Trying to stay calm

I've spent a substantial part of the day today helping my kids learn lines for a play they're performing in. This isn't just a "made for kids" kind of play. It's Agatha Christie's "Ten Little Indians." Now, my kids and most of the other cast members have an astonishing ability to memorize quickly, but the director is really pushing the limits of reasonability. They're only three days away from their dress rehearsal, and he hasn't provided them with the last TWENTY pages of cut script yet, nor has he completed blocking the play. This kind of thing drives me up the wall.

Yes, I know, it will soon be done and gone. The kids will probably remember the good performances better than anything else and look back on the experience fondly. They usually do, even when things end up less than perfect. I'm the one who's disappointed. It's great that the kids are taken seriously enough to give them real parts and an interesting play to work with. But for them to put so much time and effort into something only to have the person in charge leave them hanging - well, there's just hardly any excuse good enough to justify that.