<p>I was really excited when after callbacks, the director took me aside, hugged me and said that he wanted me to do the elvin queen role. He really liked my presence, he said, promising that I’d get to wear a glamorous gown and act very noble – if the casting was approved by the person whom he reports to.</p>
<p>Casting list went up today. I’m on it, but won’t be an elvin queen. I’ll be the oldest dwarf and will have a beard.</p>
<p>I still accepted the role eagerly. That’s show biz!</p>
<p>Break a leg, Northstarmom! That’s a great story.</p>
<p>Congrats. . .but aren’t you a little tall for a dwarf?</p>
<p>Yes, I actually am tall for a dwarf. I hope I don’t have spend all of my time on stage as a very bent over dwarf.</p>
<p>Wow, happy day! That is great news. Congratulations on this achievement!!</p>
<p>So you went from Galadriel to Gimli? I never liked Galadriel. Always loved Gimli.</p>
<p>Congrats, NM.</p>
<p>Love that you are doing this. Were you involved in theater when you were in school or is this a recent activity? I have always had a secret wish to do this, but at this point my 13 yo S would be mortified. Maybe in 5 years? Until then I will have to do this vicariously through you. So keep posting.</p>
<p>As someone said earlier- break a leg!! Have fun as a dwarf.</p>
<p>You have the best attitude!!!</p>
<p>Northstarmom, you’ll steal the show as the dwarf! When I grow up, I want to be you! 
Break a leg!</p>
<p>“Love that you are doing this. Were you involved in theater when you were in school or is this a recent activity? I have always had a secret wish to do this, but at this point my 13 yo S would be mortified. Maybe in 5 years? Until then I will have to do this vicariously through you. So keep posting.”</p>
<p>I tried out for 2 shows when I was in high school. I got into one and had a walk-on with one line as an Egyptian slave in “Caesar and Cleopatra.” That was it for me in theater for more than 20 years.</p>
<p>When my kids were preschool/elementary school, my older S got involved in a theater summer camp. I had such a great time watching him that I took acting lessons. I embarrassed my kids by insisting on loudly and with gestures practicing my monologue from “Joan of Arc.”</p>
<p>I didn’t get involved again until 3 years ago, H and I took a brief theater workshop for seniors. I found a crazy community theater that accepts all comers. I made my debut dancing in my Victoria’s secret teddy over a leotard and tights.</p>
<p>Unfortunately, my were in college and grown and gone and didn’t come to see me, though H liked it and an old boyfriend who was in town liked my act.</p>
<p>I’ve done a a few other crazy shows with that theater - including being a drag queen and being the mother from hell in a parody of Little Women. Younger S, a theater major who was home last summer summer, got dragged on stage to be in a show with me He thought he was just waiting for me to finish rehearsal since we were sharing my car that day, but the director saw S’s obvious talent and got him on stage.</p>
<p>My current show is my third show since the summer.</p>
<p>If I worried about humiliating my kids with my eccentricities, I wouldn’t do anything. For instance, I celebrated my 58th birthday by having a dance party in which my friends – guys and gals (including some friends whom I share with younger S)-- ranging from elementary school aged kids to a 70-year-old friends learned to belly dance. The teacher was a 62-year-old friend who’s a college prof, a grandmom of 9 and has a 40-year-old boyfriend who was there bellydancing, too. It was an alcohol-free party, too.</p>
<p>Younger S, 21, led the swing dancing and taught us the shim sham. :)</p>
<p>In middle age, I started making up for being a shy chicken when I was young. I truly am having more fun than I did in any other time of my life.</p>
<p>Great story, NSM! I’m kinda re-inventing myself right now, or at least re-directing, and you are a wonderful role model. I’m very cognizant that the chances are much greater that I won’t get into the kind of school I’m applying for (tiny acceptance rates), but I’m already figuring out how to get where I want to be anyway. Being the bent over dwarf, so to speak. (more likely than dancing on stage in a teddy–go, you!)</p>
<p>A beard?! Can the dwarf at least wear a crown?</p>
<p>What kind of graduate programs are you applying to, Garland?</p>
<p>I am sure you’ll have fun and will be a star student. My thoughts about college and grad school are that in general those things are wasted on the young. </p>
<p>I wish I could go to grad school as a theater major, but since auditions are required and it’s such a young person’s field, I doubt that I’d get accepted.</p>
<p>Break a leg, Northstarmon!</p>
<p>You go, NSM! </p>
<p>I am also doing some theatre for the first time since high school. Nothing so exciting as you have done, but I am currently <em>villager #3</em> in a production and having a blast. Haha, I even took a voice lesson this week for the first time since college. My daughter had a sore throat, so I took her lesson. Hey, why should the kids have all the fun?</p>
<p>So cool, Northstarmom. I love that you are doing this. Wish I could see a photo of you as a dwarf though. :)</p>
<p>Break a leg Northstarmom!</p>
<p>NSM, simply fabulous!!! :)</p>