This past week was a little different than our past few weeks. It was a little more chaotic than the last few but we were still able to get the students to practice the play. They were definitely more energetic and distracted but that was good practice for when we have to deal with them on the day of the play.

This visit we split the students up by character. Those who interact together in the play were grouped together so we could practice reading through the play. I was given the girls who would be playing Helena and Hermia. We have multiple girls playing these parts so we reviewed how they would be paired up. I first had them read through the lines as pairs and practice pronouncing the words they typically struggle with. We had quite the laugh with the word bosom, but they eventually were able to read through with minimal hesitation.

After reading through their lines, I had them practice reading through the lines while standing up. I had them try moving around and adding their personal touch to their characters voice and presentation. They were not as comfortable with this but they slowly came out of their shells and started to add more theatrics to their parts.We ended our time with them by doing tongue twisters which they loved and got really involved in.

Hopefully this coming week we are able to put the play together more as a group rather than small groups.

It seems like every week of success is followed by a week of regression. I blame a lot of the difficulties to the change of setting. We were moved to a small, smelly, classroom that was clearly lacking on room for the kids to move around. From the get-go, they were distracted and it took them about 15 minutes to even start the Act. Every time one of the kids began their lines, they were immediately interrupted by other kids. Nia was particularly distracting this week…but she was certainly not the only one responsible for our trouble. I was attempting to help them with their acting but the constant disruptions were aggravating and I started to give up. We did all we could to finish the Act, let them run off, and left.

I’m begging next week will be back in a conducive room for our purposes but I doubt it. One can only hope that the kids are in a decent mood to actually work with us all. This week was very tiring…next week has got to be better as we are almost at showtime.