<< 1 >>
Rating: 
Summary: Fun and easy to use, especially for a novice director
Review: Pros: easy to use, judicious use of the CD can tailor the difficulty level for your group, the message is neither "left-wing" nor "right-wing", the kids loved the idea of being "spies", and the congregation chuckled throughout.Cons: if you have a small cast, you will need to make your own chart of who is in what scene in order to figure out where you can have kids play more than one part. Making this work for fewer than about 8 kids would be tricky unless you are working with older kids who understand how to effectively play more than one character in the same scene. (Memorizing lines might allow you to cut out one or two characters, too.) I ordered both "Operation Baby King" and "The Fumbly Bumbly Angels", listened to both, and decided that "Operation Baby King" was going to be the better of the two. FBA is a cute story, but the introductions to the songs were too stodgy, e.g. "Please sing with us". In contrast, OBK worked the titles into the dialog (sometimes getting a humorous groan from the audience) and seemed to flow much better. If we can memorize our lines next year, we may try FBA with some slight modifications to the song intros. OBK has subtle (and not so subtle) references to other films and characters (James Bond, The Princess Bride, Dragnet, etc.) which an astute audience will catch and be entertained by.This was my very first children's play/pageant of any kind. We pulled it off after 3.5 hours of rehearsal time (one being on the morning of the performance) and the congregation really enjoyed it. The ".5" rehearsal was a day where we just listened to the first part of the CD, talked about it, and told them that they would get their casting assignments the next week. I think the keys to our success were these: we used the CD for all dialog except 3 lines at the end and let kids just gesture/pantomime or even lip-sync if they really wanted to (although the book recommends against it); we printed the words to the songs on large poster board so the kids didn't have to memorize those either (there are 8 songs with 2 or 3 verses each!); we created a poster board listing the scenes and songs as a giant "cue card"; we asked the congregation to sing along on all songs and provided them the words by copying the page from the book (permission is granted for this right on the page); we concentrated on practicing acting out the scenes and scene transitions rather than the songs; we staged it as a choir with speaking parts stepping out for their scenes and then rejoining the choir (no entrances or exits from the stage). This allowed us to re-use the whole cast as "the heavenly host" where needed. We had 13 kids ranging in age from 4 to 11; 4-6 year olds can do just fine as wise men, Mary and Joseph, one (or both) of the shephards, etc. It was helpful to have older kids do most of the "spy" roles because they have more scenes and scene transitions. All of the kids came up with their own costumes out of things they had around the house. One child played 2 roles (first a shephard, then a wise man). There are two or three other roles that could also be easily combined if you have fewer kids. There is also room to fill out the cast (add animals, more shephards or wise men, etc.) if you have more kids. Many of the kids (and parents) have suggested that we do the same one next year because they enjoyed it so much. I recommend at least 3 1-hour practices at a minimum; plan for more if you would like to be less stressed out about whether or not your kids are ready or if you want to memorize lines or songs.
<< 1 >>
| 
