Last week I did not post, so I will make this week’s post a little longer and talk about the plan we developed and the crazy events of yesterdays encounter.

While we believed that we would have a core group, we still may be short in terms of participants. That being said, we will more than likely need to act ourselves and may even need to recruit some other faculty to be a part of the play. The scripts have been somewhat cut. However we thought it would be beneficial for the students to also feel that they had some part in producing the play. We plan on having them cut some of the lines as well. As we comb through the act, they will give there input as to what props and costumes should coincide with the parts of the act. Our hope is to finalize roles by next week. Unfortunately, the plans that were put in place did not exactly workout.

Due to injuries and interviews, I went to St. Jospeh’s on Thursday alone. This did not phase me as I knew there was a core group that had pretty much been assembled. Of course as I called Haley before I left, I did NOT realize how wrong I was. In fact, over the week that we missed a few of the students had been fighting and were not allowed to participate. I figured this would still leave a pretty good group and when I arrived Haley still seemed a bit uneasy about the group. Nevertheless, we went to round the group up and started our first read through. As we got through may be the second page, a fight broke out outside of the building we were in. At this moment, I knew all attention was lost. The kids ran to the windows to watch and I was stuck sitting at the table looking at Haley and waiting for them to come back. There was nothing she could have done, I honestly looked at her out of sympathy as she has to deal with this on a day to day basis. She commented on how cool and collected I seemed, not knowing that I am no stranger to chaos. After the fight ended or the kids lost interest, they came back to the table. As I started to begin again, three students left. Haley gave them an ultimatum that if they were to leave they could not come back. They kids then stated some remarks that I don’t believe are appropriate to relay. By the end of the day, we had only four guys and one girl who was totally disinterested. As we look forward, a lot of extra planning will have to go into the act. Not having enough girls may be a problem, but we shall see.

I do think Haley wants to be a big help. Unfortunately the nature of the environment at St. Joseph’s Villa is a little difficult to maneuver. She has been courageous, and I truly understand why she may need a break. I am worried as to what is in store if she does leave. That will be for another blog.

This week at our run through we talked about how to bring to bring our characters personality to life.  One of the Osher women sneezed during one of her lines as prologue and though this would be a great touch to bring his flustered, lower class persona to life.  We also double checked stage cues and directions to determine the appropriate time for that actor to come on and off the stage. Though there only 5 of us at rehearsal it was fun for everyone to get to play different rolls from their assigned parts.  I had fun playing Thisbe’s roll, and getting to die on stage!

One of the men in our group has never acted in a play and is doing this as an exercise to stretch his comfort zone. The first week of rehearsal he asked for a small part as he was nervous about having lines, we assured him that it was low stress and there was no need to memorize.  He ended up accepting a larger roll and this week voluntary filled in for Pryamis.  It has been fun to watch him grow though the process thus far and gain confidence with every run though.

We are taking a break from rehearsals next week, due to many of the Osher participants having trips to New York City, Europe, etc. (must be nice!), but look forward to having everyone present at the next rehearsal.  This next week the three of us will plan what we can do at the beginning of next rehearsal that would be fun, since we have a pretty solid grasp on our scene at this point. If anyone has ideas let us know!!