Unfortunately, we were unable to have our play due to the weather. We were very disappointed, because we knew that a handful of the kids were really looking forward to performing. I have high hopes that if the play did go as planned, it would’ve gone very well. To our surprise, Brandie (our site coordinator) ended up getting a good amount of permission slips back. This was encouraging because it showed students were serious about coming to the play! When we told Brandie that the play would not be on, she immediately asked if we could schedule to do it another time. Considering how enthusiastic the children were, I can only imagine the play would’ve gone well.

I was particularly interested in seeing the OSHER participants play. I do research for Dr. Berry in the psych department who specializes in older adults, and have learned about adult development through that research. From reading the journal entries, it appears as if the OSHER participants were very into the play and had been preparing for weeks.

In terms of how I foresee our part would’ve gone, I anticipated about 15 students showing up. This would’ve been stressful in the beginning, as we would’ve had to completely reassign positions. We would next need to acquaint them with the props. We never had an opportunity to bring the props to practice, so they would probably initially behave poorly with them. Once they settled down, as they usually did, I can imagine they would be ready to go. Since we didn’t have many practices, the scholars didn’t show much emotion and action in how they performed, so I assume they would’ve been more or less reading off the page. However, I do think it would’ve been a very fun experience for them and us! I hope we could figure something out come spring semester to do with the groups!

This week was the last week before the performance. Although we never were able to have the actual performance (as will be discussed in the next post), we still feel as if it was a strong way to end our work with the scholars. When we got to Henderson, the children immediately got into the groups we were in last time. In fact, some even had their scripts and name tags from the week prior. We had a couple of kids missing and a few new ones, but were able to add them in accordingly. I quickly met with my group and, when I felt as if they were doing well, I went over to work with the one scene with two students in it. The section with two students was the only group that didn’t have a group leader (Bridget, Carolina, and I). However, when I went over to them they had been practicing on their own for quite some time. The Lady Macbeth of the two was very interested in the plot, and would stop when reading over the script to ask me what certain things meant. I explained to them what was going on and we discussed how they could add emotion into the scene, as it was the scene right after Macbeth killed Duncan, so emotion would be vital.

After meeting in small groups, we decided to do a run through of our whole section of the play. Since we split our part up, it was important we made transitions smooth. At first, it was difficult to get the students to be respectful and watch each other. As the play went on, they became more interested in watching. While my specific group behaved fairly well, other groups in the room were not as focused. For example, the kids in Bridget’s group were saying how hungry they were and how they didn’t want to be there. I think the contrast between some kids being incredibly into the play, while others wanting nothing to do with it is interesting.

While this was our last time with the kids, I was extremely hopeful for the play that we would’ve put on that Friday.