Broadway baby

Yesterday was a terrific day for Annabelle. For the past 7 weeks, she has been going up to Louisville each Saturday afternoon for a 4-hour "Broadway Boot Camp," run by Music Theatre Louisville.

Annabelle has wanted to get into theater for some time now, but hard as it might be to imagine, Fort Knox is not exactly a hotbed of cultural activity. She did take a couple of drama workshops through Youth Services, but those tended to be geared towards younger kids and more about self-expression than learning how to do a particular show.

This boot camp has been a truly wonderful experience for her. They worked a lot on audition skills--in fact, her homework for the first week was to put together her resume! They also worked on musical numbers from shows such as "42nd Street," "Oliver," and "Hello, Dolly," which will be part of MTL's lineup this summer.

They have been pretty strict about keeping parents away from the rehearsals. I have enjoyed my weekly shopping afternoons in Louisville, but I have been dying to see how everthing would turn out.

Yesterday afternoon, family and friends were invited back for the second half of the session to attend an "open rehearsal." It was truly a rehearsal rather than a polished performance, but it was fascinating to watch. The kids would run through a number (or maybe even part of a number), and then the teacher would stop them to give constructive criticism, and they would do it again. It was neat to watch them apply the advice and make the piece better right in front of our eyes.

Annabelle really got into the performance. She seemed so calm and confident up there on the stage! It was truly hard to believe that this was the same kid who cried through most of the first-grade show.

I sat back and enjoyed the experience rather than trying to catch it through my camera. We are, however, going to receive a DVD of the show in a few weeks, and I will post some video clips from that when I get it.

Meanwhile, Annabelle is more enthusiastic than ever before about musical theater and can't wait for the summer session of Boot Camp to begin!