Mamaw performances...

*note: to see pictures fully, make sure to slide the scroll bar over...

So, last weekend I went and saw Smokey Mountain’s Cinderella.

Let’s just say it makes me feel very accomplished.

None the less, I salute anyone who takes the initiative to do a play. You could tell the lot of them had a blast, and that is what is most important. And I know the two grandma’s behind me just loved it (but I wouldn’t say they felt the same about my running commentary.) Lets just say that we are very blessed to have the people we have, even (as much as I hate admitting this) Scotty. :)

Some ideas seemed a little familiar, such as getting your picture taken at the end with Cinderella, Prince Charming and the golden carriage. You did have to pay five dollars for a child’s dream to come true, but I won’t judge.

Also the whole cast happened to be high schoolers, unlike ours. And they weren’t drama students to top it off. And they rented their costumes…

I’m NOT judging.

Luckily for all those who didn't see it and would like to see a little of what it consisted of, I took pictures AND videos. (The latter will have to be uploaded on a later date.) I got all of them in the second act and third act (THREE ACTS!?), so I‘ll just describe the first act:

It starts out with a massive village scene, with villagers on either side of the stage. After about a 6 minute opening scene, the Herald (our Lynol) comes on. He teeters on either leg while singing “The Prince Is Giving a Ball” back and forth, and the villagers stand there and sing there lines.

For every scene change they shut the curtain, have about a five minute music interlude, sometimes including some characters singing on the stage.

After “The Prince Is Giving a Ball,” the stepmother and her daughters comes on stage. Throughout the play she does this thing where she constantly fixes the poof on her hair. Portia (who was my Calliope), dressed in green, does this laugh that starts out loud and cascades after EVERY line. Joy (Kaley’s Manerva.) dressed in pink, stops mid-stage picking her nose multiple times.

…

Yeah, that’s what I thought too.

Cinderella the sings “In My Own Little Corner.” She does a lot of the same moves as Abigail, except she spends 90% of the song fiddling with silverware on the table.

And just for the record of freaky coincidences, her name was Abigail too.

Unlike our play, the King and Queen had this whole bedchamber scene where the servants come in and sing “Your Majesties.” After about an 8 minute dance sequence that includes them continually dancing the electric slide while holding pans of bread around the King and Queen, the song ends and the prince comes out.



I’m not going to lie, all I noticed was how annoying large his boots were. What I hated the most was the fact that he wore them the whole time.

Back at Cinderella’s house, we meet the Fairy Godmother. She pokes her head in the window, and Cinderella says “Hey look, it’s my Godmother!”

?

Anyway, she comes in. Lights the fire (that is already burning), puts some flowers in the window (or should I say she has a mysterious hand do it for her), and the audience oohs and ahhs in amazement. Cinderella gets to voicing her wishes to have the pumpkin turn into a carriage, the mice turn into horses, the whole shebang. Fairy Godmother waves her wand, Cinderella runs and looks out the window and says “Oh, what a beautiful carriage and horses!”

I’ll need not mention that the audience sees none of this.

They go out on stage and sing “Impossible.” while the curtain closes behind them.

11 minute interlude later (not a intermission) and they open the curtains and there is the carriage with four horses.
Here are the horses. See what I mean by that whole familiar idea thing?

I would show a picture of the carriage now, but I think it is so…
…
…
…
…You’ll see what I mean at the end.

Now, I have a lot of pictures and videos for this:



This is Joy bowing to the prince. Now what was weird was that she had a hat with a watering can (watering can?) on top, which then fell off when she bowed. So she pretty much held it the whole time.





Portia on the Prowl.





So, this is Cinderella entering. Nice backdrop, and as you can see, she has a very pretty dress. Ice blue, go figure.


Princie finds her, and sings “Ten Minutes Ago” on the bench in the garden. There are far too many things I could say…but I won’t.

So right after “Ten Minutes Ago,” the “Stepsisters Lament” came on. It was…interesting…seeing it done…differently…after doing the song yourself.
Now there is something that you will see at the beginning of the video (when I upload it). It just so happens to be our King and Queen’s throne. Except it’s now Smokey colors.

You wouldn’t know it because it doesn’t acknowledge that it was borrowed in the program…

Here is a fuzzy picture of it (I wasn't allowed to use flash, okay.)


Now before this scene there was this moment that Cinderella and the Prince were dancing center stage. But you couldn’t see them because everyone else was dancing around them…
…anyway, Princie takes Cinderella back to their love spot in the garden, and sings “Do I Love You?”


...and it all ends like this.

At this point, the clock strikes twelve. Cinderella sprints up the steps, flinging (and I mean flinging) her shoe off. I do have a video of this, but once my perils of laughter sound like a hyena, and I made some really lame sound effects to add to the suspense, I think I’ll skip out on posting it.


I wouldn’t have posted this picture, but if you look in the left you will see the Herald. He’s the one holding the shoe who looks like the Burger King.

Of course, everyone knows the story of Cinderella, and she tries the shoe on (in the same garden where Princie serenaded her the night before…?), and the whisk her off stage to be married…

WEDDING PICTURES!11!!

The flower girls…there were only about three…it took forever…



Stepmother and Co. See there she is fixing that dumb poof.

Cinderella skips down the stairs, overjoyed to marry her big booted Prince.

Scotty’s priestly competition.

And the end Kiss. No confetti though. And they sang “Ten Minutes Ago” instead of “Music In You.” And Stepmother and Co. sang along.

?

Now…that you have judged accordingly, I must show you the carriage.
Lets just say when I saw it, I had to go outside to…catch my breath from all the splendor.

Yes, I literally had to go outside…

The way it worked


Cinderella in the carriage. As you can see, it’s big enough to fit the cast.

Overall it was a...

...experience.

There were [a few] things I enjoyed about it, such as the programs and the band. And the little lights the tech crew wore around their necks.

The best part was at the end when I have to text Scotty saying "are you still here, and do you have jumper cables?" But that's a story all in it's own. Maybe I'll tell it one day...

-Me.