Ella the Actress

As you may remember from a post I wrote last year, the 4th and 5th grades traditionally put on a huge stage production at our school.  The 4th graders serve as the choir and the 5th graders get the acting parts.  Ella has known about and looked forward to this for years and was excited to be given the role of Mary, Tom's cousin, in the musical Tom Sawyer.  Totally on her own, she even picked up and read the Mark Twain book to better understand the story and her part!  Ella has loved every piece of this process-- the try outs, the practices, the lines (which she memorized effortlessly and with zero help from us at home), the solos, the costume, the make-up!, and the 3 performances they've done for our elementary school, the neighbor school, and all the parents, over the past 2 days.

 Mary, Aunt Polly and Sydney taking turns singing their frustrations out in the song "What Do You Do with A Boy Like That?"

 Mary watching her cousin get in trouble yet again in the classroom.

Rousing her mischievous cousin from bed after his late night in the grave yard.

 Mary reading her aunt and brother the note Tom left before going on his big rafting adventure with the boys.

 Sobbing at Tom and Huck's funeral, when the town thought they had drown in the river.

 She's REALLY upset. :)

Singing "Hallelujah" with the choir when it is realized the boys are alive!

 Tom and Becky have fallen in love, the bank robbers have been caught, and all is well in Hannibal, MO.  A reprisal of the big opening number closes the show out.

 Curtain Call!  Ella said hearing the big applause and cheers from the audience was always her favorite part.  I think she's hooked! 

 With her buddy, Emma, who played Aunt Polly.

 The whole 5th grade cast.

 Friends and flowers!

And some frozen yogurt with the family to celebrate a job very well done.

I totally get that I only contributed half of Ella's genes and I am so happy to see that Dave's love for the spot light seems to have trumped my stage-fright in the genetic make up of our daughter.  But, I am still SO delighted and proud to see my girl doing something I could and would never do.  Singing solos and speaking on stage in front of a packed auditorium!  And doing it perfectly and with no nerves!  How awesome when our kids surprise us like this.  What other amazing things are these girls going to do?!  I can't wait to find out!