<p>One of my girls, eight years old, is in a play in a community theatre and I just remembered that (I think) it is customary for the actors/actresses to bring gifts for each other on opening night. And opening night is in a few days and I need to come up with something fast. And I don't have much experience with this, but know that you all do -- any suggestions?</p>
<p>How many people are we talking about? We didn't usually give GIFTS to everyone in the cast. My daughter made handmade cards for each cast member and might have given a gift or contributed a gift to key people like the director. However, if we knew the name of the musical it might help because sometimes, there are cheap little mementos that one can give to go with the card. Or a rose to each person might do (that also fits for Beauty and the Beast). Often you can find a trinket to tie in but I'm not sure given how close the show is coming up and your access to such things. Tell us the musical and then we can brainstorm some small item to go with the "break a leg" personalized cards your D can write. Or the trinket can also be handmade....like a little figurine/magnet out of Sculpey that relates to the show....ie., rainbow for Wizard of Oz, a little bowl of gruel for Oliver, little mountains with a musical note for Sound of Music, a pineapple for Once on This Island, a fiddle for Fiddler on the Roof, etc.</p>
<p>I am not familiar with this custom on opening night, more often on closing night, but it is not required. It is acceptable to give a group present like a box of chocolates, basket/vase of flowers, or cookies or fresh fruit/berries in season. If there are a lot of kids, you might want to avoid something that will be messy around costumes.
The card or a child's drawing might also be a very nice gift, or a picture of your actor with the recipient.</p>
<p>Thanks. The show is Meet Me in St. Louis -- I suppose she should give something at least, to all of her <em>family</em> in the show. Maybe a bottle of ketchup??? -- there is a bit about tasting the ketchup in the show. One of actors keeps making jokes about pudding . . . Yeah, cards would work, with maybe a little something to go along. Hmmm. Okay, at least my brain is starting to work. I'm coming up with some ideas, just nothing that really grabs me.</p>
<p>I didn't know about this tradition until a couple of years ago when one of the girls was in Annie. Of course not everyone gave gifts, but several people did. <em>Daddy Warbucks</em> burned a CD of New York songs for everyone. <em>Annie</em> gave all of the orphans purses. And some of the other orphans gave cards or candy, I think.</p>
<p>OK, now I am going to brainstorm a few ideas.....she could get mini picture frames that are cheap or the kind that can go on the fridge (clear for a photo but with magnet on back) and take a picture of the family in the show (is she playing Tootie?) and insert it. Or she can make little collages by printing out color images from the computer and putting these in little cheap clear frames (the kind that cost a dollar or two). The collage could be images of St. Louis (the arch) and a World's Fair, a ferris wheel, Christmas, a trolley and whatever other things come up in the play. She can print multiple copies of these images and make the little collages on some stiff board like a matboard and put them in the frames. I'll try to think of some more ideas, though that particular musical isn't getting my brain flowing as well as other shows.</p>
<p>My S was once associated with a community theater that did this. We didn't know anything about it untill he came home with all of this stuff. One thing that stood out was a magnent. They took a magnetic sheet, I think you can get these at your craft store or office supply store, (you can do this on your home computer and printer) and made magnets of the shows logo. I'm sure they scanned or downloaded the logo then put several on one page then printed it and then cut them out, it was about 5 years ago and is still on my fridge!</p>
<p>Some sort of Christmas ornament makes a good gift for any show, but this one also has the "Have Yourself a Merry Little Christmas" song in it, which makes it appropriate even in the summer! You'd probably need to make your own, since ornaments are not abundant in the stores this time of year.</p>
<p>Both my D and my husband do community theatre and this tradition can get very expensive. They have essentially stopped buying cast gifts for musicals that tend to have a large cast and only do dramas with small casts that have worked together closely. Occassionally they will get a few things for a small group of cast members if they were in a specific grouping of - D was a bird girl in Suessical and got the other birds girls a small craft store bird in their costume colors.
Since for an 8 year old people will know the gift was purchased and orinated by the parent not the cast member, I would say there no one would find it odd not to do anything. My understanding is the gift is to remember some special experience of the show, so if it is from the parent it really isn't a shared experience.
Just my opinion - but then I have been considered to be rather scrooge like about trinket giving.</p>
<p>I'm one for making something. Like I said, home made cards are something my D always does. Your D could do that and leave it at that. But also a momento like making a little collage of color images (from the computer) of things related to the show and slipping those into the clear plastic frames which sell for a dollar or two is meaningful while not barely costing money and more of a personal effort/touch. There are other ideas like that such as the logo onto a magnet or something out of sculpey that your D makes. But it is not necessary. Just saying it need not cost money. My D has written poems for each person and things like that, which can be done up in color on the computer.</p>
<p>keepingcalm -- that makes sense, and helps me keep things in perspective, and feel less pressure to do something!</p>
<p>and soozievt -- that makes sense too -- something simple, like well wisher cards of some sort (and she could do them on the computer) for the cast members that she worked most closely with would probably be the most appropriate in this case.</p>
<p>It can really get expensive giving gifts to everyone -- and sets a precedent as well. I like to take wacky rehearsal pictures with my digital camera, then give all the lead characters a card with their photo in it. Pretty cheap, and personal.</p>
<p>A bundle of a few tootsie pops would be a cute, cheap gift for Meet Me in St. Louis. (thinking of the "tootsie wootsie" line in the song)</p>
<p>^^^That is an adorable idea along with a handmade or computer generated card and/or photo.</p>
<p>buckeyemom2 -- that is perfect! Why didn't I think of that?</p>