Mornings Filled With Song
Every morning in Mrs. Hoplamazian’s second grade class, we sang songs. We sang any song we felt like, ranging from the national anthem, to Disney songs, while Mrs. Hoplamazian played along on the piano. Every day my friends in Mrs. Capocasel’s class across the hall would complain to me at recess that they had to take a spelling test that morning while we were singing. They would go on about how it was so unfair and how their teacher was so strict and how they wished they were in my class because it seemed so much more fun.
Even though they were complete opposites in the classroom, Mrs. Hoplamazian and Mrs. Capocasel were great friends, and they often brought their classes together to do activities. One day, during one of the joint activities, the teachers stopped us and had us gather around for an announcement. They informed their eager audience that we were going to put on a show. Not just any show, but a medley of Broadway songs that we would perform in front of our parents and most of Fort Washington Elementary School.
The first step was learning all the songs. We had to sing everyday to memorize all the songs from a variety of musicals such as Annie, Surrey with a Fringe on Top, and Camelot. After many mornings of practice we had all learned the songs, and it was time to move on to the next part of the show, the dancing. We all danced in whatever formation the teachers put us in so they could figure out the choreography. One of the songs involved square dancing, which they had us all learn. It was so much fun, spinning around, laughing, but the one part we hated about the dance and the whole show in particular, was that we had to dance with boys.
After the show was choreographed, it was time to assign kids to dance in each song. I was assigned to take the stage for the title song from Camelot. I was so excited because the characters in Camelot were princes and princess and what little girl does not want to be a princess. The teachers also had us audition for the announcer role for each song. I auditioned and I somehow won the part of announcing “It’s a Hard Knock Life,” and “Tomorrow,” from Annie. I practiced this part at the after school Y program, while swinging on the swings, passing the script to my friends so they could test me. Passing paper on the swings did not work very well, so we spent most of the time chasing the paper down instead of actually rehearsing. Even amongst all the chaos, I still managed to memorize the lines.
The next important part of the show that needed to be accomplished was the costumes. Each kid was asked to bring in certain clothes which would fit his/her particular song. I had the perfect princess dress, but unfortunately, I did not posses an important part of my costume, a princess hat. I felt so left out because all the other girls had managed to find a princess hat but I couldn’t. I complained over and over again to my teacher because I felt that the hat was an integral part of the costume. In the end, one of the teachers came through and made my friend and I princess hats.
The show was finally ready. After weeks of hard work, it came together and went off spectacularly. It was so much fun and in the end, we had more songs, now accompanied by wonderful memories, to sing in the morning.
Filed by Mr. Hillman at April 1st, 2008 under I eat paste and other childhood reflections
