This Wednesday Rachel, Lindsay, and I had our first meeting with the old folks from OSHER. They met us in Jepson and we were able to get started on our project with three of the five members we will be working with this semester. The other two members were unable to attend and will be in attendance next weekend. It was a great first meeting and we look forward to a fun project throughout the semester.

We started our meeting a little late because of some confusion with the room number and a few old folks waiting in a different section of Jepson. Once we found everybody, we played the game that we played in class by having them come up with emotions and scenes and then acting them out. At first they were hesitant, but by the end they seemed to really enjoy the game and the acting. After we each went through a few times, we stopped in order to go over Midsummer and explain our act to our fellow actors. We gave a brief summary of the other 4 acts then spent some time going over the main characters in our act and what our plan would be for the upcoming meetings. We will be dividing up lines and assigning roles during our next meeting. It should be exciting.

This past Thursday Lydia and I met with our group and advisor, Corinne. We began the rehearsal with general introductions so Lydia and I could get to know who these kids were and what their interests are. There were 7 kids present out of the total 10 and they all knew each other very well. Considering their age group (11-13), it was clear that they would challenge us with sass and disrespect but I am confident in my abilities to keep them on task. This isn’t to say they aren’t very excited to put on a play — they were already trying to cast themselves!

Another accomplishment from this past week was describing the very confusing plot summary of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. Lydia and I harped on the four Athenians and their twisting relationships, as that is the main premise of our Act (II). The girls were very excited at the idea of a love story…the guys not so much. They were careful to maintain a macho attitude by holding a football and talking about their girlfriends from this past summer. That being said, I am sure they will be happy to tap into the personalities of the characters.

Finally, we played an improv game of charades which was very difficult as the boys only wanted to make football references.

Overall, I may be overly optimistic about the abilities of my group but I am looking forward to getting to know each of them better and reading through the Act our next time there.