Tin Pan Ali and volleyball

Riley loves and excels at two activities: theater and volleyball. The weekend of April 23-26 was the culmination of both season for her.

Back in February she tried out for the school musical and received a minor part in Tin Pan Ali. The cast and crew rehearsed countless hours and finally opening night arrived. After seeing the fall play, my expectations were not very high. Lets face it, these are 11-13 yr olds, and singing and dancing in-step with others isn't the easiest thing to do especially for someone going thru puberty.

Wow, I was pleasantly surprised! It was very impressive 2-hr production with great choreography and vocals. The story line was entertaining being similar to Aladdin but set in the roaring 20's with gangsters. In the end, Ali Baba gets the girl. Riley's part was a cop with 6 lines and part of the ensemble for most of Act II. She played her part well.

The kids showed dedication practicing 3-4 hours a day for the last few weeks. The only pictures I got were at the cast party. Here they are having pizza watching the show on video. If you look closely, you can see Riley sitting with her friends in the back.

This very same weekend was the Silver Regional volleyball tournament. Riley's team placed 2nd of the 17 teams that came to prove they were the best silver team in the region. Of the 110 silver teams in the USA Volleyball region representing Kansas and Western Missouri, they finished ranked 7th overall. Not bad. The team that beat them at regionals, Wichita Power, was a strong team that challenged them. Seldom did they play teams of this caliber during the season. I'm glad they registered silver, but I do wish they could have played more Gold tournaments. I'm confident they were better players and more skilled than a handful of the 17 teams in the Gold Division.

I didn't get any pictures of the regional tournament, but you can see their official awards picture on the HOA website. Scroll down to "12 Silver Runner Ups"