Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Talent Show!!

We have been teasing some of the Grandparents for a few weeks now about Alayna's first appearance at the ward talent show. Alayna has been excited about the talent show from the first time it was announced. She decided right away that she would sing Castle on A Cloud from Les Miserables. The talent show is also the night of the ward desert competition and pig roast.

Last year's entry to the desert competition was completely ignored by the judges (missionaries with no palate). I think the Bishop heard rumor that there may have been some hard feelings over the way the judging took place last year, because this year the desert competition was only open to the Primary children. Alayna decided that we would be submitting our recently found and modified to be gluten-free brownie recipe. Alayna did all of the measuring and pouring into the bowl and Stacy assisted by operating the heavy machinery.

So, we have the perfect set-up for the perfect evening. The ward talent show, made up of any person willing to stand on the stage in front of the crowd. The ward, more interested in talking to the people two or three tables away from them than pay attention to the talent. And desert provided by the Primary children. But the pig was smoked to perfection. There is nothing that a little bit (OK, a whole lot) of perfectly bbq'd pork can't solve.

Stacy started off the evening with her rendition of the song Popular from the award winning musical, Wicked. (Pardon the audio, I don't have a sound engineer willing to work for what I'm willing to pay)



As soon as Stacy finished receiving her well deserved applause, Alayna took the stage.



What I like is that there is a definite difference between the background noise when Stacy and Alayna sings. The free-range children that escaped the attention of their parents and stood in front of the stage making too much noise during the show paid more attention to Alayna than Stacy, but returned to their noisy diversions as soon as Alayna was done.

Immediately following the talent show and later at church on Sunday, Stacy received four requests wondering where she can be seen performing plays/shows/musicals in the area. Apparently Stacy is perceived to be good enough that normally cheap thrifty Mormons are willing to pay money to hear her sing. Alayna received her share of positive comments as well. She is the current darling of the ward and milks it for all it's worth. Everybody was very impressed at her ability to memorize the whole song and willingness to perform in front of the crowd.

And to quote my Deacon's reporting on the events of a campout, "We had a lot of fun."