We finished Annie last weekend, my first musical I’ve directed. Thank you very much. It really was a blast minus a heck of a lot of time trying to get my “Orch Extra” to cooperate. Esentially I had an entire orchestra in the most rudimentary form possible on a Mac computer and had to finagle it until it could play something we could follow along with as a cast. I woke up for weeks with some song from Annie in my head… it was all worth it in the end. The kids had a blast and I certainly learned a thing or two.

Two weeks before the show we took our Spring Trip down to Atlanta. In a nutshell, my angel mother accompanied me, the choir, the band, the orchestra, and the color guard to go compete for the weekend and we had ourselves a trip. We left on a Wednesday night at midnight- my mom sat on a bus with us for 12 hours, bless her heart. We did everything from mining for gold in Georgia to going to Great America, playing in the pool at the hotel, getting in a gang fight at the Underground, comforting children who thought they would die during the gang fight at the Underground… never a dull moment. The kids did well, we all made it through alive, and I think at this point all the kinks in our necks from trying to sleep on a Greyhound for 4 days are beginning to get worked out.

Things are actually starting to wrap up for the year. I can’t say it’s quite Easy Street yet but it’s getting closer. It’s been great to have Al come visit over the month, he’s been bouncing around all over this crazy country and I’m glad he’s made some time to come spend with a workaholic who barely gets to see him even when he is here. Thanks, Al.

And there’s April in a nutshell.