Fake Mustaches and Busy Schedules

The play is over.

For the past four months, I've been practicing and memorizing my parts for the play "A Little Princess."

Parts. Plural. Like I mentioned in my "Upcoming Events: January" post, I was Monsieur Thibault as well as Mr. Carrisford, for those of you who have read the book and/or seen one of the several movie renditions. For those of you who have NOT read the book and/or seen one of the several movie renditions, I was a Frenchman who taught a French class, and an Englishman who had lots of money and adopted princesses and their friends to protect them from an evil teacher.

http://www.press-citizen.com/article/20130117/GOIOWACITY/301170005/Young-actors-take-stage
Here's a link to the article posted in the Iowa City Press-Citizen. This article is a fresh reminder of the sometimes-charming typos and mistakes that I often found in the Press-Citizen as a kid. In the article's photo is Valeria, who played Ms. Minchin, and Elizabeth, who played Sara Crewe.

Both the Saturday evening production and the Sunday afternoon production went fantastic. Mrs. Nolte, our director's boss, had low expectations for ticket sales, claiming we'd probably only sell 200 tickets or so total. When we sold 300 tickets the first night and about that much again on Sunday, she was shocked. I wasn't really surprised, though. Our play had a horde of young female actors, so on the first night, the theater seats were packed with their parents, siblings, and extended families. The second performance was attended by a good portion of Kalona, including members of my family and a lot of my friends. It was nice. My friend Brooks wisely pointed out that Mrs. Nolte was not prepared for the outcome of Kalona getting involved with something.

I'm unsure whether I'd do a large-scale performance with so many children again. Getting mobbed by squadrons of girls is every guys dream, but not so when the girls in question are 16 years younger. Who knows, maybe I'll enjoy that sort of age imbalance when I'm 75. Other than that, working with the kids was fun and exhausting and hilarious and frustrating all at the same time. These little ladies attend classes at Nolte (pronounced "Knoll-Tea") Academy, so they knew much more about theater and dance and stage presence than I know, much less when I was their age. Despite their years of professional classes, they spent a good deal of time snapping my suspenders, throwing wads of paper down my shirt collar, pulling on my bow tie and running off with my rubic's cube. Even with all this though, the play was enjoyable and I survived, so there are no complaints. If anything, the experience helped me begin preparations for the (extremely slight) possibility of one day having 25 daughters.


There was one little boy actor in the sea of ladies, and he made me laugh every single time he opened his mouth. Perhaps because he was spaced-out and had us all wondering if he was on Ritalin, Kiefer was comical. He was an add-in part without lines, and was supposed to hold the hand of his "older sister" and just look nice. But instead he'd add in his own lines. During one scene, when the kids greeted their father after his return from a lengthy trip, they'd say "We missed youuuu!" to which Keifer with his jovial little smile would add, "They missed you but I didn't." 7-year-olds are allowed to get away with saying things like that and still be funny. We finally got him to pay attention and keep his mouth closed during the performance, but I felt bad that he didn't get to say anything so I'd have conversations with him in the dressing room.


Keifer: "Girls have to plink their eyebrows but us guys don't because our eyebrows have natural shapes."

Keifer: "You might be wondering why I'm wearing basketball clothes. Well, I just played basketball."
Shawn: "That's great! Did your team win?"
Keifer: *sigh* "They don't let us keep score. They just tell us "Good game" at the end and we hafta shake hands with the other team."
Shawn: "Hmm, that's a bummer. Are you excited about the performance tonight?"
Keifer: "Yeah. Mom's bringing me something to eat."
Shawn: "Oh? Do you know what she's bringing you? I wish my mom would bring me delicious food but she's in Chicago tonight."
Keifer: "Nope I don't know but I bet it'll be good!"
Shawn: "What's your favorite food, Kiefer?"
Keifer: "I'm really into chicken."

At that point I couldn't continue the conversation because I was beginning to snort with mirth and I thought I might inhale my fake mustache.

Do you have any idea how painful it is to remove a fake mustache that's glued to a real mustache? No, it's nothing like childbirth.

Speaking of real mustaches, I shaved mine off. I gave it daily encouragement to grow for the performance, after which I rewarded its efforts by annihilating it. Interestingly, removing three-months' worth of facial hair is infinitely easier than one-night's worth of eye makeup.


The adult actors were awesome. Rob, Abby, Shane, Alaynna, and Valeria made me laugh all the time with their crazy backstage antics. I'm nervous at all performances that require me to stand in front of an audience. Therefore, I was grateful for the comic relief. Rob expertly applying makeup to make himself look 40 years older. Shane running around with a turban on his head and a stage mic/headseat perched on the turban. Abby and I cracking jokes about the performance. I'm still convinced Valeria spit that water all over the floor just to make me laugh, even though she vehemently claims it was an accident. Something to do with unscrewing the cap on her water jug and then forgetting she had unscrewed it. 

After performances the adult actors would hang out at Cafe Crema or Applebee's, and I'll miss that. It was fun to just relax and eat some food after a late practice or performance. I'd like to say we brought joy and festivity into the restaurants, but more than likely we were just viewed as the rambunctious goofballs buying 1/2-off appetizers at 11pm.

The final performance was yesterday, and I still don't feel like it's over. I expect that the realization will settle in deliciously this next Friday, which would be the next time I'd have to drive to Coralville to practice. I wanted to take photos of the actors and stage and performance, etc etc. but I was told that a professional photography team already had the corner on that market and I'd be getting copies of the photos. So, stay tuned for picture updates, I suppose.

I erroneously thought my schedule would become instantaneously clear upon the completion of the play, but I see now it was foolish to think such thoughts. Sure, I'll have my evenings on Friday and Saturday back, but this is Monday and the phones are ringing. Both phone lines. Some day I'll find out just HOW furnaces know when it's 2 degrees Fahrenheit outside. They certainly weren't malfunctioning last week, when temperatures were in the 40's and 50's.

"But Shawn!" you may say. "Of course furnaces work harder when it's 2 degrees than when it's 40 degrees." To which I'll reply

"A furnace still has to run when it's 40 degrees out, unless you're one of those rare breeds that shuts yours off until it gets down to 2."

Or perhaps

"Quiet down with all that logic nonsense. It's Monday."

"Seriously, man. I'm trying to not think here."

Tonight we're having Kids Club at Pathway, and I'll be picking up kids. Every time I'm put on pick up duty, I briefly imagine literally picking kids up off the ground and carrying them around. But that's not what pick up duty is at all, except for when the children get ornery. I drive a 15-passenger van to either North Liberty or Coralville or Iowa City or a combination of several cities to pick up a mountain of eager children so they can participate in story time, games, arts and crafts, worship, and a snack. The kids are given strikes if they disobey or break a rule, and if you get three strikes, you're out. Out of luck getting any snack.

I've become so busy, I have plans interfering with other plans. Kids Club supersedes my Volleyball league in order of importance. Volleyball games are Monday evenings and I'd like to help continue our winning streak, but Kids Club takes precedence. My volleyball team is undefeated so far. The games started last Monday, but that's beside the point. Schedule conflict is nothing new to me or practically every parent/young adult in the entire world, but I still remember wanting to DO STUFF as a teenager at home, and now I just chuckle and wish I could be that teen with nothing to do again, except without the teen part.

I've been told it gets worse. Half of the adults in my life are prodding me to get married, the other half are telling me how difficult my life will be once I get married. "You think you got it bad now, wait til you're married. You won't have time for anything."


In the back of my mind, I felt like there was a verse pertinent to this situation, where God would never give me more than I can handle. But upon searching for it, I realized I've been using 1 Corinthians 10:13 out of context for quite a while now.

"No temptation has overtaken you that is not common to man. God is faithful, and he will not let you be tempted beyond your ability, but with the temptation he will also provide the way of escape, that you may be able to endure it."

Truly, God will never send us more temptation than we can bear without first providing a means of escape. But that has nothing to do with how many responsibilities and activities He gives us.

This blogger points out some beautiful truths about this subject and you should read his entire post. I was especially impacted by four of the points in his article.

If God is only giving you what you can handle, you’ll never have to be dependent on God.

If God is only giving you what you can handle, then you are staying in your comfort zone.

If God is only giving you what you can handle, then you aren’t growing.

If you want God to use your life for something great, it’s going to be more than you can handle.  God’s plans are huge!  If God’s plans relied on human limitations, He’d never get anything done.

I'd like to think I could whip out incredible proverbs all by myself without borrowing them from other blogs, but Matt Appling said it eloquently and I just can't beat that. Besides, it's Monday.

God, please give me more than I can handle so I can grow, but please stay by me to help me along the way.