The Mouse!

We were very lucky to have a visit today from Dean Holt, who stars as the Mouse in the Children's Theater production of "If You Give a Mouse a Cookie." The play is on tour now, and all four of the first grade classes are going to see it at the Sheldon on Friday. We gathered in the Music room to hear all about his job as an actor, and also to see how he can make a little mouse come to life. Dean has been acting at the Children's Theater for 15 years, and he has been in 50-60 productions. He was amazing!

Dean was in my class as a first grader 30 years ago! He was a lot shorter then, and he had a lot more hair!
I dug through my old pictures when I got home, and here he is as a first grader.

The kids had a great time listening and watching as Dean talked and answered their questions. Look at all those smiles!

He told them all about how they took a five-minute story and stretched it into an hour-long play. The Mouse and the Boy spent many hours practicing, coming up with funny situations, and experimenting with silly "stuff" before they had the final presentation.

Here he's talking about how he cuts his hair as the Mouse, and how the stage crew blows lots of hair onto the stage for the Mouse to clean up. It will be so much fun for the kids to see the actual scene during the play, especially when the piles of hair chase the Mouse all around the stage!

Here he's showing how his tail gets caught in the vacuum cleaner. It was fun to see how he uses facial expressions and physical actions during the play. He wears lots of padding under his costume so he doesn't get too many bumps and bruises. The kids are soooooo excited for Friday, and they can hardly wait to see what the Mouse looks like in his costume and make-up. Hopefully, I can get a few pictures to post.

Thanks, Dean, for spending your lunch hour sharing with us!