Bookmarks

A really delayed congratulations to "Bookmarks" for their wonderful weekend of celebrating reading through song and dance. (ha, musical reference... I'm a nerd...) It is always refreshing, albeit exhausting, to be around children who love the theatre. I had the privilege of working backstage on this show keeping the kids quiet (or as quiet as physically possible for a bunch of 4th, 5th, and 6th graders), getting them ready for entrances (because the concept of a cue is not really understood when you're that young), dealing with any disasters that sprang up backstage (like the curse of the demon ghost lights, which I will explain later), and even making a cameo on stage! I also got to help strike, which I actually find (mostly) fun, complete with the pleasure of folding not one, but two drops! Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhhh!

Anyway, the show was adorable, the kids were inspirationally enthusiastic, and the creative team was marvellous! There were 115 kids involved with the production onstage, backstage, or in the pit band. The book and lyrics were written by a local teacher, Steve Walkowicz, with music by Josh Guerraz (the famous "Mr. G"). The costumes, stage management, choreography, sets, and advertising were all headed by other CHCS teachers. it was wonderful to be able to be a tiny part of a show that truely did "take a village" to create!

The newspaper articles about the show can be found here:
http://www.gazettenet.com/2012/04/11/belchertown-middle-schoolers-polishing-their-spring-play?SESSfcd9432506cf4deae7e45ae025b369b2=gnews

And here:
http://www.gazettenet.com/2012/05/09/belchertown-students-stage-original-musical-039bookmarks039?SESSfcd9432506cf4deae7e45ae025b369b2=gnews

So, the story of the demon lights:
During the Sunday performance, the white LED lights in the house kept coming on until at one point the house was almost fully lit. These lights cannot be controlled by the booth, so we had to try to figure out how to turn them off without the theatre's head tech, who was at his other job. We ended up getting in touch with him and finding the key that would turn off the lights manually using a switch in the back of the house. One of us went down there and turned them off and we thought the problem was over, until THEY CAME BACK ON!!!!!! The audience was getting distracted and the powers that be (actually they would be the powers that went because this is all in the past now) were not happy, so we ended up having to have someone stand next to the switch with the key to turn them off if they came on randomly again. Of course they never did, because that's how life works, but those demon lights now haunt my dreams!!!!

Moral of the story of the demon lights:
Never trust anything. Ever.