Saturday, March 14, 2009

A good day to tube





We didn't have much consistent snow this year but when we got it, we tended to get a bunch of it.  These pictures have been in my camera for a while, sorry.  We finally had a decent (not freezing) weekend day.  We headed out to a sledding hill for only an hour or so but they had a blast.  Tubes were by far the fastest things that we saw on the hill that day except for the lunch trays.  I'm not joking.  Adults were hopping on serving trays that you would normally see at cafeterias and they were flying!  They had a hard time hanging on, but it sure looked like fun!

A weekend of Beauties and Beasts


Monsieur D'Arque
Josh was in the musical Beauty and the Beast Jr. this weekend.  His official role was Monsieur D'Arque, the head of the insane asylum, but they needed more "stronger voices" out there. So he was asked to be in the ensemble as well.  So he played a villager, a fork, and a waltzing gentleman.  He loved every minute of it, especially the tux.  I must say, the talent level of these kids was VERY impressive.  Because this is an official Disney production though, the school was required to use official Disney costumes for Belle and the Beast.  To purchase the Beast's costume was $1100.  Our school was able to borrow or rent ours.  By the way, Josh's good friend, Matt, beat him out of the role of Gaston.  That's him in the red.  He has a very deep voice and played the role very well and was well cast.

Thursday, March 5, 2009

Stomp

We saw the show Stomp last night at Butler University.  Tickets were $20 each in the nosebleed section which was fine, as you really didn't need to see the expressions of the performers to get the idea behind the show.  The show is built around percussion and dance.  They use anything to make noise, brooms (they broke at least six broom sticks), match boxes, drinking cups/straws from fast food joints, water cooler bottles, kitchen sinks with water, etc.   At one point the performers are suspended on a tether and they swing back and forth to bang on various lids, cans, etc.   Another neat moment was when they used differing lengths of foam tubing and created a rhythmic almost sneaky tune. http://www.stomponline.com/interact.php 

My favorite scene was when the stage was completely quiet and dark, and all eight performers came out and created a tune with cigarette lighters.  So cool and quiet.  Ben's favorite part was when the performers came out of character and improv'd a bit.  They did not speak at all during the show, yet a toddler yelled out at one point, and the drummer mimicked the kid without hesitation-almost scaring us.