Every year we participate in the annual Spring Production with our homeschool group. This is in addition to the Christmas Production, which kicks off our extremely busy Christmas season.
The Spring Production brings all sorts of challenges for our family. For years we had several boys playing baseball. And then throw in Speech and Debate season, and you have a full regular schedule, never mind the additional rehearsals that a Spring Production brings.
Years ago, I came to grips with what this kind of production meant. Years ago, we had tech rehearsals, dress rehearsals, principle actor rehearsals, harmony singer rehearsals, and this was all in addition to the regular once a week rehearsals. Some years I had a kid make a cameo. Some years I had a kid who actually had a line or two. Some years I had to find some elaborate costume for one of my kids for a 1 minute appearance, and then they needed to change back into a choir t-shirt. (Did you know that dryer vent hoses, the silvery kind, make really cool robot arms and legs?) In recent years, my younger boys have lost all previous inhibitions and go big, with lots of lines. Those are the years where "The Production" means we set aside 40 minutes EACH day to go through the whole play to make sure the lines are memorized. (That was this year.)
Many years, because the kids are together so often in the last week, rehearsing extra hard, they get sick. Yes, all of them. They share the same cold. One year we got to all share the same stomach flu. I remember when my daughter had a cameo as an angel. She went on stage, delivered her message (it was in a box on her angel wings), and then she walked back stage and threw up in a bucket. Why was there a bucket handy? Oh, you just take a guess! She had been with all of these kids all week!
But what does this kind of production really mean? The lessons are simple. No matter how small or how big your part, you are all part of the show. If it were just the principle actors, how boring would that be? Robots making appearances, Professors of Theology scootering in with some profound one liner, angels delivering messages... these are the parts that make the play interesting. We are all part of the body. We work together to make the play more interesting.
As a homeschooler, I can teach all sorts of things with life lessons: Math, English, Foreign Language, Sciences. I do have a hard time illustrating how the body all works together, even though I divide out chores. (Maybe it's what we are doing, not how we are doing!) I am blessed that our homeschool group offers us the opportunity to be in a choir and to have a Spring Production. Through this vehicle, my students can learn how all parts make a big whole! They will see that their small part in service to their church and their community can equal something big. They can see how if they cast their one vote at election time that it can equal a victory.
Yes, I take all of these lessons from the simple Spring Production. And when the show is over, everyone has done a good job. Solos were perfect, lines were perfect, dancers were perfect, and even the camera men with no lines lent a great deal of fun to the show! And I can also mention how fun the air guitarists, air drummers and "make up" girls were! Kisses and hugs go all around. Flowers are given, along with bunches of kudos. The hard work paid off, and it took the whole cast to make it a success. May my children always remember the lessons that they learn from their Spring Productions: that they were part of something bigger than themselves!
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