Sound of Music

We had the opportunity of a lifetime last night. The Salzburg Marionette Theatre from Salzburg, Austria is on a US tour premiering it's version of the Sound of Music. And yes, somehow little Lancaster scored such an awesome production but for only 4 days. Even though it cost a pretty penny - I thought it was worth it. My kids loved it and it's not like they are going to get this opportunity again. (I mean this was on a school night and only 12 minutes from our house. We didn't have to fight big city traffic or spend a ton of time in the car. This was local!) We were sad Daniel couldn't go with us but since he's in Denver for 9 days it just didn't work out. We're glad Mamaw could come in a pinch.

The best part was - The managing director of the Fulton is in our ward so I called him yesterday morning to see if there were still tickets available. He said yes and asked where would we like to sit? I said anywhere he thought the kids could see well. He said, "How about the second row?" He told me that they hadn't sold any tickets in the first or second rows because they didn't think you could see well from there, but after the Tuesday night show - they realized that you could see fine from the second row. So we sat deadcenter second row with no one in front of us. What a dream. It's probably the only time in their lives that the kids could see a show without sitting on their knees and leaning side to side to see around other people's heads. We were so close you could see the faces of each puppet. I realized how good our seats were when I had to take Ainsley to the bathroom during the show and from the back I noticed they could only see the figures of each puppet but not their faces. Ainlsey sat eyes glued to the stage the entire time, not fidgeting, or asking when it would be over etc....

My mom happened to be coming yesterday anyway to help watch the kids while I was the "mystery reader" in Ainsley's class and while I attended each of the boys parent/teacher conferences. I was so glad she was here to help me with the kids and enjoy the show with us. We left the baby with a sitter of course. It was amazing how many strings were attached to each puppet ( at least 10). It's amazing how they don't get twisted or tangled and how life like each puppet moves. At the end of the show they lifted the top curtain and did one more number with us watching the puppeteers. INCRIDIBLE! There were 9 of them shoulder to shoulder, wrapping their arms around each other as they pass their strings around each other to move their puppet down the stage. I hope they all hold stock in deodorant companies - because they operate in VERY close proximity. I don't know how they maintain such control of their strings and remember the choreography of each puppet for the whole show. RAW TALENT!!

I realized that the kids had never seen "Sound of Music" and didn't know the story line. How could that be? I thought EVERYONE had seen it. Then I remembered that Daniel had told me how he hated that movie (I think with 5 sisters and probably one TV he had been forced to watch it too often growing up) so whenever it's been on TV during our years together, he won't let us watch it - or he chooses something else he thinks is better. That sounds a little nicer. Anyway, because it dealt with WWII and Nazis - Chase and MacGregor were easily sucked in and now we have a date Friday night to watch the movie (Daniel still won't be back so we don't have to torture him :) )

I am so glad the kids and I had this opportunity. I greatly appreciated the time and effort these puppeteers put into developing such an awesome talent. I love being able to expose my kids to the arts and hope they will develop a love of them and an appreciation of others cultivated talents.