My two-year old loves to belt out the theme song from “Frozen” at the top of her lungs.  I hear her in her crib some nights, lustily shouting, “Let it go, let it GOOOO!  LALALALALA.”  She also has a dress up box and drags it out to parade around the living room for company in various costumes.

The apple has certainly fallen right smack at the foot of this tree.

When we were kids, my friend Alexis and I would drag my sister down to the basement and create epic theatrical productions, much to the bemusement of our parents.

We made a curtain by taking an old olive green blanket and shoving it between boxes, and would get down on hands and knees and crawl through the space between the boxes to enter and exit the scene. We made Pops tape these events with his giant camcorder. We spent time carefully going over stage instructions with him so he knew when to turn the camcorder on and off when the scene ended (“when I bang my glitter baton on this Saltines tin, that means the scene has ended, Dad.”) and he would gladly agree and then never turn it off. At the time we blamed his lack of hearing, but now I wonder if he was just having too much fun filming this ridiculousness to want to turn it off.

Our plays were typically fairy tales with certain creative twists of our own making. Alexis or I would play the fearless heroine who got to wear gauzy dresses, while the other either played the fairy or foe.  We left Laura with the bit parts that we didn’t want, usually playing a boy.

Damn it if that girl didn’t steal the show every time.

My personal favorite was our reenactment of Sleeping Beauty, where we forced my sister to play the princess’ father, the King.  She glibly donned a chef hat, tied a gold string around it, put on a Dracula cape, and surrounded herself with empty beer bottles.  She slurred and shuffled her way through the scene, pretending to be loaded, and made up a song on the spot about chocolate cake to the melody of “Sugar Pie Honey Bunch.”  Best two minutes of cinema history, in my opinion.

My sister complained that she was tired of being a character actor and wanted to play a leading role.  We agreed and promptly chose Peter Pan as our next production.  So she played a boy.  Again.  She exacted her revenge by whacking Captain Hook (yours truly) in the wrist with her sword (a Phillips head screwdriver from my dad’s workroom) so hard that my cries of pain were indeed quite genuine.

I wonder if Mini Me will let her little sister play more than just bit parts.

I wonder if her little sister will transform the bit parts into the best part of the show.