Fiddler on the Roof

Ethan participated in the school play this spring, which finished up this past weekend. It was a fine production-- we enjoyed watching it and he definitely enjoyed taking part. Last year his role in the play ("Beauty and the Beast") was as an anonymous villager and a plate; this year he had a slightly better part as the innkeeper, so he had a few lines and participated in some of the dancing scenes. Some pictures:

These were actually taken by Amy at one of the rehearsals-- we were not allowed to photograph during the performances. Apparently in order to put on a production of Fiddler on the Roof, you have to sign an agreement that has lots of restrictions.

As with last year, student participation was amazing; there were a good 70 kids in the cast, although it did seem as though about two-thirds of them were girls (which looked a little weird when the "villagers" were all assembled together-- clearly the town had been stricken by a serious shortage of men). I also helped out a tiny bit this year with set-building. My carpentry skills are horrendous, but as luck would have it, "horrendous" works just fine when you are cobbling together wooden props.

This year's play was something of a milestone: it marks the 25th school play produced by the amazing Mr Godfrey, the teacher at Diamond who is the driving force behind the school's drama productions. He announced at the end of the last performance that he is officially hanging up his director's cap. I'm sorry to see him step down, since he is an absolutely top-flight director/producer, but after 25 years, I can hardly blame him. I hope they can find someone new to step in for him, so that future Diamond students (Lydia?) can have the same sorts of good experiences that Ethan had.