while she is fantastic at drama, she isn't a drama queen in real life. THANK GOODNESS!

Our PACK club performed a small play this year--we traveled around the school and performed in classrooms during the last week of school.  Kendra played "Dorothy Dragon" and was so good!  Here's a dumb mom moment---I recorded our last dress rehearsal but then turned in the camera to our librarian during the end-of-school rush, and forgot to download it.  Sheesh.  But another teacher took and edited this neat picture (click on it to see it larger)...

One of the high schools in the district offered a three day mini-camp for theater and I signed Kendra up for that as well.  In three days (only 1 1/2 hours per day) they came up with a story line for a play given only a setting, and they learned stage combat.  They learned how to hit, slap, fall, and die "safely".  Kendra said, "I'm really good at hitting, Mom, but I am not that great at slapping yet."  Words a mother loves to hear.  :-)  Here's a tiny snippet of the play they produced and some pictures:

When we were leaving on the last day I stepped over to thank the theater teacher.  He told Kendra he really hoped she would be coming to his high school.   No, she's not going to that one, but it sure was a nice compliment!