tymeless

Lara had invited me to be a sort of guest performer in the showcases of her Make Believe classes. At first, it was Dingdong and me (him with the pre-teens theater class, while I'll be with the children's theater class), but Dingdong never followed through, so I ended up with both.

I attended both Make Believe classes yesterday. Children's Theater first, which consisted of 6 girls, ranging from 3 to 7 years old, all equally adorable in their own ways. There were only 5 of them yesterday, as Sophie wasn't around. We had to run through their entire play twice (with snack time in between), and it was so funny how they tried to grab at my script to check their lines even though I do believe that they know it by heart already. And nakakaloka, Lara gave me quite the surprise that I had to do the finale dance number with the kids. Nyahahay.

After lunch at Food Box, it was time for the Pre-Teens class. Unfortunately, this class only consisted of only 2 girls (considering that there are so many workshop classes sprouting here in the south), so Rieszel and 2 apprentices had to join the showcase, plus me. Anyway, the showcase was a musical with improv segments in between, but it was pretty tough challenge keeping Mads and Pat (the workshoppers) in the spotlight because Javi, Mike and Rieszel couldn't resist jumping in to save the scenes. Anyway, because I was already used to handling pre-teens because of Playshop, Lara let me check out the girls' performance, especially their solo moments, then we gave them notes after the run. I have to say, these two girls have powerful vocals if they really use it well.

Finally met Nina yesterday, one of the friends that Lara talks about a lot. Strangely, she looks like my friend Raphy's wife, Lorena (who he sometimes calls Nena). Mike, on the other hand, looks like a younger version of Mio Infante.

Unwound a bit after the pre-teens class, then Lara, Nina and I went to Le Delice for an early dinner. Like Lara, Nina's easy to get along with, and within minutes, Nina and I sometimes gang up against Lara for kicks. Now I finally get that, "New Voice time!" that they kept mentioning, HAHAHA!

Rehearsal was at the auditorium today. The kids' showcase ran after lunch. Hahaha, I've only assisted in a few kids' classes during my Playshop days, but Make Believe was a first that I had to be there the whole time. It was tough keeping the kids in their seats, so I had to be creative in making them stay put before their own scenes. Naomi was quite the challenge, because she always wants to dance the other dances that the other kids do, plus she keeps complaining that she's last because she's the youngest, so she wants to be seen as much as possible. Hahaha. Cute kid. Another thing that I've learned from the kids was that even though you can let them get away with whatever they want to do onstage, hindi nila palalampasin if you made a mistake, hahaha.

Pre-teens rehearsal after a short break. Pat was on a field trip with her summer class, so there was only Mads (who was there way early). We ran through the play with Lesley standing in for Pat, and Andro standing in for Mike. That made the improv segments a little crazy, because Andro was a natural with improv, and Lesley kept jumping in as well, hahaha. Because I found out that Lesley had a beautiful voice, we got her to help Mads run through her songs during another break. Pat finally made it to rehearsal, so we got to run through the entire play again with both girls.

Showcase will be tomorrow afternoon. Break a leg, Make Believers! =)