Predicament

Why can't everybody just get along?

Something has come up recently that has caused no little stir in my life. I'm not even sure how to talk about it without hurting people's feelings or giving someone the wrong idea (assuming, of course, that any of the people involved might actually stumble across my blog). But let's face it, people will always have different opinions and inevitably, people will get their feelings hurt when someone doesn't agree with them. And then, when they act upon their different opinion, someone is going to take that as a sign of disloyalty that they didn't change their opinion to match his or hers.

This probably makes no sense at all -- I'm not even sure if that was grammatically correct English -- but suffice it to say, there are a lot of ruffled feathers over a subject that I believe has been blown way out of proportion and people are getting offended left and right and I feel like I'm caught in the middle. I'm trying to stay as neutral as possible, but both sides of the issue at hand are waging a mental/emotional war on the other and I am the rope in this little tug-of-war . And if I don't take a stand one way or the other .... well, I really don't care what people say. It's just a part of the drama behind the drama.

If you haven't guessed, this all has something to do with The Theater. I love costuming -- I really, really do. And I have really come to love working with the people I have met through this experience. But I have rapidly come to realize that there's still a lot of competition in this occupation, and a lot of politics and strategy and garbage that is very frustrating.

What it comes down to is this: there are several children's theater groups in town. Some have a better reputation than others, but as they are constantly changing hands and swapping staff members (usually due to hurt feelings or seriously bad miscommunications between one another), the dynamics are also constantly changing. Since they each function as a business, they are also competing for the best shows and lately, the best actors. Loyalty to one group or another has torn kids apart and sometimes, families.

AAAAAARRRRGGGGGHHHHHH!

Thanks for letting me vent.

The good news is, Sara and Emma are having a marvelous time in our community school production of "Annie". Both girls are in the ensemble, but Sara does have a few speaking parts, and they both sing and dance their hearts out and we are very proud of them. I'm so glad everything has worked out (we had a minor crisis this week with costumes, and I gladly stepped in and helped), and that audiences, in general, have received them well. We've got one more week of late nights until the show wraps up this Saturday.

And then life will be back to normal....until the next show starts!