I stand by the doorway of a small meeting room inside the Hjemkomst Center, a museum built around a wooden Viking ship, built in a nearby small town, that made a voyage to Norway in the 1980s. It is also the venue where Micah and his eleven castmates will perform the play, Little Shop of […]
At long last, we are in the final week of the “Little Shop of Horrors” theater camp. Only four more days until curtain time. Micah has all of his lines memorized and has delivered them with expression and gusto during rehearsals. He is still a little shaky on the choreography, but I think he’ll have
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“Is he going to behave like that while on stage?” The high school theater director, with his sparse crop of mussed brown hair, was referring to Micah who, as usual, had wandered away from me and now was at the other end of the fine arts wing corridor. The question was accompanied by a little
Micah has never liked having people sing the “Happy Birthday to You” song to him. No one has ever been able to finish the song in his presence; he has always firmly (and quite loudly) put a stop to what he considers an annoying infringement on his special day. On the other hand, he doesn’t
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Two weeks ago, Micah and I watched the 1986 movie, Little Shop of Horrors. I wanted to familiarize Micah with the story, the characters, and the music before his next theater camp featuring the play by the same name. We were both thoroughly entertained by this zany film, and afterward agreed that the next four
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The Art of Delegating When I was a child, growing up on a dairy farm in Northwestern Minnesota, chores were a daily part of my life from an early age. I remember my mother teaching me how to fold laundry and wash dishes when I was five years old. Delegating and directing seemed to come
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The Monologue “A cello is not a cool instrument. Definitely not like a guitar or a piano or even a trumpet.” My tall son, his voice deep and loud, spoke those words on a stage last Friday. These two sentences were the opening of a 200-word monologue that he’d been given to perform on the
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Welcome to Mountaintop Mondays, a day reserved for briefly posting something wonderful, helpful, or perhaps the humorous side of our lives. There is always something to be thankful for, and it’s encouraging for me to take stock of these gems every single day. How about you? Today Micah is beginning a week-long theater camp, Acting
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Loud crystal drops are calling to me in the dark stillness of my bedroom. They echo, over and over, striving to pull me out of a deep slumber, although it doesn’t take long for me to open my eyes. I loathe their annoying persistence, and yet, I am grateful at the same time. I chose
It’s a sunny afternoon in the middle of May, and I’m in a conference room at Micah’s high school. There are about eight of us seated around a rectangular table–a couple teachers, a counselor, a developmental disabilities advocate, an assistant principal, and one traveling school nurse. Micah sits at the head of the table. He