Children of Eden

Aviano Air Base has a very active community theater group comprised of a mix of officers, enlisted, spouses, civilians, Italians, high schoolers, retirees -- you name it! After my Aviano theater debut as a nun in The Sound of Music, the kids and I auditioned for the next one, Children of Eden. It is a musical by Stephen Schwartz, who also wrote the music for Godspell, Wicked, and Les Miserables. It is loosely based on the book of Genesis, but tells the story of Adam and Eve, and Noah and the Flood in a very real-life and entertaining way. The music was REALLY good! I was a "storyteller," so really just sang the stories with the chorus. I also got to play a little flute solo with God (who else can say that?) The kids were animals -- first, in Act 1, in the Garden of Eden, both kids were komodo dragons. Then later, in Act 2, in the loading of Noah's Ark, Sara was a stork and Andrew was a horse. Besides that, I helped make some of the 60 animal costumes necessary for the show. I made a bear, two kangaroos, two storks, two penquins, and a dove. So, we have a lot of pictures, but I just picked out a few to show you the Watson family's onstage highlights.

Here I am with other storytellers, listening to God (Frank) explain how he was going to create "children" so he wouldn't be lonely.


Here's our Director, Wade, who plays Cain in Act 1, telling God what's on his mind. Wade is a very talented director, actor, singer, and choreographer. He is a Staff Sergeant in the base finance office for his day job! He used to tour with the Air Force show group, Tops In Blue.


Here's me, playing the flute to accompany God in a song he was singing about what it means to be a father.


Here's my two little komodo dragons. You can't really see their tails here. They each had long paper mache tails to match their heads.


Here's Sara flying in on Ricky's shoulders as a stork. She was very graceful in her wing movements. I made her costume and the other stork costume a little boy wore.


Here she is in full wingspan...


Andrew, as a horse...


The dove (Tristanne), dancing in the costume I made for her.


This is our Act 2 opening number -- Generations. I'm far left.


Me, in front of the Ark...


The animals coming two by two to load the Ark...


The kangaroos I made...


Yours truly, as a penguin...


Our alligators on skateboards were a hit....


You can see some of the bear I made in this picture, behind the cute little anteaters. We had kids age 2 and up.


And here's the whole group of us, cast and crew -- about 70 people! We worked on this production for 2-1/2 months. It was a WONDERFUL experience for us all. Even Bryan loved it -- he came to all 6 performances! It is nice to have our evenings at home again though!