Clue

Caroline had another orthodontic appointment.  This time to insert a Nance device.  I actually had no idea what it was until she emerged from the appointment.  It traveled from a top molar, followed the roof of her mouth like a retainer, and connected to another top molar.  She was not a happy camper to come home with that.  She has had to enunciate all her words because it's given her a bit of a lisp.  The words, How long? have been thrown out there.  

Josiah lived and breathed Mr. Green all week.  His rehearsals went to 10 p.m. Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday.  I was told they were not going to record this year's performance, so on Monday, I tried to covertly film as much of the rehearsal as possible.  It looks like a bootleg copy.  Sometimes the phone slipped and I don't notice it for a few seconds.  But at least we'll have some record of his performance.

Thursday evening was Opening Night.  We were all in attendance and I was so, so excited.  Two pastors from our church showed up.  Josiah had taken it upon himself to send them email invitations.  We had no idea he had done that.  It was a very Josiah thing to do.  That first performance was amazing.  They all did so well and they were leaps and bounds better than their Monday rehearsal.  The set people labeled the doors so we always knew where they were.  The audience loved it and there was so much laughter.  While we waited for everyone to congratulate the cast, and for Josiah to get out of costume, we had a lot of people come up to us to say Mr. Green was their favorite.  There were family members of other characters who told us Mr. Green was their favorite.  Josiah did not like that.  He felt family loyalty should outweigh a performance.  Mr. Green was an anxious character throughout the show, but at the very end, he ended up being an FBI agent and he dropped the anxious act.  Josiah changed his voice when he revealed his real identity.  He finished out the show revealing who killed whom.  They all did it.  

The director cast each character so, so well.  They all were so good.  It was very much a comedy and they all had great timing.  

In one scene, Josiah has to pretend he was drunk. He was quite funny and Todd asked him how he came up with what he did.  Drunk Santa from Miracle on 34th Street.  That was his inspiration.  After he told us that, we could totally see it the other nights.  Drunk Santa.  

As the shows went on the next two nights, we continued to have many people tell us how much they loved Mr. Green.  One night, there was a man who was hard of hearing who sat in the second row.  He had his phone light on so he could read the script while they acted.  At first, (not knowing he was hard of hearing) we were a little annoyed because we were right behind him and phone lights are really bright in a dark theater.  But at intermission, Todd saw him text a friend about the play and he said, Mr. Green is my favorite!  The light was forgiven (plus we saw the hearing aids and felt convicted).

The last night Josiah got the funniest compliment.  We were waiting around for them to open the doors to the theater.  One man was talking to another couple who had obviously not seen the show yet.  He was telling them about the characters and he said, Mr. Green was so good, he could do community theater.  That still makes me laugh out loud.  

Josiah was sad to have it end.  All that hard work and then it's just abruptly over.  Until next year!  He did get to keep the lead pipe, though, so there's that. 

We finished out our weekend with another late night.  Our church hosted its annual dessert auction.  This year all five of us went.  They had 35 desserts to auction and we could try them all so we could bid on the items we enjoyed most.  Unfortunately, the cakes we enjoyed most were enjoyed by many others.  Two of the three cakes we were willing to bid on went for $200+ so we dropped out of the bidding.  At one point, the man behind Josiah was giving him $20s to keep the bids going.  That final cake got to $300 so we bowed out (at $210 - and Josiah dutifully returned the cash).  We did come home with a double chocolate cake for only $60, which was quite low all things considered.  It's a good cake. 

Despite the play ending, the next few weeks are filled to the brim with year end activities.  We are on the final countdown!