August 20th, 2006: Show Day at American Royal, KC

Other than a brief lecturette comparing “My family and my home” to others in the cast, today was focused on building the set and rehearsing for the show. I enjoyed the day’s lecturette. I had a chance to speak a little more with Yamil from Mexico and learn a bit about his family.

Merchandising went better than I expected today. Eduardo purchased some receipt books at our request, which made keeping track of orders and adding them up infinitely easier. I think Laura, Michelle, Shana and I did well for sales. Still there are so many requests for CDs of our current show. I wish we could cut a disc to sell.

I had a pleasant surprise today. I caught the Barb and Michael just as they were dropping off lunches for the cast (Thank you so much for helping us out). I noticed Michael wearing a Boston shirt. Back home, I wouldn’t have given it a second thought. Today, it warmed my heart. It really made my day.

Though we definitely did not pack the auditorium’s 5,000 seats (Sorry, Kevin, we tried), the show went well. The Spellmans certainly had a positive reaction J I was told that Mathew had made a comment to the extent of “Man, Erik can bust a move!”

I was particularly thankful to have had my third opportunity to sing the Unspoken Words solo. It was looking like the staff were going to rotate someone else in, John (who has more of the rocker style voice that they are looking for), but in the end they didn’t. I’m trying not to get my heart set on dancing certain dances and singing certain songs for fear that I might disappoint myself when the staff changes the line-up. I’ve just got to go in with the mindset of “I’m just happy to be here. Everything else is just gravy”.

We had a special guest in the show today that left many with teary eyes. There was a mother-son duet, who performed a beautiful song about a mother’s desire for her son to have the best life possible. Apparently, the son had been diagnosed with diabetes at a very young age. I can’t remember too much at this time of night, but I think the song is called “A mother’s wish” and they have a foundation to raise money for children with diabetes.