A Man, A Hot Knife, and Exploding Balloons

Ok, so I'm revamping this blog a little bit..in the sense that I'm going to actually have a direction, and keep it up.
The direction being about my day-to-day experiences as production manager of a theatre project, based out of the local high school for young adults with developmental disabilities in my community. The name of our project is Bright Lites, because we are modeled after the Famous People Players. We are now building our second show, Cinderella, and already having a blast. This is my second year as production manager and I've already learned so much from those guys, my homeslices needless to say.
Now before I go into further detail, I would like to warn you in advance that meltdowns are common place and happen A LOT! But, you roll with the punches. Which is something that I knew going in because my older brother is Autistic. But I'm not sure how well my other assistants know this, but I think that I'll let them discover that on their own. Mainly because I could warn them to the high heavens that this one particular girl has been known to have several(4) huge, now when I say huge I mean "it's the end of the world, the sky is falling, the show can't go on if I don't have my white gloves" huge meltdowns in a 20 minute time period. But thanks to the wonderful EAs (Educational Assistants) and John from the Community Living Centre, we are able to roll with it.

Now to explain the title of this particular post, John is rather passionate about this project and the work he does contructing the various props is truly amazing! The way he just dives into formulating an idea on how to go about contructing a bird for example, and his enthusiasum and excitement is inspiring. It reminds me everyday why I continue to do this and want to pursue theatre. Anyway, back to the bird, he had made the most amazing bird head out of styrafoam(sp?) rings that he glued together and rounded off. It looked like he had simply made it all from one piece of styrafoam, rather than several! It was awesome! Anyway, we were brainstorming how we would solve our body and tail problem. This is because the balloons that we were going to use as a paper mache, or in our case ,cheesecloth mache mold would pop as soon as we put the cheese cloth on. The tail was still in the works. I somehow got on the topic of the hot knife that was in the stage craft room and how it could cut through the styrafoam like it was butter. Needless to say, John became rather intriged by this and began to ask more questions about this knife. For example, how it worked ect. I told him all about it, and he immediately began thinking that it would be awesome for shaping these bird heads. The next thing I know he's asking me where it was. Now to he's a very soft spoken gentle man, so these questions naturally came one at a time, and I could see the wheels turning in his head as he thought of the potential. So I pulled it out and he began to work with it. He was also working with it today (the smell is very distinctive because it's melting through the styrafoam).

So that's all for today, I hope you enjoy it. I also hope that this blog helps to let those who are putting together a similar project or simply work/live with someone who has a developmental disability, that you are not alone. We all get frustrated, but those who make us frustrated appreciate us more than we can ever begin to fathum. Also remember that we need them just as much as they need us.
Until tommorrow
Jenn