my_window_seat | :: happy sigh ::

Today was the first day of my kid's camp.

It. Went. GREAT.

My two teaching assistants are teens - but they're really great kids, and they used to be in this performing arts camp themselves, when it was run by someone else - so they've got a good feel for this kind of work, and they've got some really good ideas that I'm working in to what we're doing. Plus, I can hand the kids over to them for short activity sessions, and everyone gets along great. Oh, yes. Yay. :-)

There are only 8 kids, which is about half of what they had last year - which isn't so good for the folks what balance the books. BUT - not my problem, yeah. And personally, I LIKE not having so many kids that it turns into nothing more than crowd control. Personally, I think anywhere from 12-15 kids is the best size group - and the gig I just finished was 36 kids. So, way over my preferred target. This? Paradise, comparatively.

Anyway - I'm actually still going to use the script I was working on - just need to modify it slightly for the reduced cast, and actually FINISH it tonight. We did a read-through of the first two scenes today, though, and the kids LOVED it. So - we'll be doing this script, plus the kids will be writing their own "dream sequence" to go in the middle of the play - a play within a play, if you will. Today they started "designing" the sets - a little girls bedroom, a cave, and Buckingham Palace, and tomorrow we start actually building some of the stuff - papier-mache and tempera paint all the way, baby! The "giants" are going to be building their own giant heads, too - to be attached to a baseball cap that will go on their own heads. And if I can make it work, I'd like to make the kids who are going to be giants into big, giant puppets - I'm thinking about trying to attach long tubes of fabric to the back of the giants' heads, with elastic at the far ends and big, puffy "hands" sticking out, that they would manipulate with yard sticks as the giants' arms and hands. Not sure yet if it will work - the 10-yr. olds could pull it off - I'm just not so sure about the 6-yr. olds yet. Maybe just give them heads and puffy hands, but not confuse them with sticks and such....

ANYWAY - need to finish script to bring in tomorrow.

w00t!