This past weekend, we all enjoyed seeing the product of many, many hours of hard work and dedication - performances of the musical Beauty and the Beast!
Emily had two roles in the show: a Bimbette (one of the girls in love with Gaston) and "Soup du jour," one of the foods served to Belle in the song "Be our Guest."
The character of Gaston (boorish, brainless, sexist) definitely irks my feminist soul, and he was played masterfully by a grade 10 student. While I certainly hope Emily never acts like a Bimbette in real life, she did a fabulous job of simpering, oohing and ahhing through the show.
Here she is in front of the student-produced village backdrop.
The story of getting her costume is worthy of a blog post in and of itself - I went to the Tegeta used clothing market and picked through vast stacks of (dirty, smelly) clothing to find some "Bimbette-looking" attire, trying to approximate her size while loudspeakers were screaming "mia tano" (Swahili for the cost - 500 Tsh) and masses of unwashed bodies pressed up all around me . Because this equates to about $0.30 USD per article, I felt totally fine with getting a few different options for her to try on.
Here is her soup du jour performance!
Being part of this musical was not always an easy journey for Emily, but like many tough experiences, I feel it definitely built character. I'm proud of the dedication she showed, even when she didn't get the part she wanted, even when some of her lines were given to younger kids, and even after a lot of her friends quit mid-stream. It was a huge time commitment (3 to 4 times a week after school for 2-3 hours at a time) and required lots of singing, dancing, and concentrating. I really appreciate all the hard work of the directors....just managing 40 kids is not easy, let alone choreographing them and producing music with them!
I'm really thankful for the opportunity she had to be part of the HOPAC drama productions this year and I hope she continues to use her gifts again next school year.
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