I know it’s only November but for me Christmas has started already. For the last few years I’ve worked performing shows for immersive grottos and brought their magical, fantastical and sometimes wacky characters to life. This year it’s Professor Freeze in her magical snow laboratory as well as her assistant Anti-Freeze! We have a crazy bubble filled lab, Santa’s Snow Nog, and making magic snow fuel.
It’s a lot of fun but it can also be quite a challenge. We perform a show every 20 minutes to about 100 people at a time (especially when it’s sold out in December) and the show is 15 minutes long! So yes, it can be hard work and high stress. Especially when you get a grumpy, stressed out or rude parent... But it is all worth it for the looks of pure wonder there you get from a lot of the children as they enjoy the experience and feel the Christmas spirit.
Then there’s the people that you work with - they are amazing! I’ve honestly had the best of times with these people (especially playing games of Muggles Against Humanity in our down time, and racing to fold endless amounts of flat packed boxes while creating more new harmonies for the annoyingly catchy jingle that we made up).
It takes a special (and patient) kind of person to do Christmas work with kids, but it is rewarding and enjoyable to keep the magic alive for them. Plus you can really go to town with these larger than life characters! It’s good exercise for you improvisation skills too because even though it’s scripted, whenever small children are involved it will inevitably not always go to plan. Although these often result in some of the funniest shows of the season!
There’s also the things that happen that leave us all in either utter disbelief or fits of laughter once the audience leaves the room. We’ve only been performing for 2 weeks so far this year and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the number of parents who don’t know how to use a funnel!
The rest of the season should be a lot of fun. We will have our ups and downs, but I will get to share it all with the most fantastic group of people. When it’s all over and done with on Christmas Eve then I’ll enjoy my hard earned and well deserved holiday until January! If you would like to meet the characters that I play or see some of the fun that we get up to then be sure to check out my vlog series The Reel Road over on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/lydiakay
Then there’s the people that you work with - they are amazing! I’ve honestly had the best of times with these people (especially playing games of Muggles Against Humanity in our down time, and racing to fold endless amounts of flat packed boxes while creating more new harmonies for the annoyingly catchy jingle that we made up).
It takes a special (and patient) kind of person to do Christmas work with kids, but it is rewarding and enjoyable to keep the magic alive for them. Plus you can really go to town with these larger than life characters! It’s good exercise for you improvisation skills too because even though it’s scripted, whenever small children are involved it will inevitably not always go to plan. Although these often result in some of the funniest shows of the season!
There’s also the things that happen that leave us all in either utter disbelief or fits of laughter once the audience leaves the room. We’ve only been performing for 2 weeks so far this year and I don’t know whether to laugh or cry at the number of parents who don’t know how to use a funnel!
The rest of the season should be a lot of fun. We will have our ups and downs, but I will get to share it all with the most fantastic group of people. When it’s all over and done with on Christmas Eve then I’ll enjoy my hard earned and well deserved holiday until January! If you would like to meet the characters that I play or see some of the fun that we get up to then be sure to check out my vlog series The Reel Road over on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/lydiakay
RSS Feed
