“Okay, now wave to everyone you want to wave to, and then we’ll start the play,” Kate Veinotte, teacher for the 2015 junior theatre school at Upper Canada Playhouse, told her young students on Friday, August 14.
An actor and an elementary school teacher, Veinotte knows the excitement 23 children, ages 5-9, are feeling as they prepare to go on stage in front of a real audience. It’s better to get the “hi moms!” out of the way as soon as possible. And there was plenty of enthusiastic waving as the students began their improvised comic play, A Show About A Fashion Show.
The 2015 junior theatre school was a five day event which introduced the young participants to the magic of the stage, to mask-making and character walks, to improvisational games and to the technical side of drama.
Assisting teacher Kate Veinotte were Conor and Liam Veinotte.
The Playhouse offered a two week senior school earlier in the summer which drew 27 participants.
“We had such a fun week this week,” Veinotte said. “On Monday, the idea of a fashion show came up. And we decided to do a show about putting together a fashion show. Then we talked about the fun part of an event like this – what could go wrong! Actually, we only got our script yesterday, so I am really proud of the work these students have done.”
The audience was taken ‘behind the scenes’ as the young performers brought some hilarious characters to life. After all, what could go wrong following a flawless dress rehearsal?
Quite a lot.
The young director valiantly tries to keep a lid on everything. But, as it soon becomes evident, this is not going to be easy.
The regular make up crew is felled by “bad sushi” and a last minute crew, ominously known as Bozos Makeup, shows up. The technical crew is a disaster. The Australian judges are jet lagged and in their PJs.
The regular security firm quits, and the director is confronted with some (adorable) substitutes called Teeny and Tiny who are definitely not intimidating thugs. And since too many tickets have been sold for some of the seats, there are some serious crowd control issues.
To the delight of the audience, the models are fighting over dresses, hair brushes and stepped on toes.
The live announcers refuse to look at the camera (they’ve come from Bozos Makeup: enough said). No one is speaking to anyone when cameras finally roll.
At the end of the show, just as the director is about to collapse, the little camera operators exclaim, “That was great. Say can we do this all again? The lens cap was on.”
“The ideas for this show all came from the kids,” said Veinotte. “They improvised scenes about possibilities, things that might go wrong in a big fashion show, and then we put a script together.”
“These shows are great,” said Playhouse artistic director, Donnie Bowes, who took in the junior theatre production. “All the kids have a great experience, getting to know each other and working together.”
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