Just under one month until the show! It’s been a great experience so far, and it’s been great to see the growth of the students that always or frequently arrive, and the enthusiasm and ability of the students that have shown up maybe once or twice!

At rehearsal on 11/4, we had five students. Christina, Rufus, and Jacob all returned, and so did Dale. Finally, Jayvon showed up, which was crazy because we haven’t seen him in over a month! Since Christina, Rufus, and Jacob have been showing up so frequently, we felt confident enough that we could officially cast them. Christina is our Feste, Rufus is our Sebastian, and Jacob is our Sir Toby. It feels really good to know who is playing these big parts! For this rehearsal, Dale was Sir Andrew and Jayvon was Malvolio.

We broke into groups. While Maddie took Christina and Jayvon to work on lines, Natalie and I stayed with Rufus, Dale, and Jacob to work on the staging of Scene 1. We staged some very simple stage combat (get ready for their fake slaps, they’re so funny!) and walked through the first scene. Then we worked on the lines in the scene, and made the three of them say their lines as loud as they possibly could (since they all have trouble projecting). This was a super-productive work session for Natalie and I, and Maddie told us that she was making great progress with Christina.

At the very end of rehearsal, we had a brief conversation with Timone, who offered us some suggestions if the students are unmotivated. While I definitely appreciate his input, I am not worried too much about having to use this reinforcement, because the students are all doing great! It might not be bad to have something for that purpose, though, if necessary (like Hershey Kisses or some other candy)

We’re in a really good place!