Phew

Last night I had the theatre class (for which I've been preparing for weeks). I put together a (pretty nice!) workbook, and had the 2 hour session (the first of 4 (or maybe 5)) last night.

The idea behind it was to, hopefully, interest a few young people in the theatre (and maybe get a little work out of 'em in the process). At the same time, we'd be exposing our theatre to a few new families, which is a very good thing. It's a win-win-win proposition -- if we had any kids interested.

I really didn't know how much interest there'd be, but I'd have been satisfied with 5 kids -- and I was actually hoping for maybe 7 (or even 8). If we'd have had 8, I'd have been thrilled -- reaching out to 8 new families is no small deal.

Well, I sat in the theatre (having arrived an hour or so early), anxiously awaiting their arrival. The first kid arrived about 5 minutes before starting.....then a few more arrived....by the time we began, I had 33 kids (and 3 more who sent a message along that they couldn't attend this first session, but wanted to participate in the subsequent sessions).

Whoa. 33? That's very cool.

Of course, by the time I finished talking and running around and basically leading 33 kids for two unbroken hours, I was energy-drained (and my voice felt like I had gargled battery acid). What a blast, though -- and what a potentially great thing, for the community, the theatre, and those kids.