Good Hunting!

We interrupt this regularly scheduled vacation (one more day to go) to present to you - The Jungle Book!  Right after we got home from vacation, the Missoula Children's Theatre arrived in town.  Marissa and Maren also started swimming lessons that morning at nine and the auditions were at ten.  This is when I am thankful for small town living.  We barely made the four minute commute - or so the Captain tells me.  I had to be back at work myself.

About 60 kids tried out locally and they had parts for 40 or so.  Although MCT had been here in summer's past, Maren wasn't old enough and Marissa just wasn't interested.  So low and behold, we were pretty thrilled when Marissa got the part of part of Kaa ( the snake) and no that wasn't a typo.  She was PART of Kaa as in 1 of 8 kids playing Kaa. But she was the neck of Kaa.  The neck holds up the head of Kaa, so this was a major supporting role. ( Do snakes even have necks?)  Maren got the part of a monkey. How fitting is that?

The girls and I couldn't be happier with their experience with the MCT.  Have you heard of it?  I guess they are a nationwide and even an international deal.  They travel throughout the country in teams and give the small towns some exposure to the whole theatre experience.  Dylan and Amy were great with the kids and the girls came home excited and giggling after each practice.  Some of the kids practiced for 5 hours every day for a week.  It was amazing what a great show they put on after that short amount of time. Make-up, sets, costumes, songs, and speaking parts - it was the real deal!

So here is Kaa.  Even if Marissa hadn't been the neck of Kaa, Kaa would have been one of my favorite characters.  They all came winding around and slithered across the stage.  Noah (the head of Kaa which Marissa supported) would speak his line and the rest of Kaa's body would repeat it.  Very effective and a little creepy. And just darn cute. ( Did I really just say that a snake was cute?)

 Kaa taking a little nap...

Kaa listening to Baloo giving his sage advice..

Kaa hanging out with Bagheri...

Interestingly enough, Kaa and the Monkey people have sort of an adversarial relationship.  Maybe that's why the girls got the parts they did.  The monkeys made fun of Kaa and called him a "yellow nightcrawler" and many times we heard Kaa refer to the monkeys as "nasty creatures".   Life has imitated art a few times in the past few days.  When the girls aren't getting along they refer to each other with their stage insults.  Have to say it is a refreshing change from "Dork" and "Brat."

So here is Maren as a monkey.  I didn't get such good shots of her in the actual play since she was on the opposite side of the stage from where I was sitting.  They provided some nice photo ops for us proud parents at the end of the show though.  There were many proud parents I might add.  All the kids did such a great job!

Such a cute little monkey! Anyway, what a fun thing to do for the week! Can't wait until next year... and neither can the girls!