giggling with glee

I am a lucky woman.

Seriously.

I am also slightly crazy- but I think that without the crazy, the rest wouldn’t be quite as good.

I am directing “Ragtime” with 35, 8th-11th grade students this summer.

Did you doubt when I said I was crazy?!

We spent four days auditioning, then 1 day of read through and then 3 full days of working on the prologue.

For those of you unfamiliar with the prologue of “Ragtime” it is a 9 minute 30 second monstrosity of music.  It introduces us to an ensemble of rich white people, an ensemble of folks who live in harlem, a bunch of immigrants and 13 other characters ranging from Harry Houdini to Henry Ford.  IT IS A LOT for 35 high school students and one strung out, over worked director working in a tiny blackbox theatre...

The end of the prologue of “Ragtime” is always the same.  Ensembles of different people swirl around the principals- catching them up in the tide of history. 

Not in my production- because my stage is actually too small to fit 30 students walking around...So I came up with something else..something cool..and it worked!

And I giggled with glee.

Literally.

I thought about it today.  I generally giggle with glee once a day over the summer- when I have the pleasure of working my ass off with some of the most talented kids in the world.

Everyone should have the pleasure of giggling with glee at least once a day in their work.

I am lucky.