Tiny crowd pleasers and a biased crowd

Marisa O’Neil

As the audience gradually filed in, two tiny angels with tinsel halos

peeked out from the stage through a gap in the blue velvet curtain.

Armed with flash cameras, camcorders and occasionally, extra

children, parents took their seats while band members worked their

way through holiday standards. Even the very walls of College Park

Elementary School’s multipurpose room, decked with banners made by

each class, seemed full of cheer for the kindergartners’ holiday

program on Wednesday.

But first, an important admonishment for the crowd:

“[Music teacher] Mr. [Scott] Fitzpatrick worked very hard with the

kindergartners, asking them not to wave at you,” Principal Pat Insley

announced. “Please do your part and don’t distract them by waving at

them.”

Without such warnings, excited parents sometimes get little

performers so riled up that the show can turn into a giant waving

match between them and the audience. Once, Insley later said, she

forgot the announcement and the show almost didn’t go on because the

children couldn’t settle down.

This time, the lights dimmed uneventfully, and the curtains slowly

opened, drawing adoring gasps as moms and dads spotted their

kindergartners dressed in holiday finery, halos and paper wings. Then

the room lighted up with flashbulbs, as if the Hollywood paparazzi

had suddenly descended on College Park.

On stage, the children sang and pantomimed their well-rehearsed

songs, such as “Peppermint Stick” and “I’m a Little Pine Tree,” with

5-year-old Cesar Andrade in the title role.

Cesar, his face poking out of a green cutout tree, stood at the

front of the stage with a team of tree trimmers. But shy Andrea

Martinez, 5, needed some encouragement from the crowd to take her

mark. At Fitzpatrick’s urging, the crowd applauded, and she descended

the risers with a long string of silver tinsel and stood next to

Cesar, a demure smile on her face.

In the audience, a baby cried, a toddler wandered up to the stage

for a closer look and the cameras continued to roll. Rosalba

Villanueva, whose 5-year-old son Cesar was performing, managed to

juggle a still camera, a video camera and her 4-month-old daughter

Maia without missing a moment.

And despite the warnings, some parents couldn’t help but wave.

“I tell parents: ‘If you’re not in the Christmas spirit, by the

time you leave here, you will be,’” Insley said.

* MARISA O’NEIL covers education and may be reached at (949)

574-4268 or by e-mail at [email protected].