Best. Set. Ever.

Well, we made it through You Can't Take it With You this weekend, and for the first time since I took over for Bobbi, I'm not so emotionally and physically exhausted that I'll be out of commission for two solid weeks before I can think about anything else.

This is in spite of the fact that we lost 9 cast members and 7 crew members during the course of rehearsal - several actors quit because they didn't like the role they got, three of our techies were yanked by their parents as punishment for unrelated grounding-type offenses (only one set of parents contacted us about yanking their child from the show), and another one dropped out 3 days before the show opened, because his track coach said he couldn't come to our mandatory rehearsals, so he kicked himself out of the show. On Monday a girl from the senior class died of cancer, so our final rehearsals and preview were scheduled around memorial activities. She was a dear friend of many of our cast members, so there were some seriously dramatic dynamics engulfing our final week of production.

Yet with all that, it was the least stressful experience I've had with this school so far. How can that be? It must be thanks to my awesome Tech Director, who built a set that is being lauded as the best one ever. The principal and superintendant were among his fans, who came to me at intermisssion and told me how much the kids enjoyed working on the set and how much they love my Dad. I had to agree. Here's a sample of his work:

Now if I can just convince him to come back next year!