Life at Brookstead: My Day Fairy

In October, there was an ad in the local paper asking girls aged 9 to 12 to audition for a small part in a documentary to be filmed at Hubbard Hall. The film is to be about the history of Greene County, NY and includes a four minute segment about the Opera of Rip Van Winkle which was very popular the in the 19th century. This chapter of Greene County history was to be filmed here because the only remaining opera house in the area from that time is located in our village. Dagny auditioned and was selected along with several others to be day fairies "because we were all giggly." They were charged with the task of waking Rip after his 20 year sleep. A group of older girls were chosen to be night fairies who put him to sleep. After a month or so of practices, they were filmed on the Tuesday before Christmas. It was a long day - the filming started at 9 am and it was not completed until after 8 pm. The girls were treated to life as movie stars - they had their make up & hair done, ate catered food, and had to wait around for long periods of time between filming. I arrived at the end of the day to collect Dagny and was glad to find that filming hadn't been completed. The girls were relaxing back stage, waiting for the filming of the curtain call.

I noticed right away that the day fairies were much 'lighter' than the night fairies. The night faires even looked a bit scary!

It wasn't long before everyone was herded out to the stage for the curtain call. (If you look closely, you can see the runner that the camera was on as well as some of the screens for filming.)

It was then that I realized how beautiful the inside of Hubbard Hall was. I had been inside once before on Halloween when the kids were trick or treating. I really didn't look around too much then for I was focused on not losing my children in the crowd. It really is quite a beautiful building.