I had a great time last week taking my daughter & grandchildren to see the musical production of "Little House on the Prairie." We had seats in the third row, center! It was fun, entertaining, full of singing & dancing, & just plain good clean entertainment.
After the show, as we were leaving a little boy about 11 came up & asked if the children were home-schoolers. I replied that they were & he said there was going to be a question & answer time with the cast just for home-schoolers. So we sat back down & had a treat while children asked questions of the cast, & they answered.
There were lots of good questions ("How long does the show go on?" "It started last Aug. & will run through June." "How many times do you do a show?" "Monday is our day off, which is when we travel. Then we do performances on Tue., Wed., Thur., & Fri. evenings, & two shows on Sat. & Sun.")
The "thrill" for the kids was that they were going to see MELISSA GILBERT in person! (They have seen The Little House on the Prairie shows on TV so many times that they know the "real life" names of the characters.)
What they didn't know was that they would also see her youngest son, who was in the show. I don't keep up with "movie people", but for some reason I remembered that she had married Bruce Boxleitner ("Scarecrow & Mrs. King..."). So when I saw Michael Boxleitner in the program, I knew it was her son. Look at the face & you can "see" his daddy!
Melissa Gilbert was very gracious, charming, witty, & engaging with the children asking the questions & the audience (when asked how long she had been acting, she said, "I'm 46 & my first acting job was when I was 2, so 44 years.") The whole cast seemed to really enjoy the time interacting with the audience.
Now, use your imagination a bit, & picture this gal in a fancy prairie dress with very blond ringlets bobbing up & down. Yep, that's "Nellie"! And she was hilarious with her antics. She had the audience laughing out loud as she "tripped" over a fence & used facial expressions to keep in character.
5 comments:
What a wonderful family memory indeed. Love the Little House series! I'm sure Melissa Gilbert gets a thrill reliving this part of her career... What a special time!
And I have to say it is SO funny to me when we get asked if we home school. Recently at the Doctor's office the Dr. started "educating" the kids more on everything he was doing when he heard they were home schooled. After that appointment, we counted it as a field trip for sure! :)
One for the books!
That is exciting!! It was so surreal to be watching Melissa Gilbert playing "Ma"... glad y'all got to talk with them!
I'm hoping to see this when it gets to our town. What a blessed time with the cast after!
We won't mention the fact that I cried a little bit when Melissa walked out on stage the 1st time.
I've watched her my entire life, and there she was!!!
Thanks for ANOTHER wonderful memory for me and my kiddos.
Post a Comment