Roadshow

This weekend was the 24 hour Youth roadshow in our stake, here in Pennsylvania.

The theme for this years show was AN EVENING ON BROADWAY.
I struggled to pick one show. I had so many ideas. Ultimately the 24 hour time period made Mary Poppins the top pick. The youth gathered at 5:00 pm ,Friday evening. They were introduced to our selections from Mary Poppins. Some of them had never seen Mary Poppins.
They began the music/lyric portion of the numbers that night. We were told the the stake has a hard time with the microphones, so we decided to not chance it. We asked Zach, who has a recording studio to record the kids singing live, he then laid their voices over the original track. So, they were in essence singing live, with their own pre-recorded voice. It worked out marvelously. There were many wards who's dialog wasn't heard at all, due to mic issues. At the first of our number, you will see some of that problem.
Then, back to the church Saturday morning at 9:00 am to learn more choreography, build chimneys and sets, and rehearse the numbers.
The kids did a great job. Given 24 hours, its really quite a great show the stake puts on. Lots of great numbers.
I had some amazing people painting/building the set for us. If you look at the backdrop of our roof top scene, you will notice that I asked them to paint in some of the local HERSHEY skyline. See the HERSHEY COMPANY smoke stacks, and the tall "Kissing tower" from HERSHEY PARK?!!! It was very well done. A great artist in the ward created the backdrop. And other wonderful volunteers constructed the chimneys. The ward really pulled together. I was so proud!
Just by way of explanation, the opening scene is supposed to be a joke about Mary Poppins "magic bottomless bag". Initially, I thought it would be funny to have Mary pull the mic stand out of the bag, but due to time and lack of tables that we could cut a hole in, we opted for the current scene. Mary is looking for her makeup compact in her "magic "bag ( remember the movie, where she pats black dust on her checks to be dirty like the chimney sweeps) . She cant find it in her bag because the person who is supposed to hand it to her is sleeping on the job under the table. She says (inaudible) "Never judge things by their appearance, even carpet bags...I'm sure I never do!". It was supposed to make fun of the "bottomless bag trick". But, it didn't come across to the audience (lesson learned). Then we see Bert. After acknowledging her, you cannot hear Mary replies (inaudible)" Practically Perfect in Every way". That's where we had mic issues.

It was tons of fun for me to direct the show. It was a great experience for me and I learned some important things. But more importantly, its amazing what a little team work can accomplish! ENJOY!