It's almost time to perform our Easter musical, The Day He Wore My Crown! I'm excited, and kinda scared. I may not even be able to make it to the first performance, and I won't make it to the dress rehearsal before the performance next Thursday. I really would rather go to the dress rehearsal and performance.... Why do things always have to occur all at once this time of year?!

Beth plays Young Mary this year. Gosh, she has an awesome voice! I really, really wish I could sing like her... Even though I know I sing well already. (Not to sound conceited or anything!) But, oh man, Beth's voice... It's so pretty.

Anyway. Today we had a full run-through, and it was crazy-- on "Behold the Lamb" and "The Day He Wore My Crown", I thought I was going to dissolve into tears! And this just a rehearsal-type thing! I think it was because of Elder Mary's wailing. Elizabeth's dad, Ed, told the woman playing Elder Mary that she should really sound like she was in agony-- and, boy, did she ever!!

And when they were bringing Jesus up the aisle with the crossbar of the cross on his back, the actor's son was whipping him with such... ferocity that it scared me to death! I was almost crying out with terror, Oh, goodness, don't hit him so hard! He is still your dad, you know! But I suppose that's the effect we want. Besides, he's not even hitting Jesus; he's hitting the crossbar thing-- but, oh, how awful sounding!!

I am part of the choir, by the way. We are the angels in scene one, and then townspeople (Jews) the rest of the time. Ed is trying so hard to get us to do everything right; I think he's overworking himself. I hope he doesn't stress out too much come time to put the whole thing on.

Today at the practice, though, we were all really loose and ready to laugh out loud. And we certainly laughed a lot! We made so many goofy mistakes.... It was great. Good thing Ed wasn't too upset with us; that would've put a lot of tension on the group. But apparently he wasn't feeling terribly serious either. He just shook his head at us and laughed. :)

At the angel scene, one of the shepherds-- the goof-off of them all :) --came right up to us as we walked around on stage and stared at us with huge eyes and a big smile to make us smile.

And then our donkey would not come in the door! He was being as stubborn as stubborn can be! So "Jesus" just walked down the aisle with his arms out like, "Oh well, guess that didn't work!" Mark is a goof-off too. (That's just wonderful during practice!) Like today during the Passover Feast scene, he was doing just fine, getting all his lines right and stuff, and then he got to, "This is my body, which is broken for you." There he's supposed to, of course, pick up the bread and break it in half and pass it around the table to his disciples.

Well, there wasn't any bread to break.

When Mark looked down at his hands for the bread, he didn't see it, and the whole table and everyone who was watching just burst out laughing!

I wasn't even in the sanctuary when it happened; I was in the Fellowship Hall next to it. It was funny, because it was all quiet one minute and the next I heard everyone in the sanctuary start cracking up! "Oh, my," I said, grinning and running over to the folding curtain separating the two rooms. "What happened now??"

Well, I need to get off. I have Algebra to do. Yick. Good-bye!

-Stephanie