Children of Eden

Last week, Jennifer performed in her last production with Christian Family Theatre. They performed a musical by Steven Schwartz called Children of Eden.  It was a deep story about parent/child relationships and the choices that children make using the stories in Genesis as the backdrop.  It started with Adam and Eve and went through to Noah’s family. 

The cast did a great job. I am always amazed as I sit and watch these “kids” do what they love to do.  They put so many hours into practicing and learning and then finally its “showtime”.  I usually always go to all performances, even though I have to pay for a ticket for each one.  But, I find that I enjoy each performance more than the one before.  It is live theater, so each one has its own special things that happen in it that make it unique. But truth be told, I just can’t imagine my daughter performing on stage for people that have paid to see them, and me not being there. 


There were 4 performances at the Art Place this year. During the Friday night performance, we had tornadoes in the area and the tornado siren ended up going off. We could hear the siren above the music when it would turn our direction. The kids just kept dancing and singing, as they should. Until finally, they had to halt everything and move everyone into the halls for about 20 minutes.  The rain pelted down into the bathrooms in the green room area so that had to be mopped up before we could restart.  That was a first time for that. 

We knew that the last performance was going to be emotional for us.  And it was.  Jennifer has been with most of these kids for 5 years and spent a lot of time together studying acting but also doing bible study and praying together.  These kids are really an awesome group of kids.  I worked the green room during the last week and came away from there with such an appreciation for these kids and their parents.  I had been a little worried when Jennifer moved from the Alpha group to the Omega group (because those kids are (gasp!) teenagers!!   But they are wonderful kids with good hearts. They are not embarrassed to talk about Jesus and what he is doing in their lives. They are not embarrassed to show affection for their parents AT ALL! And I even saw a big sister caring and taking care of her younger brother which touched my heart. They are quick to show love and forgiveness and quick to pray for each other.  One night something happened and Mrs. Kay came and got the first aid kit, so they started asking what was wrong. They didn’t tell them that one of their leaders was having some trouble but one of the parents said “I don’t know what’s going on, but why don’t we pray?” And she said they prayed for about 20 minutes!  Everything turned out fine thankfully but what a sweet time of prayer that must have been.  Most of them are home schooled so they get to do a lot of things together that we don’t, but we cherish the time we got with them (the kids and the adults).

So, the last performance was going wonderfully.  At intermission, I noticed Mrs. Kay was crying.  I asked her why and she told me that all 37 kids were back stage crying – like bawling.  Now, THAT has never happened before either.  When I asked her why, she just said their emotions are raw, and they understand what this play was about and how much it meant and they were grieving for a few kids that dropped out and they were going to be missing their friends that were leaving (2 were graduating and 2 were leaving) and they were exhausted….and just everything together.  I was afraid that Jennifer might have started it all getting upset about it being her last play, but she said that it was the BOYS who started it.  She loves the fact that the boys in this group aren’t afraid to show their emotions.  We actually had to delay starting back up because the kids had to “get it together” to go back in and give it their all.  And they did. There were a few kids singing and dancing and smiling with tears coming down their cheeks when the music rolled.  But for the most part, everyone was “back in character”.  And the play went on like it should…until the very last song.  Then the girl that is graduating started crying some.  Jennifer did awesome and never cried (even while watching the director cry through the whole last song!) . Jennifer kept it together during curtain call, took her bow, backed up and started crying.  And of course, when she started…so did I.  We really are going to miss these people-even the long nights and practices! We went to IHOP after the last performance and had a great time chilling out and eating together.

In the first act, Jennifer was a storyteller with one solo part within a trio of girls. 


Here is a pic of Jennifer with her lav on:



This is Jennifer with Allison, a new friend that she met this year.  They are both really sweet girls and we live near each other so we got to carpool most nights this year, which was a big help.  And the wild thing is that her Dad and I went to school together from the 6th-12th grade.  Dutch and his wife got married around the same time as Dale and I and Allison (which is Jennifer’s middle name) and Jennifer were born about the same time. And our sons were born about the same time as well.  I even had Allison’s grandfather as a professor in college. What a sweet family and I hope we have some time together in the future.  Allison and Jennifer were the wives of Shem and Ham in the second act. So, they were in all the same scenes and it was so sweet to see them holding hands as if they were sisters-in-law during the play. Who would have thought when we were going to school together 25 years ago that our daughters would have been holding hands on stage in the same play many years later.
This is Jennifer and Luke aka Shem (Jennifer’s husband).  They acted like they had been married a while. LOL.. They argued with each other more than the other “couple”. Luke is a great actor who is in many plays, and has even been interested in attending Pebblebrook.

This is an ex-CFT friend (Brooke) who came to the show:

Sa-Sa came to see Jennifer perform.

And our neighbor Gabby came too.

Of course, Mom came too but she came to the last show and I forgot to get a picture of them in all the emotion. But, I think she got some of Jennifer with her flowers.  It was a super busy weekend with a lot of things going on, so several people that normally come couldn't come.  But we appreciate all those that did. The kids did a wonderful job!!