As I sit and ponder the last 3 months, I am picturing the faces of everyone who made this show possible. From the first night of auditions to the last night of rehearsals, I have been saying the most important thing for me is that everyone has fun. Somewhere along the way I learned that fun takes many forms.
In the beginning, fun looked like a group of young children learning to sing and dance across a stage pretending to be refugee workers in an imaginary chocolate factory. There were days when they were tired and hungry and wanted to just go home, but they did what was asked and they had fun.
The teenagers in the show were different, and as a result fun took on a new meaning. To them, it seems, fun is hanging out and watching everyone else rehearse, then showing the rest of the cast how to move and how to dance. They had fun being themselves while creating characters that lived in a world of pure imagination.
In between these first two groups were my “Candy Kids”, a group of children who always smiled when I needed it, who always performed when asked, and who always said they were having fun, even when they were asked to do a scene five or six times in a row until it was perfect. Fun, for them, was the magic that they felt when they ran on stage to receive their chocolate, and for the rest of us it was in the sheer joy their faces carried when they were there.
Finally, fun ran rampant in the older members of the cast and was conveyed in their sense of comradery and playfulness both on and off stage. It is said that theatre is a place to learn who your family really is, and these people are the perfect example of family. They laugh together, play together, and even argue together, but at the end of the day they are family. Fun for them is the time they get to hang out and goof off, again both on and off stage, and the memories they make will last a lifetime.
For me, fun is watching the magic happen a little more each night. It was a process to choose what I consider the perfect cast for this show but looking back I can’t imagine replacing any of them. They have all become family to me, showing me that I am never too old to dance and sing, to imagine, to hang out and show the world how it’s done, to be myself, to smile, to get it right, to get it wrong, to play, to laugh, to be someone else, to make memories, and to have fun.
To my cast and crew, I thank you for being my family, my friends, my support, and for making me better. This show belongs to you, and you should be proud of it. I am proud of all of you, and I will remember you forever with a smile. Thank you for making this summer fun.
