Our "Spring Break" was bookended by the performance weekends of
The Living Passion at Chapel on the Hill.
Sean played Jesus and Benjamin, Elena and I were in the chorus as Townsbaby, Townschild, and Townsperson. The only reason that we were able to participate in this production is because we performed in this same passion play two years ago at Chapel on the Hill. Sean and I played Papa and Mama, and Elena was our baby. She was 8 months old at the time and it was her theatrical debut. Now Benjamin and Jeffery Powell are taking over this time around as the Townsbabies.
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| Little Buddies- Benjamin Sean (1 year old) & Jeffery Russell (5 Months) |
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Ben's thinking, "Mommy, hold me!"
Jeffery's thinking, 'Mommy, what's his problem?'
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Since we knew all of the music from last time (in the spring of 2011), we were able to be in the show this time with very little rehearsal time. Living in Dubuque, we had to travel back to Wisconsin for several weekends to rehearse with the cast, especially since Sean was Jesus (he had to do a lot of the work memorizing in Dubuque, but was grateful for the opportunity to portray our savior). Elena and Ben were glad to have a reason to come to Wisconsin more often to see their Grandmas and Grandpas and closest friends (and I'm sure the Grandmas and Grandpas were glad that we were around more often, these babies are growing up too fast).
Leading up to production week, our house apparently became a petri dish for illnesses. After Ben and Elena got over their double ear infections, Elena came down with a stomach virus (this was the weekend that Sean had to go to Wisconsin by himself for rehearsal, so I took care of the sick little girl). After Elena was a day or two on the mend, then Ben came down with it! We delayed our departure for Wisconsin by one day because of this, trying to give him more time to recover in the comfort of his own home (we planned to leave Thursday night, so instead we went Friday mid-day). Ben was still slightly feverish, so he was not onstage for our Friday night performance, this was our final dress rehearsal with an invited audience. So he stayed downstairs with Aunt Heather (Sean's sister) who graciously volunteered to watch the kids when they were not involved in the scenes. He was ready for opening night, though. Unfortunately, during the week between performances, Elena got someone's cold and ran a fever for a few days too. So for our final matinee performance, she sickly napped through the whole thing.
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| Elena was a little sick for the last matinee performance and she slept through the whole show. |
I think my favorite part of this passion play, is the beautiful music. "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna", "In Remembrance of Me", "Not My Will, but Thine", "Lamb of God", "How Deep the Father's Love for Us", "Arise, My Love", and "Hallelujahs to the Lamb" are all the songs in our production. My favorites are a tie between "How Deep the Father's Love for Us" and "Arise, My Love". This year had an interesting twist for me backstage. Two years ago in the show, Denise would come backstage and conduct for all of us that were singing the songs offstage. This time, she did the same thing, but I was on the opposite side of the stage, relay conducting so that the people offstage on the other side could see. Without both sides together, a vocal tug-of-war would happen; this never sounds good and is hard to resolve once it starts, so the relay conducting was to hopefully avoid this from happening, and it did! I was also relay conducting for Carol and Kathy in the pit. Carol could see my hand, and then we pretty much all stayed together. It reminded me of the High School marching band shows, where one conductor was high on a ladder at center, and then 4 more conductors were spread out in front so that all of the band members could see someone at all times. The only hiccups would be when the lights would dim for the night-time moments, Carol could no longer see my hands, and when an actor onstage would stand right between Denise and me, so I couldn't see her at all to stay with her. These were obviously not catastrophes, we just got through those moments and moved on, but I found it rather fun!
At the beginning of the show, Ben stayed with me in the sling carrier, listening attentively to Grandpa and Dr. Bob address the crowd (in the last few shows, he was getting more bold and talking back to Grandpa). Then when the children entered from the back of the auditorium announcing that Jesus is coming, Elena came in and walked down to me. Together, we all sang "Hosanna, Loud Hosanna" and waved the palm branches. Elena loved that her palm branch was small like her, and she waved it proudly. The last weekend of shows, she actually sang along a little bit. After this song, we would go onstage and Jesus would trash the temple, knocking the coins all over. Elena joined all of the other children who danced around the stage picking up all of the coins (she was so proud when she would find one of her own). Ben stayed with me for one more scene when Jesus was teaching at the temple. In later shows, Ben talked back to Daddy a bit during this scene and would also lift his hand out mimicking Daddy's gestures. At this point, the kids played downstairs until the last song of the show so that they wouldn't disrupt any of the more emotional and pivotal scenes or songs. Then in the joyous ending, all of the children joined their families and we sang "Hallelujahs to the Lamb" which featured "The Hallelujah Chorus".
When we got home Saturday night from the show, Elena started saying over and over, "Oh-na-na" and we had the hardest time figuring out what she was saying. Then my mom said, "Ho-na-na?" and she nodded. Suddenly I realized, HOSANNA! She was saying and singing Hosanna! The night that Lindsey (my sister-in-law) was there to watch the kids, she brought her daughters (Elena's cousins) Hailey and Penny with too. After the show, Hailey, Penny, Elena and Alannah (another 3-year-old child in the cast) were all singing "Hallelujah, Hallelujah, Hallelujah..." (or rather "Ha-yeh-yoo-yah" for Penny and "Ha-meh-yoo-yah" for Elena) over and over. Alannah even noted, "Penny sings Ha-yeh-yoo-yah" singing it mid-range, "and I sing it like Ha-yeh-yoo-yah" singing it much higher in screech realm. I find it so precious that this 3-year-old was observing the rudimentary difference between an Alto and a Soprano :-)
Overall (illnesses aside), we had such a great time in this show. It was wonderful working with all of the lovely families; Badtkes, Quintos, Fergusons, Bardins, Genzs, Oddens, and Johnsons. We had some great new families join our show this time around too; Powells, Stefaniaks, Dennises, Hernandezs, Vavrochs. It was also amazing to have Rex Wilkinson, Ruth St. Clair, Don Durovey, Dan Burke, Adam Armstrong, Pete Thompson, Caleb Reshkus, Lexie Marsh, Patti Sulser, Judy Ramacitti, John Nawrocki (who was brand new to our stage!), Anastasia Bouras, Justin Brown, Cynthia Ashton, and Karen Lego. We were so happy to have Heather (and Aunt Lindsey for one show) help us with all the kids. It was also very nice to have a new face, Devon, our curtain puller. We were very lucky to have David Shelton and Ben Odden in the booth to make us look and sound great. My dad, Mark Badtke, designed the lights and set (well, rather he recreated the set design of the late John Williams, who was the set designer for our production two years ago). Adam Armstrong lent us his expertise in fight choreography and helped us with our fight sequences. More of our great helpers were Jan Johnson helping with costumes, Jeannie Licary helping us with the printing of our programs and posters, Julie Sommers as our house manager, Cynthia Hoffman helping in the ticket booth, and Donna Kueter doing all of our advertising (from afar no less, which seems vaguely familiar considering I attempted to be the producer on this show from Dubuque, with the help of Kathy Ferguson). We had a wonderful piano player, Carol Berndt, whom I haven't work with since High School, so it was great getting reacquainted with Carol. Not only did Kathy help as co-producer, but she also played the flute in the pit orchestra. Denise Olson kept us all together and sounding good as our Musical Director, and last but certainly not least was our fearless leader, Donna Badtke. She really puts in a lot of time and effort and I'm so happy that everyone and everything came together to make such an impactful final product.
I hope that a lot of you will consider being involved the next time we produce this The Living Passion. It takes such a large cast and is such a blessing to the cast and to the audience. The Christian Arts Centre Board of Directors has decided to produce this play every other year, so think it over and if you are interested in being involved (onstage or off) we would be grateful to have you.
Until spring of 2015!
.JPG)
