So You Wanna Be a Pirate?

Warning:  This post is going to have a lot of Momma-Pride.  :-)

My friend and teammate teacher (Crys) and I formed an after school club last year called Performing Arts Club for Kids (PACK).  This year, we produced a musical for our school called Pirates! The Musical. 

A little summary of the story line:  Set on a pirate ship, a band of pirates are on their way to a big pirate gathering for...wait for it...a singing contest!  :-)  A stowaway comes on board--she's wanted to be a pirate her whole life.  Well, the pirates want nothing to do with her, until....their "King of the High C's" leader comes down with laryngitis and can't lead them to victory in the singing contest.  They realize the Stowaway has a beautiful voice, and they make her a full blown pirate.  (Stinkin' cute story with some very clever lines and fun music).

We held tryouts for the musical in September, and Kendra earned the lead part of the Stowaway.  Just so you know, I stayed out of that decision because I am her mom and didn't want anyone to think we played favorites.  Crys chose, but I can be honestly un-biased in saying that her audition really was the best.   The parts were set, and we met with the kids for about an hour after school once per week until December, and then in January we pumped it up to 2 hours.  We presented our performance to parents and PTA members in April, and we brought down the house!!!!  Our kids are absolutely some of the most talented 10 and 11 year olds we know and we had an absolute blast working with them.

Here's the momma-pride:  Ya'll, Kendra blew me out of the water.  You know how your kids have to find their thing?  Kendra has tried ballet, soccer, baseball, gymnastics, piano.  Nothing was grabbing her.  Well, she found her thing in theater.  Oh my.  She's a natural.  It has been SO fun to watch her do this.  I'm very, very blessed that I got to be one of her "directors" this year with the musical. 

Here are some fun pictures, and a video of her solo in the musical so you can hear her sing.  Try to ignore the camera-work---the grandpa who took it happened to be sitting where the monitor speaker blocked most of the shot but it got great audio and you can hear her really well.