Go Fly a Kite

This summer we've been working on a little musical production with a few other families from church.  We chose to do selections from Mary Poppins and assigned each child a part to play and a song to sing.  It wasn't anything big or super professional, but it was fun for our kids to get together one morning a week and sing.   I appreciated the structure it added to our summer, as our summers are usually somewhat aimless and unscripted.

Last week, with summer break almost at an end, we put on the big show.  The costumes were ready, hair and makeup were done, and I sort of had the songs I was playing on the piano figured out.  The audience wasn't large - just the families involved and three other people - and the "stage" was just one end of the primary room.

Samantha played the role of Jane Banks.  She was excellent at giggling, making messes, and looking sweet. She also did a lovely job singing Perfect Nanny with Logan (aka Michael Banks).

Abigail was one of three girls to play Mary Poppins.  With eighteen kids and lots of songs sung by the title character, we had to spread the love around. She was the Mary for the song Spoonful of Sugar and she did her best to be prim and proper while still convincing those two troublemakers to clean up their mess.

 Madison was the bird lady and sang Feed the Birds and her lovely alto voice was the perfect fit for the song.  We made her amazing hair into a crazy huge mess of a bun (I so wish you could see it in this picture) and she wore layer after layer of clothing and those scarves that she knitted herself.

Emily was Mrs. Banks and sang Being Mrs. Banks, a song that moves from sad, to angry, to sort of wistful and romantic, to determined.  Emily really worked on the acting that goes along with the song this summer but she just couldn't get through the part about kissing without a little giggle.

The grand finale was two ensemble numbers, Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious and Let's go Fly a Kite.  The youngest of the kids weren't given specific roles, but joined the cast for these two songs.  Natalie and the other five-and-six year olds were super enthusiastic, especially for Let's Go Fly a Kite.

All the girls had so much fun this summer working on Mary Poppins and I still hear them humming or singing the songs as they go about their lives.  It was a great night and I'm really glad that we have amazing friends who think of fun things like this and include the Morans in their grand plans.