I had slept for months on this couch in college.  It was my room, it was the guest room.   It was the only real furniture I had for a long time. 

I had stored it in warehouses and in garages of friends when I got an acting job on the road somewhere.  And that couch was always there when I returned

from the road.  It was the one thing I had that said, "Now, you're living the normal life."

 

             My new bride came to me one day and said, "It's time to get rid of that couch.  It smells."

 

             I was not particularly happy with her assesment of my couch.  It was my stuff.  Actually my only stuff.  The last link I had to a former life.

 

            "Yes, but this is OUR house and it smells," she told me.

 

             "But it's my couch," I told her.

 

             "But it's not all about you anymore."

 

             I guess every married couple has that kind of story as they are learning to live with each other.  It's as true with doing a play, even at the elementary level, as it is with a marriage.  If you can get your kids focus away from themselves during a performance, you have succeeded in a major way.  Some adult actors have a difficult time doing that. 

 

             When it's all about you on stage, that means your upstaging your fellow actors.  Taking the focus away from the story and putting it on a particular character.  Laurence Olivier tells the story I think, about a novice actor who was getting on his nerves, that he could upstage the young actor without actually being on the stage.  Olivier goes out to do his scene and doing the scenes pours himself a glass of water.  He takes one sip, balances the glass on the edge of a table and then leaves.  The audience is mesmerised by that glass for the rest of the act, hoping and fearing when that glass of water might fall.

 

             Focus on the story when you explain this to your kids.  In Little Red Riding Hood, Red is the center of the scene between her and her mother, the wolf is at the center when they meet in the forest, and Grandma is the focus when the wolf comes knocking at her door.  When an actor says their lines, they're the focus.  don't have another actor dancing in the background if you want an audience to pay attention to your story.