Early on in Ellis' Newsies obsession, he was pretty sure that he, himself, could one day star as a Newsie himself. He made me scour the Internet until I found an entire script of the 1992 film. At his insistence, I printed all 48 pages (8 pt. font), punched holes in them, and put them in a binder. You may remember from previous posts that Ellis directed many Newsies plays in our home, using this binder.
Soon the binder was not enough to satisfy Ellis' need to perform, and we started talking about finding a local play that he could be in. I explained that if he really wanted to be Jack one day, in a real Newsies play, he would have to start small - with any play he could get into, and build his résumé and experience, so someday the directors of Newsies could not refuse him. He was thrilled with this idea and insisted that I search Google for local children's theater. It was hard to find theater for 6-year-olds, but I finally found a group doing Beauty and the Beast. Nope. Not interested. Little Mermaid? No way. I kept searching and wasn't finding much. Ellis was getting frustrated. "Type it in. Just type it in!" he said. "I am typing it in!" I replied. "That's really all I can find in our area!" "No! Type it in!" he insisted. "Type what in?" I asked. "Newsies!" I finally realized what he was hoping for: a children's theater near our home that was putting on a Newsies play and accepting 6-year-olds as actors. Should be pretty easy. Right?
Well, that night was a disappointing one for Ellis, and we put that idea on the shelf, and he ended up starring in Shrek a few months later. He loved it, so one day I decided to look for summer theater programs for his age group. When I came across Dream Big Performing Arts in Andersonville, I nearly fell out of my chair. They actually were doing a one-week summer camp with a Newsies theme! It was for 7 and up, but I was able to convince them to let Ellis in! And imagine the excitement when, the morning of the camp, I called the director and found out that - due to low enrollment - Sam could also participate!!!
These two boys could not have been more excited on the first morning of Newsies camp. Ellis was literally jumping up and down in his booster seat in the car for the whole 30-minute drive. He could not believe his luck and good fortune. His dreams were all about to come true.
He wore this hat for every practice that week.
While those two were at camp, Henry and I had some time to explore the Chicago neighborhood of Andersonville. It is a very chic and happening place! Henry loved this toy store that displayed kids' Lego creations in the window.
We also spent lots of time in the local bookstore, where I found out about all of the books Henry has already read. He just kept finding series like this and saying, "I've read 1-5 in this one, but not 6." "I've read all of these, all of these..." etc.
I don't know why, but I was totally shocked by this, because as far as I knew, Henry read mostly nonfiction books. I never saw him reading any of these! Apparently he did a LOT of reading during school in 3rd grade. I'm so happy that he started enjoying fiction.
Andersonville was settled by Swedish immigrants, and it still has a lot of Swedish influence. We all enjoyed visiting this Swedish American museum, which had a great children's section. Ellis made Henry act out a play with him on the deck of this pretend boat. :)
Henry had different ideas.
Did you know that Buzz Aldrin was a Swedish American? We learned all about it in this space shuttle section.
We bought sweets from the Swedish Bakery. Little did I know that this would become the favorite bakery of all three boys, and they would ask to go there for many months to come (only to be disappointed, because it is not very convenient to our home).
But seriously! Look at that football cake pop! Other favorites included cookies that looked like a fried egg and a hamburger.
We enjoyed some lunch and our outrageously wonderful treats outdoors.
And now, for the big day! Friday was the performance day, after the kids had worked all week to prepare their play. These two went all out with costumes. Well, for sure Ellis did.
Um, really excited!!!
The kids were divided into age groups, and Sam was in the younger section. He experimented with confidence on stage.
Nailed it!
I was proud of his performance.
The teachers were super cute getting the kids ready to perform.
And here are some shots of Ellis onstage. As you can see, it turned out that not very many kids even knew what Newsies was when the week started. So some of them weren't interested in a full-on Newsies production, to Ellis' slight disappointment. But they compromised, and Ellis was a Newsie character in the play they made up, with a wild and crazy plot.
He turned out to be in heaven performing...
...especially on the "seize the day" moments.
The whole group joined together for the "Seize the Day" song. Can you guess which two boys totally rocked it and stole the show?
Yeah, it was a good week.
