Hale Center Theatre

We attended a fun backstage tour of Hale Center Theatre in West Valley last week with a big group of kids and their moms that do a summer reading group. I'm not in the group but one of the groupies asked if I wanted to come. It was only for ages 5 and up, so I left Ezra with Aunt Lacey and brought her girls with us. It turned out to be such a great experience. I was really impressed with our host. He got the kids laughing and managed to teach some great concepts through acting games. They had to practice following directions. This was a big hit because they would "swim, stop, slop, roll" etc. If they didn't freeze when he said stop then they'd be out. He also used Nolan to demonstrate a little bit about physical contact. He was explaining that if you never touch the people you are on stage with then it doesn't look very natural. At one point he gave Nolan a line to say: "Dad, I lost the soccer game." Nolan got a confused look on his face and he said, "I haven't started playing soccer yet." He didn't quite get the whole concept. We've been talking about starting soccer this Fall and he just got his new cleats, so he was confused. He decided he didn't want to say the line and another volunteer was picked. It was pretty cute, though. Overall I was so impressed with how well he did participating and following directions.

 Later, the tour guide explained stage directions on a normal stage and an "in-the-round" theatre like that one. Kendyll was part of this demonstration and then he used Ryan to test if she knew all the right stage directions. It was like a clock with middle, in, and out spots and she knew all the answers! Then all the kids got to play a game standing in different areas. It was fun that all the kids could participate, learn, and have such a good time. The rest of the tour consisted of the green room, seeing the sewing room where they make costumes, the shop where they design sets, and the theatre itself. Nolan was very interested in all of the lighting. At the end they gave us a buy one get one free ticket to see a show. We're hoping we can see Tarzan next summer. I'm glad we could go on such a great tour!