Camp Premier

Friday, July 31st was Dayna's theater camp production. Her dad called Thursday to verify I was taking her home after it. He also offered that she can stay home until Wednesday when she has her doctor's appointment in Westfield...to make it easier for me...less driving, less gas, less tolls. Uh huh. In the six weeks Dayna has been out of school, she has been HERE 4 of them. Her dad's only request was if Dayna wanted to go back to his house on Sunday, that I call him as soon as I knew because he was going to a concert or something and needed to know to come home early. He also told me Dayna has asked him NOT to go to the theater production, so he was going to work on Friday.

Thursday night I text messaged Dayna's best friend, M, to ask her if she could go. She's in SC visiting her Grandma. So then I text messaged Dayna to ask if she minded if I brought B with me. Dayna said that was fine, B can come. (Hmmm...She tells her dad NOT to come, but says B CAN come...anyone else seeing this? She had this same request on her Graduation. She told her dad she didn't want him there, but called me to ask if B was coming.)

Friday B and I drove up to Kean University. All her dad told me was that it's in the little theater. There's nothing marked on the map of the campus denoting where the little theater is. I stopped a Security guy and asked him for directions. Right on the outside of the Student Center is a sign that says, "Little Theater." Ah...so it's the Little Theater, as in that's it's NAME! It's not the little theater, as in an adjective, like I'd thought!

The production began with a collaborative piece all of the kids wrote and performed. Since it was a "work in progress" and they'd only been working on it two days, they all had scripts on stage with them. I believe this camp group was 4th grade through 8th grade. It was a slight mishmosh of little skits. It was cute.

Then, all of the kids sat in the front row of the audience. The actors who ran the camp, and the college interns who helped, performed a short play written by each student. Some of them were really good. Some of them were just ok. Dayna's play was entitled The Black Rose. Her play starts in Part 4 at 5:00 minutes into the following video, and continues in the beginning of Part 5.




In case you have trouble viewing the videos, here is a summary:
It was about a girl named Lydia who comes across an old woman in the forest. The woman lets the girl pick a flower out of her basket. She picks a Black Rose. The woman tries to tell the girl the legend behind the flower, but the girl has no time for silly tales from an old woman! The woman calls to the girl, "Your greatest wish will come true as the last petal falls!" The girl continues on and finds a girl talking to a fish! The girl tells Lydia the old woman trades her butter and bread for the flowers from her garden, but she's never seen the black rose before.

Lydia takes the rose home and places it in a vase. Her father comes home. Lydia talks to her father, he doesn't respond. He doesn't appear to notice she exists. Lydia walks to the flower and strokes a petal while talking to her father. The petal falls. More petals fall. Lydia cries out, "Oh, no! My flower!"

Lydia's father speaks! He asks why the flower was so important, they can get another flower. Lydia hugs him! He asks why. She states that he hasn't talked in years! He explains he talks, just not at home, it's too sad, Lydia reminds him of her mother. Lydia exclaims it must be the flowers magic!

At the end of the plays, the camp director gave out awards to each kid. Each one had something special written about their time at camp and their strengths. The certificate says that Dayna has completed Premiere Stages Camp Premiere 2009 as a Playwright with the Professional Actors Equity Theatre at Kean University. They identified her strengths as the ability to write serious plays and humorous works. The Producing Associate, Erica, said she has "no doubt we'll be reading Dayna's published works any day now!"

After the awards were handed out, they had a small refreshments table set up in the next room. While we were there, Erica and I started talking. She told me there is a playwrights competition of sorts every year at Kean. She is going to email us in November when they begin accepting submissions. They have an awards ceremony in May where they pick the winners. She said Dayna's works are definitely up to par and has encouraged her to submit a play for consideration.