TRADITION - MATCHMAKER - IF I WERE A RICH MAN

As you can see the WHS Musical this year was Fiddler on the Roof. It was great! Whitney was a villager (a MaMa to be exact). She was in all the scenes that everyone else was in except for those main ones which included only Tevye, his wife & the daughters. So Whit had a lot of stage time. She loved the songs, loved learning about the Jewish traditions & having fun with the rest of her cast/friends. As you can see below this is the cast picture along with the individual in the upper right hand corner. In the group picture she is right in the middle, second row in the back.For several months Whitney practiced at least three times a week, then every day for two weeks & then in November performed this musical 8 times. It was great! She had fun! The only exception to this was that she became allergic to the make-up they were using. It took us several performances to figure this out. We thought at first it was just her contacts that had maybe scratched her eye but then it became very apparent it was a reaction to the make-up. Finally by the last two performances we were able to figure it out & switch make-up and everything was okay for those two performances. If you look real close at this picture below you can see that her eyes are real red. She was crying during this performance that the Herricks, Papa & family went too because her eyes were hurting so much. She even missed some school because of it. Even after the play her eyes got bad again which we couldn't figure out? Preston started asking questions & found out she had put her contaminated contacts in. So we threw those away & even had to go see the Dr. She had eye infection in both eyes, because of the allergic reaction. She had to put hot towel compresses on her eyes, walk around the house with no lights, wear sunglasses & anything else over her eyes to protect them from the light. We drove to the Dr with sunglasses on, towel over her eyes & blanket over her head. Poor girl. It finally cleared up after about 5 days of no make-up & the previously mentioned routine. She learned a lot from that bad experience!

The last picture is of one of her practices. She has her head turned & is laughing, imagine that. Is her outfit crazy or what. She's wearing a t-shirt, my spandex workout pants & short short lime green shorts over the top. She is one wild & crazy, fun lovin' teenager. She loved the practices. They had such a good time! Wonder what next years musical will be? This was Mr. Jacksons last year, unless he can't afford to retire either? We'll see. Whitney sure loves him as a choir teacher & producer of this musical.

There were 12 LDS youth in this musical. It reminds me of years ago before I was in high school when the musicals had lots of LDS kids in them. They are so talented because of all their experiences in primary and YM/YW. It's always fun to know so many of the actors.

"TEVYE EXPLAINS THE ROLE OF GOD'S LAW IN PROVIDING BALANCE IN THE VILLAGERS' LIVES. HE INSISTS THAT WITHOUT THEIR TRADITIONS, HE & THE OTHER VILLAGERS WOULD FIND THEIR LIVES "AS SHAKY AS A FIDDLER ON THE ROOF."