Home Again and Alex's Show

The trip home was long, full of weather caused delays, but ended finally with only one lost suitcase. In Philadelphia, my plane was even stuck in the snow at the gate. I'd never heard of such a problem, but it only took about a half hour for the ground crew to push and pull us free. My luggage was delivered the following morning.

Unfortunately, I didn't make it home in time to see Alex in the high school dramatic program that night. Now that I saw the Friday evening performance, I'm particularly glad that I didn't have to sit through it twice. It was terrible. Oh, Alex was good, of course, one of the best. The show was just poorly planned, poorly executed, and far longer than it should have been. I got the impression that students just put together skits. If lines were memorized, the skit was included in the program. Little attention to refinement was made. There was an attempt to string these vastly different "cameos" together, but it didn't really work. It program went on for two and a half hours or more. The singing selections were dreadful. The sound equipment made everything worse.

Thankfully, Alex's voice is so commanding that he wasn't using a microphone. Alex deserves to work in a more professional environment. I really hope he is accepted into the Governor's School as I can't look forward to seeing more from such a pathetic drama department. Thankfully, Alex knows how pitiful this show was. I didn't have to say anything about it. Steve and I only had to comment about his part in the production.

I looked around at the thin group of parents in the auditorium. I know some of them and had to wonder what they thought. After the show, many congratulated one another on their kids' work. The teacher was beaming. Steve and I smiled politely, waved to those we knew, and slipped out the door. High school shows should be better than what we saw. The students are far more capable of better work. The entire evening reminded me of Mathias and Alex putting on skits for Steve and I (and sometimes our employees got roped into watching!) It was "cute" then. They were six and eight years old. Drama performances from high-schoolers shouldn't remind me of such memories. Even Alex was disappointed, almost embarrassed, in the production. He really needs REAL direction. This isn't it.