Rehearsal #1.

Last night was the first rehearsal for the high school musical the kids are going to be in. Oh my gosh, it was a hoot. Sometimes (like last night) I seriously wonder how we ended up with a kid like KayTar, not in the medical sense which is also a mystery, but her personality, which may be an even bigger mystery! She is an extrovert that cannot be contained...though we try our best to at times. None of the rest of us are like that, we are a pretty reserved bunch! With the right audience of people we know and are comfortable with, we can all be cut-ups, but with KayTar THE WORLD is her audience. She is the sun, she has no dimmer switch. We are going to have to recruit a couple of high school student clouds to rein her in a little!

We talked A LOT before practice about appropriate behavior, such as, don't talk when you should be listening, don't raise your hand for silly questions or statements, be still and quiet when you aren't supposed to be practicing, ect. Yeaaah, it didn't stick. Within the first two minutes, she had raised her hand with a silly question. She talked non-stop to the high schoolers around her (who found her quite amusing). She wiggled and posed and danced on stage when they weren't actively practicing. But when it was time to actually do the singing and dancing, she was focused...so I think she'll do great in the actual play, but I think rehearsals will be a combination of "Oh my gosh, what will she do next?" anxiety and "Oh my gosh, she is hilarious." laughter. That is pretty much life with KayTar.

You guys remember that at the audition, she told the director that she should probably be on the floor near the middle so she didn't fall off stage (centerstage) and that she would probably need a spotlight so she doesn't trip, right? So KayTar's row is supposed to go and stand on risers, but KayTar pipes up and says, "I'm not comfortable with that!" to the director, so he says he doesn't want her to feel uncomfortable so she can stand next to them on the floor...which happens to be in a pool of light from the spotlight. Then she said, VERY loudly, "Yessss! I'm in a SPOTLIGHT!" There was laughter from all corners of the auditorium.

Later on, the director was giving instructions and said something to the effect of "I don't want you guys to hurt yourselves..." And KayTar pipes up, "Yeah, you wouldn't want us to get hurt like THIS!" and she proceeds to playact hitting herself in the head, falling over, and landing in a full sprawl on stage. There was a LOT of laughter and even light applause. I leaned over to Josh and said, "Uh oh, they are feeding the beast...she's never going to stop now!" LOL! Then the director says, "Hey, where is KayTar's brother?" So my poor shy BubTar holds up his hand in the Spock sign and says, "Greetings." which got a few chuckles and totally embarrassed him, then KayTar pipes up, "We call him BUBBA!" which is his babyhood/childhood nickname that he now finds to be QUITE embarrassing in public. His cheeks flared red and I saw him make a big fake yawn, which is what he does when he is trying to keep his eyes from watering. Poor guy. And that story illustrates the main difference between my two children. KayTar will do ANYTHING for a laugh and eats up attention with a spoon, and BubTar nearly dies of embarrassment when people notice him at all.

There were plenty of other times we heard her talking and saw people laughing, but she wasn't loud enough for us to hear what was happening. When the director was telling them about how hungry they were, I was sure she was going to say something like, "I'm never hungry!" or when he was telling them about the gruel, I was sure she was going to say, "Well, I don't HAVE to eat, because I get food in my tubey." But she didn't, thankfully. I'm not embarrassed in the least by her tube, but theatre rehearsal is not really the time to get into that. I was also sure she was going to be all atwitter about holding hands with a high school boy (he helps her off the stage), but nope. She is an unpredictable over-sharer (we like to say she was born without a social filter), so I pretty much stayed on the edge of my seat the whole time...but as far as I know, the conversation stayed mostly in the appropriate zone.  After they were done practicing, Josh went and thanked the high school student who stands next to KayTar for helping her out and told him, "If she ever needs to be quiet, don't be shy about telling her!"

After practice, we went through a list of things KayTar needed to work on...being quiet when they weren't signing, sitting or standing still when it wasn't dancing time, not interrupting the director, ect. But I have a sneaking suspicion that she will forget all about it as soon as we walk in and she sees her "audience" next week. Hopefully, by the time the show rolls around, the newness and excitement will have worn off some and she won't be in performance mode every time she sets foot in the auditorium...except when she is SUPPOSED to be performing, of course. ;) In the meantime, though, it is sure going to make these rehearsals exciting and entertaining!

KayTar is on the far left, she is the one with the ponytail flip towards the end of the video. BubTar is towards the right, more between the middle and the right end. He's behind someone kneeling in a reddish shirt.