..to not really care how big a part a six year old has in their whole year production?

[Emo76]

DD's school play was on Friday - it included all 60 children in her year, most without many or any lines, and a few with quite a few. They all joined in the songs and seemed to thoroughly enjoy themselves. DD had two lines and my pride in her and enjoyment of the production would honestly be no different had she been the lead role or had no lines.

I have just had an email from our parent rep saying that some parents have expressed concern that some children had much more to say than others, and if we feel aggrieved to contact the headmistress who will bear this in mind when casting future productions.

AIBU:

a)to not be bothered if DD has no lines or starring part as they are SIX for goodness sakes and they all had SOMETHING to do?

and/or

b) to think the parents complaining about it should stop being so competitive about something which the children themselves seemed pretty cool about?

OP I wish your child was in my class.

We are currently preparing an end of term play and some parents are driving me mad.

The pupils chose the play (we looked at loads on line) and then they auditioned for different parts. Everyone ended up with their first or second choice, so I assumed things would be trouble free.

In the past week I've had numerous phonecalss
Here are just a small sample of genuine comments from parents

'X isn't happy cos Y has more lines then him in the play'

'X doesn't like his costume - you have to change it' (the costume I have organised for him as nothing came from home)

'X doesn't want to stand next to Y on stage when they are singing'

'X has too many/too few lines'

'why isn't X singing a solo?' cos they couldnt hold a tune in a bucket

'X says that you say they need to know their lines off by heart - I've told him he can use a script cos he doesn't want to learn his'

The irony is that the parents who are phoning me or coming in every day never come to parents evening - obviously parts in a play is more important than education.

My uncle directed Jude Law in local Amateur Dramatics.

I have heard this kind of shite is even worse in Japan.

Japan's Monster Parents

LOL at 'couldn't hold a tune in a bucket' Now I know how to describe my own singing 'ability' from now on... I normally say 'What I lack in ability, I make up for in volume'

I'm new to all this as ds is only in year 1. Last year (reception) we had a script sent home with about 8 songs to learn. I was horrified and thought it was utterly ridiculous. The teacher explained that some parents had asked for the script to help their dcs learn the songs. This was despite the teacher assuring parents that they didn't have to do anything!

Ds has recently started at Stagecoach (suggestion of his teacher rather than me as pushy mum!). He has a script to learn and a delinquent mum to help him. He suggested using my old Iphone to record his lines so he could learn them without any (not very helpful) involvement from me . He has quite a few lines to learn and I reckon the poster who said that children are chosen on ability to learn lines and loudness rather than any actual talent is spot on!

Particularly like this one:

"In one case the mother of a child who was injured in the playground demanded that the child who accidentally caused the injury be suspended from school for as long as it took her son to recuperate - so that he would not benefit from the lessons her boy was missing."

Not just for punishment, that you could understand, but so he would not benefit... The amount of thinking that's gone into that...

By Riven Mon 28-Jun-10 15:44:43
I think if seeing the same child in a role every year is the worst thing about your school, you're laughing!

I remember the same children getting parts when I was at school. Didn't bother me or my parents in the slightest. In fact I was very grateful to have classmates so keen to participate which left me happy to be 3rd goat, star etc .

It equally won't bother me if the same happens with ds. I agree with Riven that there are more important things to worry about when it comes to your child's education and school life.

Because I was a really responsible student, I used to get all the "serious" parts like the narrator. I was the angel in the Nativity one year.

DS is not quite 2 and I already come out in a cold sweat thinking about these kinds of things when we eventually arrive at school. I can't stand pushy parents and I really don't understand the culture of EVERYONE having to be equally included in EVERYTHING. God forbid that the kiddies might have to learn that they can't always be a star.

Life sucks sometimes. Get used to it!

We had parents who refused to speak to staff for an entire school year after their child was in the back row of angels (because they were taller) at the nativity!

It's pathetic. I pick kids I know are going to learn their lines, aren't likely to get upset on the stage and freak out and panic, and then after that I tend to try to pick the ones who don't get selected for much after that. If they've had a year being second sheep one year - I try to juggle it so they get a prettier costume the following one (something like a king's attendant if they don't want a speaking part) - etc etc. By the time you've made a play for 30 kids into a play for 90 kids by adding in kings having an entire entourage etc - it's a pain in the rear!

Exactly what more we can do to keep people happy is beyond me - I could understand schools pulling the whole thing to be honest. We already sit and split up the parts that are generally in long chunks when we buy in plays so that we can make 5 narrators out of one etc.

Last play we did - I had the entire class doing exactly the same thing, with the loosest possible requirements for costume (told them white shirt or polo shirt, black trousers... ie what they wore for school anyway, shades and other stuff optional - think Blues Brothers if you can)... STILL had uproar and complaining and it's just such a nightmare that it's quite likely that it'll end up with school plays being pulled completely as more hassle than they're worth ... plus you end up making a complete prat of yourself walking around Tesco catching yourself singing the songs from it.

As for the script/songwords - I send them home in case parents want to practice them (and even though I write this on them, I STILL get complaints if I do/complaints if I don't), they never make it out of bookbags in many cases - but I usually just stick the CD on while doing afternoony stuff for the weeks before and get the words subliminally learnt that way!

They ain't half good for a laugh at the end of it though - had the Wise Man who lobbed his gift at the baby and jumped off stage; the shepherds who forgot their sheep and I had to run on stage to give them to them; the kid who refused to leave the stage after his line and had to be almost dragged off by one of the more with it year 6s; and the year where one of my shepherds in a farming community was proposing to bring his dad's cattle prod as part of his costume - had to ban farming apparatus that year.

WHY IS IT ALWAYS MY CLASS!?

YANBU.

I once sat next to a mum who was quite bitter her son hadn't been given a speaking part, even though she had requested he have one. (DS said 3 words [proud] )

She moved him a couple of months later to an independent school because his "abilities weren't being recognised".

I ran drama and singing classes for years, and every year put on a show with an eighty-strong child cast in a nice big theatre.

I wrote the shows (to avoid paying copyright), had a competition every year to design the programme cover and write a song to be in the show, made sure that every child had at least one line and a bit of solo (unless they really didn't want to), tried to cast different children as leads every year and generally bent over backwards to be inclusive.

Every year at least 20% of the parents were upset that their childs part was too small, some got cross about them 'having to learn lines', some were incandescent that they couldn't hear their child (despite me having been teaching said child to stand at the front by the floating mikes for the past sixteen weeks and they just WOULDN'T).

I won't bother going on. It was fun, but now I've left it behind, I find I don't miss it one bit.

Op, YANBU.

'If they decided to audition out of school parts would be allocated on audition/merit/talent etc'

We used to audition at lunchtimes (so officially out of school) and we'd still get complaints because a child wouldn't come to the auditions and the parents would be cross they didn't have a speaking part!