We had a very successful session with the kids on Monday! We were finally able to place them in roles and begin the rehearsal process. When we first got to Henderson, the children were in the auditorium having an assembly. When our group was asked to come down to the “stage” area, we were a bit concerned at the immediate response. The 5th graders came down to the stage and immediately started running around. They were yelling, playing tag, and rolling on the floor. After a long talking to by our sight supervisor, the kids settled down and allowed us to get started with them.

Luckily, there was a perfect amount of kids who wanted small medium and large parts. We split them up into four groups and the three of us each worked with one group. There is one section of our play with only a Macbeth and Lady Macbeth and those children in that section worked independently. Going through my section of the play, I was surprised at how well the children were able to read and seemingly understand Macbeth. I really wanted to make sure they were understanding what they were reading, as I can imagine putting on a play in a language you can’t understand wouldn’t be too interesting. After explaining our part, the kids in my section immediately got to reading through. We had limited copies of our script, and they started to fight over who got to hold the script. By the end they were sharing nicely and we were able to get through three times. After reading the script once my group discussed adding in sound effects, how they would act out the murder that occurred, etc. Overall, I was impressed at how well the students worked.

The only not so promising aspect of our session was that there had yet to be any permission slips sent out. Since we hadn’t formally met with the children in a few weeks, Henderson said they weren’t aware permission slips were needed. This makes us worried about the outcome of our portion of the show. We are hoping for at least 10 of our students to show up, and also hoping they will be flexible with doing parts that they were not assigned in rehearsal.

Next week, we are going to work with our groups further and try to get a read through together. We will also discuss costumes with the children and the importance of getting the permission slips in!