Acting Up Again

We had another really full day today, but it was a great and memorable one.  It was mostly at church too, and that kept us fairly busy.  Firstly, there were the two KidPak services in the morning that went really well.  We were down a few staff members, one due to surgery and Pastor Lance was out in OC KidPak today.  But we still had our full cast, and some great videos, and as you can see above, Daddy is sharing with the kids about how we are one body, with many parts.  It was a simple illustration I was eating there, explaining how the Roman Army soldiers all had different assignments, different tasks, from archers to shield bearers to those that held spears and swords.

Madison was on stage as well, doing her part in the play, which just keeps getting funnier.  We're really embracing this theme, and the characters in it are hilarious.  We've got about three more of these services left, and it all has been so much fun to do.  Madison and Skylar above have enjoyed the services too, and both of them have been running out afterwards to sit amongst the plebeians to hear the message at the end.  

After the morning, we had our acting class, which went so well.  It's called "Acting Up," and it's something that Daddy started with a few others, and we had a lot of people show up, despite the stormy weather.

You can see Madison and a few others above, as Joey is teaching them how to train raptors.  That's the acting bit, but the real deal here is teaching everyone how to react on stage, and how to act when the focus is not on you.  Other actors don't just stand there, but they instead help create a scene by reacting in verbal and nonverbal ways.

You can see Camille here leading a small portion, talking about the importance of enunciation, and doing an illustration about projection as well.  We did a few standard tongue twisters - think of Sharpay Evans going , "Mah!  Mah!  Mah!"  And so on.  We did some longer ones, which of course had people cracking up.  And then the projection exercise put Madison in the back row, with Ashley in the middle and Calvin up in the front row.  The people on stage were to say their lines to all three, and of course you can see how your voice changes as you make sure the different people hear your lines.

But most of the fun came with the exercises themselves.  There was quite a bit of improv, and that seems to be the most fun we have.  But with the improv, we began to apply those things that we were learning about posture, positioning, enunciation, projection, and of course reaction.

The great thing about this class is that it was a measure of both fun activities, and some smaller sessions where everyone sat and listened to an actor teach the others about a certain concept.  You can see Clint here above talking about the importance of reacting, and then we'd try it out.  

We had people coming from a few different campuses here today, from Gwinnett and Gainesville's campuses.  It was great to see the unity, everyone having a great time together.  When it was over, it seemed to be over too quickly - we were all having so much fun that we didn't want it to end so quickly.  But I promised the moms and dads it would be an hour, so we made sure we stuck to that schedule.  It was a long day at church, if you include the morning's services, so many of us were ready to go home and relax.

But I won't forget the fun we had today.  It was a fun time together, and we all learned some new things.  Madison had a great time, as you can see above, and was explaining some of the ideas she learned on the way home, which was great!

We got home, of course, and were quite zonked.  Nevertheless, Madison still made time to practice her piano a bit, and of course we all ate tonight as well.  Mommy had some potato and leek soup, which was perfect for a cooler day like today.  It's about to get a lot colder soon.  And worse, the weather was extremely bad further south in Georgia and Alabama as well.  There were many, many tornadoes, and some heartbreaking news.  We were spared that further north in Georgia, but we're praying for those folks tonight.

Madison wanted popcorn and to watch the final "Night at the Museum" movie, so we wrapped up that series tonight.  It was very handy for the message this morning that Daddy shared, using clips from Octavius in the second movie.  They're fun family movies, and soon after this we were off to bed for an early night.  It's going to get chilly this week, so we piled on those blankets, read some bedtime stories, said our prayers, and got ourselves a good night's rest.