Angela's Birth Story

Last spring, for SOS players, Angela told her birth story. In honor of Down Syndrome awareness month, here's a repost of that post.
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For four months I have tried not to be a stage mom. I have sat back and watched Angela create a mask, and work on developing it as a character. I have watched her learn to use her voice in ways she's never thought of, both loud and soft, and in different tones. She even learned how to use a voice that could be heard from the stage.

I have to say, the director of this troup is FANTASTIC with Angela! She only expects Angela to do her best, and if that means she can only say 2 lines for her monologue, than that's all she expects her to do. But she's also a great one for adaptation, and she has figured out a way to keep Angela on the stage longer and help her through.

When Angela auditioned I had her read her birth story. She read it painfully slow, and the director helped her...a lot...but had her read the entire thing. She said Angela made it in because she didn't give up, even when she was frustrated. The other kids were assigned a monologue, but that proved to be a bit tough for Angela (and several of the other kids.) So Angela's monologue was changed to a dialog, but she wanted her to do her birth story because it's something meaningful to Angela, and thus easier for her to memorize.

So here it is, her stage debut. The beginning of the video shows The Boogaloo, which is one of the games they play at SOS. You'll see Angela wearing jeans and a black shirt. (look for the tall adult in green and you'll find Angela.) then comes her dialog with Greg. What you don't see is what happened when I stopped recording. You can hear people start to cheer in the background. When Angela heard that she turned and did her usual jump for joy that she does when she's proud of herself. When **I** turned around, I found that the audience was giving her a standing ovation! Yep, that did me in!

So...enjoy.....