Stage Mom

Another year, another musical. This year’s musical is The Addam’s Family. Alyssa is in the chorus.

Because I’m That Mom, I’ve helped with costumes and hair and makeup. I also made food for the evening of the last performance.

It’s what I do.

But you know what? I’m willing to be That Mom but I really don’t want to be THAT MOM.

And yet, they almost made me do it.

The first full dress rehearsal with hair and makeup was the Sunday before the actual performances which were the following Friday and Saturday.

Oh my goodness, let me tell you, that show was rough that Sunday night. Yikes.

But what made me almost turn into THAT MOM was the fact that during an ensemble scene there are two duets. One is sung by two girls on the left side of the stage. The other is sung by my own darling Alyssa and a fellow ancestor (what they call the chorus in The Addams Family.) That Sunday evening the two girls on the left side of the stage both had microphones (these are worn on the head with the mike wrapping around their face toward their mouth) and neither Alyssa nor her duet partner had one.

Obviously, this meant that you couldn’t hear Lyss’s voice (or her male partner’s) over the pit band. But you heard A and J loud and clear.

I made up my mind that the next day, which was also a full hair and makeup dress rehearsal, I would speak to one of the directors and gently suggest that perhaps one of the two mikes on the girls across the stage from Lyss should give up her microphone to Alyssa or the dude who was ‘singing’ along with her (for what it’s worth, he doesn’t actually sing, so it’s kind of a solo – Oh, hello, my name is Marie Nordoff and I am THAT MOM.)

I worked myself into quite the tizzy that night, worrying over the ‘confrontation’ I’d have to have with the directors.

Yes, it was as ridiculous as it sounds. I kept telling my stupid brain to call the hell down. It wasn’t that big a deal. I mean, seriously.

But my mind would not stop. I ran scenarios in my head, thought about how I’d make the suggestion gently, not so much as a stage mom but as a concerned audience member who wants everyone to hear everything that’s going on in the play.

And guess what? All that angst was for naught. The directors watched the same rehearsal I’d watched and told Alyssa the very next night that she needed to wear one of the mikes so we could hear her.

Hear that brain? We didn’t have to be THAT MOM. It’s okay and all that worry was completely unnecessary.

[Side story to this whole thing: I stupidly mentioned the mike thing to the real Marie Nordoff. Guess which role her daughter, Harmony, is playing? Why yes, she is a member of the Addams Family, however did you guess? No, I’m not going to say which member of the family. I’m pretending to maintain the slightest bit of anonymity here. Anyway, when I mentioned not being able to hear Alyssa’s and her duet partner’s voices, Marie was quick to tell me that the school has a limited number of microphones and they have to give them out in order of who has the most lines/songs.

Duh.

I managed to not roll my eyes at her or tell her, “Yeah, I know. It’s not like I was going to suggest they take Harmony’s microphone away from her to give to my kid and her one small solo. Though, let’s all be honest here, Harmony’s got a voice on her that carries pretty darned well without a mike. Just saying.]

*Please note that the musical was a couple of weeks ago but I wrote this and scheduled it to post at a later date. I know, I should probably be better at posting more current stuff but hey, I'm doing the best I can here.*