“With groans that thunder love, with sighs of fire.”– Viola Act I, Scene V, Line 230

Now that we’ve gotten through our first rehearsal, I can officially say I’m even more excited to be working on this project than I was before.

I can also say though that things didn’t go exactly how we planned them last post.

But at least it was in a “oops, oh well” kind of way, not a “oh god so many regrets” one.

So there’s that at least.

Our group so far is great. We have about twelve at the moment, ranging from fifth grade to seventh.

They listen to us for the most part and seem very excited to be a part of the program, even though I’d say at least half weren’t even sure what we were doing at first.

The ice breakers went really well. Even the more basic “name, grade, and favorite ice cream flavor” one.

The most popular was the “animal charade” game we borrowed from the class readings. They liked it so much they asked if we could play it twice, which we did, and I imagine we’ll be playing it again in the future.

We were caught off guard a little by our timing. Our group ended up being called in to participate in another, organizational-wide activity at 6:50, so we had less than an hour with them.

Luckily that was only a one time thing though.

A more pressing problem though is the noise level.

We’re based in the Henderson gymnasium along with several other of the organization’s activities, so it is a very loud.

I sent in an email requesting a possible change in location after our first meeting wrapped up but have yet to hear back from the powers that be.

Worse case scenario, I’ll ask again in person when I’m there this Thursday, but I am fully expecting them to say no due to supervision reasons or other limitations.

Obviously we’re planning to comply with whatever the organization says, but it’s going to be hard to give basic instructions, let alone run lines, in a room where you have to shout to be heard just by the people in front of you.

Still, we’ve already had at least two of our girl player’s express interest in big, female roles and our cute little fifth grader is really excited about playing the ship captain.

Since it’s just going to be me this week, I plan on focusing on explaining more of the plot of the show (perhaps with a visual of some sort) and having everyone read through some of the script and to get a final headcount on requests for parts.

I’ll consider the week a big success if I can get all of that done, but honestly for now I’d settle on just having a space where we can all hear each other.