(Originally Oct 19; Posted Later)

Taylor and I were back at John Marshall High School for our third rehearsal. Last week’s break gave us time to relax and plan what we want to work on. Molly was unable to attend the rehearsal because she had a mandatory commitment. We finally had our first successful rehearsal today!

We arrived to rehearsal and many of the students (who had returned from our first visit) had a name refresher. With so many new and reoccurring faces, we had forgotten many names. We started immediately with acting games to get everyone up and moving. We noticed that the rehearsals in the past included a lot of script reading and it appeared as if students were disappointed. At times they looked bored out of their minds…Yikes! I introduced a few games to the group to play. The game was the classic zip zap zop game which got competitive fairly quickly. Students were so focused that the room was practically quiet – except for when a student lost. Then the students would tease and wish the eliminated student luck in the next round. The next game we play was one that was introduced to me at choir camp. The premise of the game is that you have to ask the person next to you to marry them. You say, “Honey, will you marry me?” in a way that will make the person laugh or smile. If they do either laughing or smiling, that person is eliminated from the game. With the six of us girls and one guy, everyone actively tried to get people to laugh. Although we haven’t been there for very long, each member of the group was flexible and new ways to get the other person to laugh. They were attentive of what other people had done in the previous rounds to get others to laugh and were willing to step outside of their comfort zone.

Next we started reading through the script. We were not as active during this part of the rehearsal but we were highly collaborative. All of the students went in a circle reading a line from their scripts. We read through the first scene in act 4 and asked the students how they imagined the stage appearing. We started again from Titania’s line “Come sit thee down on this flowry bed” and students would jump in and convey what they were imagining. In this scene, the students imagined Titania lying down with Bottom laying beside her. Titania would be lovingly interacting with Bottom while the fairies running back and forth upstage would be frustrated at Bottom’s demands. Taylor and I wrote all of their ideas down in the margins of our scripts. Before we went into the hallway to block what we had just discussed, we asked the students which roles they were potentially interested in playing. Since we have had such inconsistent attendance rates, we had a difficult time assigning roles. Laura helped us and told us which of her students would be ideal for certain parts. This was extremely helpful as we ended up with a full cast (minus little worker fairies).

Taylor and I went into the hallway with the students to block out what they had suggested. The first time we ran through the blocking, I would shout and insert emotions or actions for students to incorporate. A few students had to double roles in order to satisfy the number of characters that we had. Taylor and I realized that we would likely have to be fairies in the performance – aka a childhood dream! We ran through the script a few more times with different character doubles and switched roles. They decided that they wanted a donkey head as opposed to the unicorn head we wanted… It’s alright! We were extremely impressed with their enthusiasm and participation in today’s rehearsal. We can’t wait til the next one!