a star is born

Maddie began rehearsals for her performance in Fiddler on the Roof back in January. It's been a huge commitment, with rehearsals four times per week for a large part of the last two months. She gave up violin during that time and gave herself fully to the part of Bielke, the youngest of Tevke's four daughters. It's been so fun to watch her bloom in this artform. Maddie LOVES theater. I mean, the girl gets such life, energy, and excitement from every single rehearsal. The past two weeks she has had full dress rehearsals from 5 pm to 10 pm EVERY SINGLE NIGHT. We fully expected her to come home beyond exhausted each night, but each night she came home on cloud nine, talking a mile a minute, telling me every detail of what had happened at that night's rehearsal.

Well, last Friday night was finally the BIG night. Opening night! She was so excited to receive flowers from Uncle Jason, Aunt Megan, Levi and Stella. Here she is reading the note, and smelling her flowers...


Since that night, she has had three performances, with the last performance tonight (tonight is a dinner theater). Of course, Maddie stole the show (at least, from her mom and dad's perspective!).
This was a great theater company to work with. It's through a local church, and they took Maddie under their wing and took great care of her. It's been a long couple of weeks (months, really), with lots of commitment on mom and dad's part, too. But I'd do it all again in a heartbeat just to see our little girl come to life again, the way she has through this production. Good thing, too, because she is already talking about when she can audition for the next one!