To Dread Nativity Plays

[thebird]

Just how do teachers decide who is Joseph/Mary/Narrators? Seems like the same old faces to me every year!

At the risk of being flamed - I'm afraid I'm the mum whose children always seemed to get the star parts. It got to the point that I tried to have a word with the music teacher, who did the casting, to ask for someone else to get a chance, esp when dd came home and told me she'd been cast as Dorothy and thought x, y or z could do it better. I was told in no uncertain terms: yours can sing, yours learn the words, yours do as they are told, and you wouldn't make a fuss if they didn't get the big parts so nah nah nah! There have been major ructions with this teacher and many other mums and I've had to keep my head down, avoid the bitching in the playgound and accept the hugs from the woman every time she sees me, even though we've now left.

And every time the DC have come home and announced they're Jesus (Easter) or Mary, or the Artful Dodger, etc., we have hooted at the dinner table and said oh bloody hell, not again!!

My lot always had back ground parts, I hated going to watch for that brief glimpse, but even worse, we had to sit through the DVD's with the kids and feign excitement over and over and over again. Thank the Masters of the Universe mine are all teenagers and don't want me anywhere near their schools.

I think my DDs school did it well. Nativity was infants only - yr 2s acting (all got some sort of part), the others singing. Then in summer there was a musical play - yr 6s acting, parts for all that wanted one, junior choir singing.

So you didn't get the same old faces.
(And they did have dark-haired Marys.)

I think this must be a nightmare and hats off to teachers who do it.

They really have to pick someone whose voice will be heard and who will have confidence, at maybe 4 or 5yo, to stand up on stage and speak/sing.

That said, there sould be enough such children to make it possible to pick different kids each year. Including plenty of Marys with dark hair (which makes more sense anyway).

IME it's not the same kids year after year. But then our infant school only does two years of plays, the yr2s do a Christmas concert and then a leavers' play.

DD was cast in a big role one year and loved it; DS1 OTOH would rather have died, I suspect.

DS1 is a shepherd but so are all the boys in his class so he is happy

When DD2 was Mary she tripped over some hay and fell headfirst into Jesus' crib.
Needless to say she was a tree the year after.

I have no idea how they chose roles in my girls primary, though DD1 was always an angel and DD2 flounced through different roles.

'I think this must be a nightmare and hats off to teachers who do it.'

Clary, I thought this thread had been started by a teacher before I clicked on it.

last year our reception did a 'nativity story' where Mary and Joseph were the smallest parts, and played by a child who can' speak in public, and a really naughty one. Both needed to be on stage for the smallest possible time :) OHOH the 'stars' (yellow t-shirts and tights) were the biggest parts!

But I too am 'guilty' of having a child who does a lot of the 'main' parts. And yes, said child learns lines, does as told and listens to instructions.

DS1 is a very good reader with a clear voice but so shy he got hysterical at the thought of being the narrator and had to be withdrawn. he ended up as a donkey and was much happier.

I would ban them.
They provoke dissent, are usually incoherent and mindnumbingly awful. Squeezing 120 parents/grannies/aunties/shuffling siblings into an over heated hall, sitting on small chairs not designed for adult arses and not even a glass of red to see you through.
Get them to sing carols instead.
(speaking as someone whose dd was Mary once, then a camel)

Last year we couldn't do the Christmas plays at school because we were having major building works and half the hall was walled off for the second half of the autumn term.

Instead we turned our normal carol service at the church into a much bigger event with every class participating - much less stressful for everyone concerned, so we're doing it again this year.

The school my DCs attend arranges parts much better than the one I attended years back. I had " weighty" parts as, with hindsight, they had confidence I would learn the lines well (precocious reader with adequate voice).

DCs teachers spend time adapting scripts so everyone gets a line. If they find this hard work, it's well hidden behind the enthusiasm unfailingly on display to the children and parents.

I stand by my comment about their needing a confident child to have the opening line. If there is "freeze" at the beginning, it can be sadly infectious whereas a good start is a boost. It had never occurred to me that that would be interpreted in a negative gobby way. Or is that not negative, but rather just taking a child's character and using such a trait as a benefit to the group?

'They provoke dissent, are usually incoherent and mindnumbingly awful'

I love them and always try to see them in the schools that I teach in when I haven't even got a DC in them. Maybe I am just a bit sad, but they often bring a lump to the throat.
They will be 'incoherent and mindnumbingly awful' if the teacher doesn't choose the best DC for the part! Mine were never terribly reliable-DS3 spent the entire play on his Grandad's knee when he was supposed to be a shepherd on stage!
Difficult parents shouldn't mean that the whole thing is cancelled!

My sister was Mary two years in a row because both years in the lead-up to Christmas she wore a blue dress to school every day "because Mary wore a blue dress", brought her doll (Jesus) in with her every day, and basically nattered on incessantly about it. She's quite a wilful character and I don't think her teacher was able to say no!

don't know the class size but at my DS school every child got a speaking part and was front of stage for that so apart from Mary and Joseph there were no main parts.Also only prm 1 does the play so every year it is a new cast.

My DD was chosen to play Mary, probably because she was blonde, cute, confident etc.
Yes, yes I know I sound very smug, but she is 32 now, and about the furthest from Mary as you could get!!

Love nativity plays! Son hopes to be a sheep this year as "they roll around and get muddy".
He was a snowflake last year and was happy enough with that.

LOL at Piscesmoon with lump in throat.

I watched the FS2 play last year as I was helping in one class (no child in the year!) and I was blubbing.

But then I always blub. DD had to sing a solo one year and I was in bits. All the teachers were laughing at me (in a nice way!)

I dread them because I always cry so much that I run out of hankies - if it's good I cry because it's lovely and if things go wrong I cry out of disappointment. It's a good job I can't attend assemblies, because I cry buckets at them too, even though my DCs are very rarely prominent.

Actually when I was 10 we had a huge play to remember 100years since we had loads of evacuees. There was a really big part of playing a evacuee and I was the only child who could read the lines.

My teacher put me for the part and the teacher from the class above who had written the play and always picked the popular children complained my teacher argued that she could not put the girl she wanted because she could not read the lines and after I learnt all the lines said she had changed her mind and took the part out .

I also had a another role singing a song and she had me moved to backing and that was my only part. So I am probably biased but I think some teachers do make it about popularity .

I only have to see any 5yr old holding a candle and earnestly singing 'Away in a Manger' and tears come to my eyes. I can't believe that people want to stop them! Being a snow flake or sheep is much more appealing to the DC-I am sure that it is only the parent who wants them to be Mary or Joseph.

Ah Away in a Manger is a killer!

I am blubber at the first note of "away in a manger". My favorite memory of the christmas plays at dc's school was a little girl in another class who had the biggest grin in her face all the way through it.
She got a special mention certificate the next day for "Having the biggest smile in the school play" I can still picture her face.

My DD got the lead role in yr 3, it was Babushka ,a part she really wanted. She auditioned for the role and it was between her and another. The other girl had the lead the year before and kindly dropped out.
The school was good at asking the dcs what type of role they wanted and then tried to accomodate them.

favourite of all the DCs plays was the year that DD2's friend was picked to play the star. Our school in semi-rural Scotland was not at all multi-cultural, all the children were white. Then T arrived - the tiniest, cutest Burmese girl on the planet. Think black hair in fringe over beautiful slanting brown eyes and killer cheekbones and so petite i could have eaten her in one bite!Her costume was just a huge golden star which almost covered her - you could just see her spindly little leges in sparkly tights sticking out the bottom and her anxious wee cute face peering over the top.
She didn't speak any English so she had no lines - just wandered in a bemused sort of way onto the stage with her arms sticking out, piroutted gravely, beamed at the audience and exited stage right.
Not a dry eye in the house!