Happy holidays to all of our friends and family!  Gary usually does the ‘blogging’ for GEM Theatrics, but I thought I’d try my hand at it for a change.
We try to keep everyone updated on our personal Facebook pages about our latest activities, sharing photos of family and our other activities.  But, it has occurred to me, that while GEM Theatrics is mostly about the shows we perform together, both Gary and I are involved in a number of theatrical activities throughout the year that aren’t necessarily produced by GEM, and perhaps the blog is the place to share these productions in depth.
My most recent endeavor was guest directing the winter play at East Grand Rapids High School.  The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, by Barbara Robinson is a very fun show, and has roles for adults and kids in a wide range of ages.  It had been decided by Pamela Steers, Director of Drama Activities at EGRHS, and Harry Coffill, (the teacher originally slated to direct) that they would like to include middle school students in the production, since many of the children in the story are younger.  Also, there are currently no formal drama activities at the middle school, and they both thought this would fill a void and also help grow Pam’s program at the high school for the future. 

I had a great turn out from the middle school, in fact; I could only cast about a third of those who auditioned.  It gave me the opportunity to cast the high school students as adults and use the middle school auditionees in the pivotal kids’ roles, especially the ‘horrible Herdmans’.

For the past couple of years, my blogs for this site have been posted here from www.wordpress.com.  I started that because friends of mine had used that site for their blogs and it's a pretty good site for blogging.  I was able to share my thoughts from there on Facebook and LinkedIn and I could link you all to that site.  But, I've learned today that those blog entries don't do anything to support this site and the work that we are doing because search engines like Google and Bing don't give our site credit for the material posted there.
So, I've decided to give a try to using the website makers own blog page format.  I'm sure it will take some getting used to, but I hope you'll continue to check in often for updates on our schedule, our upcoming productions and my occasional thoughts about history, theater or current events.  I'll try to write more often and I hope you'll be reading!