Joey the Porg on Stage

Joey the Porg made his debut this morning on the KidPak stage, of course there to take one of his famous selfies, this one with the audience behind him.  This took place right in the midst of this morning's skit, which went pretty well.  

It's been a much looser series, a continuing "Jedi Academy" that's resembled more an episode of a Star Wars LEGO special than anything canon, which is what I've tended to do the last three times we've done this series.  This time we were just having fun!

And of course, here's Nerdo and Maddie and Joey for that.  And eventually we brought back the space pirates...

And we threw in Chewbacca for good measure too.  No, this mask above isn't our official wookie, but it is part of the skit this morning, the same plastic one that because famous a few years ago when a lady put it on for the first time and just couldn't stop laughing.  It's a really fun mask too, actually, as the lower part of the mask moves up and down and has a chin rest that moves that piece with your jaw.  The result is that every time you open your mouth, a wookie noise comes out of the mask.

So yes, we had Chewbacca here too.  The pirates were here to escort him off to his home planet Kashyyyk for Life Day.  This morning we were ready with all his dialogue, these sound effects that we captured and put on our 360 device, which allows us to insert all kinds of sound effects and short tracks while people are on stage. 

Anyway, it was another solid morning at KidPak.  We've had fun with this Star Wars series, and the kids have enjoyed it too!

Especially jedi wookie.  He's backstage practicing the lines over and over again, getting ready to head out for his big performance.  Meanwhile, a life-and-death game is going on in front of our audience...

It's a game of hot potato, only with a thermal detonator!  These are the famous grenades from the Star Wars series, one first held by Princess Leia, and then showing up in a multitude of other places throughout the galaxy of adventures.  We made it into a game, complete with a pretty fun slide and a big explosion the eliminates contestants one at a time.  You can see above that two of our volunteers made it to the end of the game and they're going back and forth with it while the beeping noise gets faster and faster until.... BOOM!

So the rest of the day was long.  And by long, I mean, exhausting and seemingly endless.  We had auditions for the Christmas play at this same stage at 2pm, and we just didn't have time to go anywhere so we stayed here and watched all the auditions, one at a time.  Hundreds of people showed up.  We divided up kids and grown-ups based on role interest and did a brief choreography, and then had them all sing, and then there were all the lines they rehearsed with each other, or us.  It went on, and on, and on, and on.  We were there at that KidPak office, and the other surrounding rooms, until 7:45 or so.  So yeah, Mom, Maddie and I were there for over twelve hours in that area.  It was a super long day.  

But there were some good performances, and everyone seemed to be in good spirits, and it was certainly productive.  It was just super draining.  Maddie was taking video of all our participants as I was ferrying students to on-deck locations to get in place while taking some to parents or visa versa.  Mom was making sure forms were filled out by volunteers, and Camille was making sure the music was lined up.  We were all doing roles on stage to interact with kids and older volunteers.  We were all doing a little bit of everything, all day long.  

We got home and were so tired.  I had a bowl of Count Chocula for dinner.  We watched a few episodes of Monk, and that was that for the day.  We read tonight, a little bit, and then said our prayers.  It was time for bed.