“I am sure care’s an enemy to life” – Sir Toby Belch (Act I, Scene 3, Lines 2-3)

So here’s the thing about bragging about nothing bad happening in your rehearsal group.

It’s basically a signal to the universe to have something bad happen.

Of course, what ended up happening wasn’t actually a bad thing – it just felt like it at the time.

In short, we had four to five new people just get randomly assigned to our group.

Most of which just seemed to have been placed there as a means of giving them something, read anything, to do.

You can imagine how this may have come off as tad stress-inducing when we’d already casted and explained the play to our regulars.

We also, to be perfectly honest, went in less prepared than we should have in general, ranging from not having a solidly prepared game for them to start the session with, to not thinking about breaking up the group into smaller parts when the final scene we were reading really only had two of our actors in it.

So while you can argue that many a small lesson was learned at this session, I think the main one, for me at least, was that I forgot the point of the Project to begin with.

We’re not there to put on a Tony-worthy performance. And while as instigators we have to at least try to make the production something that the troupe cares about, ultimately we should just focus on making sure they have a fun time.

So in the future if we have more or less people in the room than we thought, we’ll just make a quick casting adjustment and go with it.

We’ll definitely do a better job of breaking the group up as well – if we keep having new people, creating a separate “and here’s what happens in the story” group may be worth making while the more constant attendees work on lines.

Ultimately though, it doesn’t matter if we have three Olivia’s or none at the final performance, and although the very thought of either option is making my inner perfectionist twitch, this will be a motto I will keep at the forefront of my mind as we continue with our project.

Besides, despite the numbers shock, we still managed to create a pretty fun list of props and costumes we’re excited to flesh out in more detail during this Wednesday’s work day.

So even if it just ends up being me, Sarah, and Page on the stage for the final show, at least we’re going to look pretty cool!

We did not meet with our group this Thursday (10/20) because the kids had an off campus field trip, and they would not be returning in time for our rehearsal.  Since we have encountered a few scheduling conflicts in the past, we are not surprised by this kind of news anymore.  We have learned to be very adaptable when conflicts arise, and we plan our next rehearsal accordingly.  Next week, we definitely will have the group start working with the script and getting used to reading Shakespeare.