First and foremost I think the performance went great! When Caroline, Colby and I arrived at St. Joseph’s we were not sure what to expect and which, if any, of our kids were going to show up. Leaving our last rehearsal we were told that all the kids had been given permission the only thing that needed to be figured out was transportation. At St. Joseph’s, Dr. Soderlund informed us that she had been emailing back and forth with Higher Achievements director about which kids are coming. I turned out that only three of our pretty consistent 12 came to the show. The three students were Andy, Seline and most surprising Betty. I say that because throughout our rehearsals both Andy and Seline showed a lot of interest in the play, while Betty most of the time would hide from us and try everything to get out of what we had planned for rehearsal. Despite this all three of the students really stepped up and did better than we ever imagined!

When the three of them first arrived we jumped right in to rehearsing. We had to figure out which parts they would be playing now and who would fill in some of our other roles. We went through each Act and let our three students pick which roles they wanted and highlight their scripts. We had Caroline take two of the roles and we asked Jacob from our class to fill in two other roles as well. As soon as all of the parts were figured out we had them stand up and read through the whole act. Each of our students had 3 roles to play. After our full read through we had them look at some of the props and pick out what each of their characters would be wearing.

As it started to get closer to the performance time I could tell that Andy was getting nervous. I talked to him about the show and how great he’s been throughout the rehearsal process. He said he was excited but that there were a lot of people out there. Soon it was time for the show to start. We were Act 2 so we were back stage preparing during Act 1. As soon as the first act ended it was our turn. The kids went out to introduce themselves and then the Act began. It all went by pretty quickly with many quick costume changes and reminders of what they were saying when to go out on stage. They all read their parts perfectly and made it through the whole Act. At the end they all could not stop smiling.

We spent the rest of the play in the audience. It was so fun to watch the rest of the acts and see students of all ages preform. I believe the play was a great success and a great ending to the semester!