Its Fantastimagical!

Yes it was! A perfect word (thanks to Nicole!) for a great experience in Land O'Lakes Florida! We performed our pro-life drama "Sarah's Secret" for Our Lady of the Rosary's LifeTeen and Edge groups on two successive nights. The first night was for the LifeTeen group. We had around 150 highschoolers. We were able to transform the church hall into a stage complete with a dressing room (with a chalkboard blocking one doorway with the warning: "Dressing room! No entrance!") The lights and sound went really well (although they had mikes for us, we forgot to put them on!) and we had some great volunteers to run them for us.
The next night was a performance at 6:30 for the Edge group, 110ish 7/8 graders. We made a quick Wal-Mart trip to pick up batteries for our camera (which had given out on us the night before) beforehand, and arrived at the chuuch at 6:10. Whew! Close! But we had everything set up from the night before, so we were fine. Or so we thought. For the second scene, I'm supposed to come on with a birthday cake, singing to my daughter, and telling her to blow out the candles. After the opening scene, I dash backstage to change into the next costume, and I can't find the cake! Now what!? I searched and searched, praying, "Please, God! Find the cake!" I hear my cue, and steady myself to go out without the cake, but still singing "happy birthday," and just hope that between the two of us we can cover the missing lines. Then I hear Mary, calling in her little girl voice, some of the sweetest words I have ever heard: "Oh! Mommy baked a cake for us! And here it is right here!" What relief! We carried off the transition without skipping a beat! We were laughing about this afterwards, because on stage Mary was prattling away with her tea set, and when she saw the cake, she could just imagine me frantically searching for the thing, and was trying to figure out a smooth way to let me know she had it. God is so good! He has such a sense of humor. He gave us a bit of a scare, but covered for us anyways!
Afterwards, the kids had really great questions, and the q&a lasted for a while. We were able to talk with a lot of the Core member and kids as well and several of them helped us pack up our props and costumes.
Think the night was over? Not even close! Time to get down and dirty with the volleyball team! No one was keeping score, and a good thing that was too, because we were ...hmmm... 'occasionally' inaccurate with our aim. Ok, occasionally is perhaps too kind a word, but we had a blast! It was indeed fantastimagical! -Elizabeth