The Alberta Bair Theatre and Billings Family YMCA Theatre Camp 2014

What a week, wow! We finished our last performance from theatre camp last night. We performed our show twice, once for our ABT guests at the Bair and once for our members at the YMCA Youth Commons Area. Both performances were amazing, the kids worked so hard this week! Dr. William was telling us all before the show that it usually takes up to 4 weeks for actors to learn their lines and songs in a show, not one week! We learned five songs, three dances and speaking lines in only 5 days! Dang! Those kids sure do rock! :D

During the dress rehearsal

The theme of this year's show was American Musical Theatre. We talked about the composers of American Musical Theatre, the differences in songs between American music and British music. We even discussed the time periods of each musical. The songs that we performed were Oklahoma, He is an Englishman, One Singular Sensation, The March of the Siamese Children and Camelot. My favorite was obviously One Singular Sensation, I absolutely LOOOOOOOOVE A Chorus Line! Dr. William had asked me to set some choreography to these pieces, so I of course chose that song, along with Oklahoma and The March of the Siamese Children (since there were no lyrics in that song). I know that most of the children had dance, singing and theatre background but I was still a bit anxious about introducing a kick line. However, Dr. William was all for it! We ended up doing the kick line and it looked so cute! I am so glad he convinced me to!

These kids worked so hard! There were 25 excited children who participated. Some of them had never even been to the Alberta Bair Theatre, they would be performing onstage for the first time! Some had performed before but not on that stage, they had only been an audience at the Bair. Even a few were planning on auditioning for the Camelot show this spring! I was so excited for all of them! Wonderful job kiddos!

Thank you to Dr. William Mouat! Thank you to Miss Sandi for playing the piano for us! And most of all thank you ABT and YMCA for allowing me to be a part of this wonderful camp! Theatre needs to be more present in this generation, we are working hard at making that happen! Thanks to all those who fight for the arts alongside me. :)

Today I have my summer hip hop showcase at the Y. I am so excited for all of these performances this week and last week! We will be performing three pieces and a finale. It should be good! I will be taking tomorrow off from writing though, so tune in on Monday to see how it all went!