Master Thespian

Earlier this month, WCK appeared in a kindergarten production entitled, "The Littlest Pumpkin in the Pumpkin Patch." I thought that staging a Halloween program instead of a Christmas program was a genius move on the part of the music teacher because

a) Now there is one less thing to do at Christmastime. Praise the baby Jesus!

b) The kids got to wear their Halloween costumes as the costumes, so there was no staying up late the night before to construct, say, a sheep costume or a pine tree costume.

Anyone who wanted a line in the play went through a rigorous audition process of raising his or her hand. Everyone who raised a hand got a line. WCK did not raise her hand, but she was still very excited for the play. She practiced the songs every day and night at home. She knew everyone else's lines. When the night of the play came, she ended up in the back row on the opposite side of the auditorium from where Jay and I were sitting. We got to watch a little tuft of her hair -- or what we assumed was a tuft of her hair -- singing the songs. It was a magical evening.

A few weeks later, I found out the school was offering some after-school enrichment programs. These are one-hour programs that meet after school once a week for four weeks. Offerings included arts and crafts, cooking, kickball, drawing, things like that. I read all of the descriptions to WCK, and she announced that she wanted to do ... drama club.

Jay and I were confused. Jay and I are very non-drama-club-type people. In fact, whenever we go to any kind of stage production, we both share a secret, horrible fear that we might get picked out of the audience to go up on the stage, where we would instantly collapse and die. This is one of the reasons Jay has refused to attend a Renaissance festival for 12 years. We did not understand how a person with our shared DNA would want to be voluntarily running toward a drama club instead of running away from a drama club, screaming.

"Do you understand what that is?" I asked her.

"YES!" she said, dramatically. "I WANT TO BE IN A PLAY!"

I couldn't really argue with that, so I signed her up.

Yesterday was the first meeting. WCK was thrilled with drama club. She reported that they're doing a play called "What Teachers Can't Do", and she'll be playing one of the teachers. I was very excited for her, and I asked if that's what they'd be rehearsing for the next three meetings, because the club only meets for three more weeks.

"WHAT?" shrieked WCK. "I THOUGHT THE CLUB MET ALL YEAR!!" (Insert loud, fake crying here)

Apparently, she is learning something about drama.