Midnight Stamford Style.

On the Monday night after I got back from my Thanksgiving trip to Bali, I spent several hours in the gym with the drama faculty and lots of very helpful mothers facilitating the hanging of fabric for Stamford's first ever large-scale performance at the new campus, A Midnight Summer's Dream.  

Since the theatre hasn't been built yet (it'll be here in another year), the director of the play wanted to transform the gym. We hung fabric from the ceiling and taped more fabric to the center scrim. I wanted to be on the lift hanging the fabric myself, but I wasn't allowed to for safety reasons. So we gleefully directed from the ground.

  

Along with the fabric, I had been constructing large leaves out of cardboard. These leaves were a prop used to cover one of the actresses for part of a scene.

I enlisted 6 of the little ladies in my lovely lunch crew to help paint them. And then--using what I had in the art room--added felt and glitter to make them pop.  

The cast was primarily made up of the older students, grades 5 through 9. But several of my students played some of the younger fairies. It was so fun to watch them dancing on stage! They looked so young! (In my class, I feel like they act older than me sometimes.)

Here are the leaves making their debut on stage!

I also helped to finish off some donkey ears that were handed down to me. Originally they were folded foam. I added felt to the ears and a tuft of felt in between the ears. They still sort of read as bunny ears to me, but I was working with what I was given. And I think on stage they did the trick!

Here is the moon face I made for one of the older actresses. My directions? "Make it white and sparkly!" She was playing a he, and I had one of my 4th graders model it for me to make sure I had the shape just right. (You'll see that she also modeled the donkey ears for me, too!)

The real treat came at the end of the play. As much as I am so-very-tired of this song, it was a hit! The students wrote the lyrics themselves and I think it's safe to say, they brought down the house . . . 

I look forward to working on Peter Pan with everyone in the spring. Working with other faculty on larger projects like this helps me get to meet new people and learn new skills. Skills that can greatly help my personal artwork in terms of building projects and deadline-based work.

And it is so exciting to watch my students on stage. They are such a fun group of young people! Watching them perform reminds me--yes, sometimes I forget--that they are little humans with great futures ahead of them. I'm so happy to be able to watch them grow into their creative skin!