This week was a bit less hectic, though we did begin a bit later again. For this shortened rehearsal, we ran some quick auditions for anyone interesting in reading lines. We had quite a bit of interest in Miranda’s part, as well as Caliban’s role, surprisingly. Those who did not wish to read agreed to act as sailors or other minor characters, especially because that meant that they could color in the cardboard pirate ship while we ran auditions. By the end of the rehearsal, we had a pretty good idea of which scholars were interested in which parts, so next week we can begin to focus on those scholars a bit more. The scholars were definitely happy to work on something besides reading in their theatre elective, and the pirate ship is well under way.

Next week may take a bit more planning now that we have our actors more or less in place. We need to decide how to divide roles and lines, let alone make it through the whole script at least once. Once we begin blocking scenes, I am a bit worried about those scholars who are not particularly interested in acting and their cooperation when it comes time to do something besides color the pirate ship. It might be helpful to bring their prop hats to get them in character in a week or two, but this could also be a distraction. If anyone has started using props yet, I’d love to hear how that went!