Charles's theater job

Last Sunday The Emperor's New Clothes was completely sold out. This would normally be a very good thing, except that we had to turn some kids away, including Charles, which broke my heart (and Sandy's and Kat's and Mary Ann's hearts, too). Charles was great about it and cheered up after I told him that I would bring him back the following week and that I was very, very sorry. Very. Very. (And thus Leta learns - again - the virture of making reservations.)

So this morning through a covert agency-amount of organization and timing and scheming, I collected Charles (age 8) and Deb (cast member) and off we went to Herndon. Arriving with the director means a pretty fair amount of time is spent cooling one's heals waiting for the show to begin and we forgot to bring a book for Charles, so he definitely wins the award for patience. Mind you, he got to walk with me to the bakery (and help carry back the booty), and he got a chocolate pretzel, and he got to hang out with Annie and Joey (Richard's adorable and well-behaved children who just miniatures versions of him) and Kaitlyn (Sandy's daughter. Sandy runs our box office. She is lovely and a dear.).

At one point Charles was muching his pretzel and listening to me and Sandy discuss some of the logistics for the day. He started asking questions about how the box office worked, how many seats are in the theater, how many reservations there were for the day, etc. And I had two thoughts: 1. That a little boy who didn't get to see the show last week would have a definite interest in how many reservations there were; and 2. That, although he never used the specific phrase "How's the house today?," Charles sounded an awful lot like a producer. So once again I have brought a child to Elden Street who can have a career in theater that doesn't involve acting and could involve making enough money to take his parents on nice vacations in foreign countries. His parents can thank me later.

Also producer-like, Charles wanted to know why there were lights on over the house but not enough lights on the stage, so I explained the difference between pre-show house lights and show lighting. He seemed to think that there were a lot of stage lights and that we wouldn't need to use all of them. Probably because he's getting his percentage off the back end and doesn't want to drive down the gross...

He offered to help, too. And charmed everyone.

And didn't want to sit down front as Samatha does, but wanted to sit in the back row in the least seat on house right, which is near the booth. Just like a producer.