Fiona’s Broadway Dreams
Jan 8, 2013 Around NYC
One of the things I want for my kids is for them to be able to pursue their dreams. They’re both very lucky in that their dreams seem to line up nicely with their talents: Jake, who has a great mind for math and science, wants to do something with computers or video games. Fiona, who has a sweet voice and a lot of dancing ability, wants to perform professionally. Thank goodness. It’s so heartbreaking to watch kids on shows like American Idol and So You Think You Can Dance who want desperately to excel at something they simply have no talent for.
Plus, there are kids who’ve learned how to do one thing very well but can’t do anything else. I remember one of my first auditions was for a local production of Annie. Just about every kid got up on stage and sang “Tomorrow,” and some of them were phenomenal. But then the director would ask the kids to sing a scale, and a lot of them couldn’t. Or the director asked them to sing the song a different way, and they couldn’t. These kids had potential, but they hadn’t learned the fundamentals. Luckily, Fiona hasn’t had enough training or experience to learn any bad habits yet. If she wants to perform, I want her to have a good understanding of the basics. I want her to do the work.
Recently Fiona got to participate in two workshops, courtesy of Broadway Edge: One was a very fun and intense weekend audition workshop with other Broadway Edge students. The other was a no-less-intense (but much shorter) class for bloggers and their kids to see what it was all about.
Director/choreographer/movement coach Michael Schloegl and owner/audition coach/director Jill Jaysen, with the kids at the Blogger Workshop
Working with Broadway Edge was amazing for many reasons. As a proud mom it was so much fun to see what Fiona could accomplish in a short amount of time. Performing professionally is intense, and it was reassuring to see that Fiona’s stamina and excitement did not waver from beginning to end.
It was also interesting to see the way that the Broadway Edge instructors treated the kids. They were gentle, but realistic: they expected a lot out of these kids, some of them very young. They would ask the kids to do something several different ways, so that the kids could learn to take direction. They worked the kids like they were pros but made sure to work on fundamental concepts that would give the kids an edge over the kids who are just told to smile and sing out.
Choreographer Michael Schloegl, working with the Audition Workshop students
What kids learn at Broadway Edge doesn’t just apply to auditioning and performing. At some point, just about everybody has to get up in front of a group and do something, so learning how to speak with confidence, how to present your ideas without questioning them and making them seam weak, is invaluable, whether your kid ends up on a stage or not.
The instructors that Fiona got to work with are all pros who know the business because they work in it. (And they have access to casting directors!) Some Broadway Edge students have gone on to Broadway, and it was thrilling for the kids to get to talk to a former student Adam Riegler, who has performed on Broadway in Shrek The Musical and The Addams Family.
With the help of owner Jill Jaysen, Fiona chose a song from Mary Poppins and worked on memorizing the words the day before the workshop started.
She loved every minute of the two-day workshop, which culminated in a performance for the parents. After each kid performed either a song or a monologue, he or she was given a direction and asked to do a part over again – not an easy thing to do in a room full of people! But the kids were all great. They listened, they internalized the directions, and showed that they were learning to perform, not just memorize.
These first two performances are from the weekend Audition Workshop. The kids worked on dancing, singing (or a monologue), improv, and other skills. I’m so impressed with what they were able to accomplish in just a couple of days.
This performance, from the blogger workshop, is not as polished as the one from the weekend workshop, but the kids were working on this number for less than an hour, so it’s quite an accomplishment! But I’ve really included it so that you can get an idea of how Jill and Michael speak to the kids, how they encourage them, and how they treat them.
You can get more information about the next Broadway Edge workshop, which is being held the first weekend of March, and register here. I can’t wait to see where Fiona goes after this. She’s more fired up than ever before, and Broadway Edge gets the credit for that.
UPDATE: Guess what? Just for being one of my readers you can get $50 off of the next Audition Workshop! Sign up by February 4th, 2013 and enjoy $50 off using the code MBLOG.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 1. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Fiona & I will be on Huffington Post Live tonight
Sep 20, 2012 Kids
A couple years ago I wrote about Fiona and her belief in God. I wrote about it in my former job with Momtourage (I don’t know why they have it listed as being written this year, it was not), and in a better piece on my own site, Bill O’Reilly and Bill Maher in my back seat. As I’ve written before, it’s a bitter pill to swallow when your kids don’t believe what you believe.
Tonight, at 7:20pm, Fiona and I will be appearing on Huff Post Live, in a discussion about this very topic. Kids and religion – it should be interesting! You can tune in here. I hope you’ll join us!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Tags: Fiona, Huffington Post, Kids, religion
Just when I thought Fiona couldn’t get any cuter…
Jul 17, 2011 Posted From My Phone
Fiona is writing a TV show. She spent all morning making a packet for each character, including drawing what each should look like and adjectives to describe them, like “happy,” “smart,” and my personal favorite, “inberest.”
Now she’s auditioning her stuffed animals for the parts. I could die from the cuteness overload.
Originally posted on SelfishMom, from Amy’s cell phone (so please excuse any weird formatting). All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0 . Please see Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Today’s agenda: diva edition
Jun 29, 2011 Today's Agenda
The first half of this day promises to be lazy…at least for the kids. It’s their first day of summer vacation so I’m going to ask nothing of them except basic hygiene.
Later, though, we head to Fiona’s big singing performance! She was in an after-school chorus this year, and the director, Ian Jones, thought that it was important to have all of his students (from several different schools around the city and all different age groups) experience performing in a “real” theater. He raised over $3,000 to rent out Long Island University’s Kumble Theater (actually not on Long Island, but near us in Brooklyn), and tonight is the big night.
Check out this video, a little sneak peek from this past weekend at the Fort Greene Festival:
Of course, poor Jake is stuck with us at the theater from 3:30 on, so I’m hoping the iPad can amuse him for that long.
And when we get back, late tonight, I will start packing for our trip to Buffalo, something I should’ve been doing all week. And I’ll be packing lots of pants, because I never did make it out of the house yesterday for a wax while the kids were in school. I know, tiny violins…
UPDATE: Oh, and I almost forgot: later today I’ll be posting the last part of my Cape May/Congress Hall review series. It really was an amazing place – I can’t wait to go back!
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Randomosity, What the hell is THAT? edition
Jun 26, 2011 Randomosity
I find the weirdest bugs in our downstairs bathroom. I don’t even want to know what this one is.
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Michelle Obama is my hero. Now I’m just waiting for a few particular Republicans to find a way to criticize the First Lady for being physically fit.
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Fiona performed with her school chorus at the Fort Greene Festival yesterday. They were adorable.
It was a warm-up for this coming Wednesday June 29th, at 7pm, when they perform at LIU’s Kumble Theater, along with the other students of Fiona’s awesome choral director, Ian Jones (don’t tell him, but every mom has a crush on him; that’s him on the left playing keyboards). If you’re in Brooklyn and want to come see some really enthusiastic and talented students, from pre-K kids all the way up to high school students, tickets are only $5.
Email Ian Jones for more info and to purchase tickets.
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I can now, if I want to (and why wouldn’t I?!?), get my very own dot selfishmom url. Like, my blog could be blog.selfishmom. Of course, the application fee is $185k, which is a slight increase from the $20/year I’m paying now for SelfishMom.com. Still…
Expect a slew of .Coke, .BMW, and .Microsoft urls. And, of course, .Trump. Because he just won’t be able to resist.
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You have almost a year to save up for a trip to Vegas for your guy for Father’s Day, so that he can do this.
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Please note: if you’re planning on scamming passers-by out of cash by telling them that your baby died and you need money for the funeral, try to figure out – and memorize – the salient details first, like the baby’s birthday, and deathday, and the hospital where he died, and his doctor’s name. Slackers.
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Randomosity: Don’t pull my finger edition
Jun 25, 2011 Randomosity
So there’s something wrong with my finger. About six weeks ago it developed a big callous-like thing on one side next to the nail. It was fairly painful when touched so after a few days I tried to trim the hard skin off with nail clippers, but under the hard skin was just more hard skin and pain. So I left it alone for a month and it got worse.
Everyone who’s looked at it says it looks like a hangnail gone bad, but there was no hangnail to start with. I went to the doctor a week ago and she didn’t know what to make of it either. She gave me a course of antibiotics and a referral to a dermatologist. The antibiotics are now done and it still hurts – actually I think it’s worse. I can hardly type with that finger and if I accidentally hit it on something it’s scream-worthy. The earliest appointment I could get with the dermatologist is a month away and I’m starting to think that by then they’ll tell me “What took you so long? Now we have to amputate your finger.”
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By tomorrow afternoon Fiona will have a nice little credit on her resume: opening for Mos Def. The school chorus she’s in is singing at the Fort Greene festival.
The funny thing is, the festival’s poster says that there’s a “Suggestive Donation” of $3. So I’m not sure if there should be kids there at all.
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This is all Steven Slater’s fault.
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If you haven’t gotten your free download of “Go the Fuck to Sleep” as read by Samuel L. Jackson, drop everything and do it now.
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If you haven’t seen the video yet of the woman who gets pretty irate on a Metro-North train when an employee asks her to quiet down and stop using profanity, it’s pretty funny in an “Oh My God I’m glad some of the stupid shit I’ve done wasn’t recorded” way. She keeps insisting that she’s very well educated, which just makes her sound dumb. But even funnier is what wasn’t on the video:
According to the person who filmed this, after the altercation the conductor got on the loudspeaker and reminded everyone to speak softly and not use profanity on the train, "especially those people who went to Harvard or Yale or are from Westport."
You can watch the video on Gawker.
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Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
Today’s agenda: fancy clothes edition
Jun 23, 2011 Posted From My Phone, Today's Agenda
This morning as I was racing around trying to get out of the house, Fiona asked me why I was dressed so fancy. I’m wearing jeans and a t-shirt, no make-up, one eyebrow over-plucked, and I desperately wish I’d gotten up ten minutes earlier to do my hair.
It’s probably because I almost always walk her to school in slept-in sweats. But this morning, since I need an extra little boost of confidence, I’m choosing to believe it’s because I look good.
And why the “fancy” clothes? Today I’m honored and excited to be speaking on a panel at CE week, an event in NYC put on by the same people who do the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas. So yeah, I’m super excited. Luckily I’m not talking about tech, since my most insightful tech comments lately seem to be along the lines of “Oooh, pretty and shiny.” What can I say, my brain’s on summer vacation already.
No, instead, Rebecca Nancy and I will be talking about how to work best with mom bloggers, a subject I’m very comfortable talking about (although a few people to whom I owe posts might be snickering).
After that, I’ll try to see as much of the rest of the conference as I can, then get the kids from school and flip a coin about whether I should catch up on housework or work work first. Fun!
Originally posted on SelfishMom, from Amy’s cell phone (so please excuse any weird formatting). All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0 . Please see Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information.
A stylist yesterday, a doctor the day before that, a house builder today…until the earthquake hits
Mar 14, 2011 Kids
For the longest time, Fiona wanted to be a stylist when she grew up. I think it started about a year ago: she suggested that I pair some green earrings with my dress, I said “Great choice, Fiona, you should be a stylist!” and she decided right then and there that she was going to be a stylist when she grew up (it wasn’t until a few weeks later that she asked me what a stylist was). Much talk of dresses and shoes and awards shows later, she started branching out. At this point, she changes what she wants to be daily, sometimes hourly. It makes me happy and a little teary to see her so excited about all the possibilities before her.
Yesterday morning Fiona and I were finishing up breakfast, and she asked me what I wanted her to build. A house, I said. “OK. But I need Daddy’s tools.” (We’ll just gloss over the fact that most of them are mine, I guess that’s for another post.) Once I disabused her of the notion that she could use tools to build me an actual house, she told me she’d build it out of something else.
A little while later I found her wrestling with the big kitchen scissors and a cardboard box. Before she lost a finger I offered to cut for her, and she had me cut off several dozen little rectangles. Next time I stopped by, she was painting them to look like bricks. Different colored bricks for each wall. Her industriousness blows me away.
Later in the car, I was telling this story to my husband, and he said “So Fiona, you’re going to be a builder now?”
“Yes. At least until the earthquake hits and we all die.”
Whomp.
We’d talked about it a little. She’d seen it on the news, and I explained to her about how the earth is like a bunch of big puzzle pieces trying to fit together, and luckily we don’t live near any of the pieces that are banging up against each other hard enough to make buildings fall down. She’s not buying it. She genuinely scared.
When the twin towers fell Jake was only five weeks old, and Fiona hadn’t even occurred to me yet. It brought my brain back to a place it hadn’t really been since I was in elementary school and “The Day After” was on TV. I was convinced for a while that there really wasn’t any point to doing anything productive, because I was going to die in a nuclear attack long before I’d have to find a job anyway (of course, this may have been my brain’s way of trying to get out of homework). That kind of hopelessness is a hard thing for a kid to shake.
It will fade eventually though, and be replaced with something else. She’s simply a worrier. There always has to be something on the horizon waiting to eat her or destroy her house or take her family. Last week, it was zombies. Before that, it was ghosts. I kind of miss them. They were easier to deal with than something as real as an earthquake and a tsunami.
Originally posted on Selfish Mom. All opinions expressed on this website come straight from Amy unless otherwise noted. This post has a Compensation Level of 0. Please visit Amy’s Full Disclosure page for more information. Amy also blogs at Filming In Brooklyn, Behind the Screen, and Momtourage, and podcasts with The Blogging Angels.
Tags: Earthquake, Fiona
