So the kids made their formal stage debut this weekend… I've blogged about the class they were taking before, so I'll spare you the details, but they had to sing four songs and do little dances to them. The teacher talked a lot about emphasizing the process rather than the product, which I'm cool with, but let's just say Broadway won't be knocking our door down.
It was wonderful, and both kids had a fantastic time onstage, but Rose seemed reasonably unaware that she was in a show and expected to perform/behave in a certain way, so… yeah.
I tried to videotape it, I stood in the back, but by the fourth and last song I was laughing so hard I was crying, and the video is pretty unwatchable. The kids are singing "Whole New World" from Aladdin, and it's like none of the kids have ever worn clothes before. Like they picked a bunch of feral kids from Lord of the Flies or something and dressed them up. All of a sudden, they're all fiddling with their outfits and some of them are disrobing onstage. If they ever make "Little Miss Sunshine II", Rose might be up for the part. She loves wearing dresses, etc, and I have never seen her do this before, but she started flashing the audience! And the kid next to her is pulling on his shirt like the collar is strangling him, another boy is unbuttoning his clothes, and Dillon is holding the end of his tie in his hand while doing the arm movements for the song, so at one point it looks like he's hanging himself. And that was just what I could see through the tears in my eyes.
It was awesome- but the funny thing was, Charles didn't see any of it. He was concentrating so intently on the nuances of the performance that somehow he missed the hilarity of it. He enjoyed himself as well, though, and in all it was an afternoon well-spent.