Caroline and I drove over to Henderson expecting to meet with our supervisor, Brandie, and talk about how the program would work going forward. We had no expectation of starting on Monday.

But as we discussed in class, flexibility is key.

We dove right in, and although our group was smaller on Monday than it will be going forward, we still had to fill the time and get to know these kids. When we told them we were doing a play, all but one of the kids immediately started complaining. They clearly had no idea what they has signed up for, and had no intention learning how to read and perform Shakespeare. However, after a few quick theater games, this overall feeling of boredom and frustration evaporated, leading to one of the most spirited zip zap zop games I’ve ever witnessed. They were laughing and playing by the rules and getting excited about it.

We played a few more games, and the more we played the more we got into it. Every now and again we’d talk a little about the play and they started to get behind the idea. We even picked out our Caliban, as he jumped at the opportunity to play the character who was to be drunk and rolling around on stage.

As someone with no theater background, I started to wish I had done this when I was their age. A young Joe would’ve had the exact same reaction: I would’ve felt forced at first but quickly would’ve gotten behind it. I think that’s what makes programs like this so important. Based on what life as a middle schooler or elementary schooler is like, kids don’t always consider activities like theater as an option, but programs like this make them consider it going forward. I hope we get a similar reaction from the kids that are joining us next time.

On Monday (10/1), Joe and I went over to Henderson to meet with Brandy, our supervisor. What we thought would be a 30-minute orientation turned out to be our first day on the job. After Brandy told us we would be starting that day, we had to quickly consult and come up with a game plan. We decided to take our time learning names and introducing ourselves, giving the scholars an introduction to what we would be doing, and then playing some theatre games. Unfortunately, we only had 6 or 7 students in our group because of a scheduling error. (Brandy told us that our group would actually be about 20-25 students.) The whole situation was… awkward. The scholars did not know we were coming or that they would be participating in a play. When we told them what we would be doing, there were loud groans. A boy threw himself onto the ground in disgust/anger. One girl said she didn’t want to come back if she had to be in a play. When I asked her why she didn’t want to be in a play, she said, “Because the 8th graders will laugh at us.” Only one scholar was excited to speak onstage. The rest requested to play trees.

I tried to get them interested in the play by telling them a little more about it. We asked who their favorite actors and actresses were; the overwhelming favorites were Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. I tried to use this to our advantage, telling them that they play would be funny, and that they would get to be like Kevin Hart and Tiffany Haddish. That got them a little more interested. They were even more interested when I told them there was a drunk character and cursing. This probably wasn’t the best thing to say on the first day, but they were really not into the idea of doing a play, so I felt we had to get them excited somehow. It worked.

Going into our next rehearsal, which won’t be until after Fall Break, I’m pretty nervous. I’m not sure how we’re going to get these kids motivated. We could hardly control 6 kids playing Zip Zap Zop; I don’t know if we’ll be able to handle directing 20 kids in a scene! It’s also concerning that they had no idea about the play. They definitely didn’t sign up for it, so I’m not really sure what happened there. For next rehearsal, I want to sit them down and explain the plot, explain our particular scenes, and describe all the characters. After that, we can do a quick read-through. Hopefully this will give us a good idea of who we can cast in which part and how the overall attitude will be concerning the play.

Overall, I was fairly content with how the second rehearsal for The Tempest went. Bliss and I started off the rehearsal with introductions for the students who were not at the first rehearsal. We had about four new students, and I did not notice any students missing from last week. The large number of students we started off with combined with the new students and the high retention rate of previous students from the first week to the second week leads me to believe that we may end up having more students in this production of The Tempest than we have had in previous years, which I’m excited about. After introductions, we played a (very) long game of Zip Zap Zop. The students were much better at this game this week than they were last week, and the game ended up taking around 20 minutes. During our rehearsal debrief, Bliss and I decided that we will not be doing this game next rehearsal due to time constraints. After Zip Zap Zop, Bliss and I led a Shakespeare lesson. The Shakespeare lesson consisted of a combination of the history of Shakespeare and fun facts about Shakespeare. To my surprise, many of the students already have a large amount of knowledge regarding Shakespeare, and are already familiar with some of Shakespeare’s plays. At the end of our rehearsal, Bliss and I handed students a sheet with descriptions of the different characters in The Tempest.

Bliss and I are excited to begin the casting process; however, we are slightly concerned that some students will be upset at the roles they end up with. For example, almost every female student I have talked to about casting has indicated that they want to play Miranda. Bliss and I think that in order to meet this desire we may cast understudies for certain roles, as this would increase opportunities for students.

Of all of the things that surprised me about the kids involved with the production, the biggest thing that stood out to me was this:

I liked these kids.

These kids, who came from backgrounds vastly different from mine, who had been to hospitals or shrinks or had been suspended more than once, et cetera– they were genuinely kind and fun to be around.

Through the rounds of Zip Zap Zop, I immediately noticed one boy, covered in bandanas on his ankles and wrists and head, danced during every moment that did not require him to stand still. Even after I called him out on it and praised him for his smooth moves, he only shied away for a moment before he hopped from one foot to another.

Another girl, who was admittedly prone to interrupting, asked thoughtful questions about her scene as Miranda and was even able to calm one of the rowdier boys when he had a brief outburst.

As more and more students got ‘out’ from playing Zip Zap Zop, they watched the remaining players with intrigue and kept the noise to a murmur, often asking who was still in and who I personally thought was going to win.

I had been afraid of some of the young men making passes at Taylor and I, but we were met with respect all around, and Timon acted more like a watchful coach rather than a strict disciplinarian to the kids.

I quickly came to adore several kids who, though they seemed shy, immediately volunteered to read different ‘Head, Heart and Gut’ lines and understood my extremely vague synopses of their scenes. One boy, Chris, who had announced proudly at the beginning that he was now celebrating his tenth year cancer-free (and was met with whoops and applause all around) read for Caliban, and noted that his excerpt contained a swear word.

“Is it okay if I use that?” He asked.

“It’s what Shakespeare would have wanted. Let it ring out, dude!” I responded.

With a huge grin on his face, he read the lines with intense power, and practically screamed the word “ASS!” when it was time, which was, once again, met with encouraging whoops and applause from the audience.

As far as first impressions go, I am very excited to work with this group on Monday and to get them started on our next plan of action, which will likely involve more reading of lines from the show and a synopsis of the show, and Taylor and I will continue to analyze which people might fit certain roles.

On Thursday evening, Julia and I met with our project partner in order to go through the policies and expectations of Higher Achievement. We learned that we could have up to 25 fifth graders in our elective, which will probably be a challenge. That being said, I think it would be a good idea to begin our first rehearsal with an introductory game, like a name game or passing around a beach ball with get-to-know-you questions. Depending on how long this takes, we could play another game with the group, like Zip Zap Zop or Froggy Murder (a personal favorite). Following the games and introductions, we will introduce our part of the play, introduce the characters in Act I, and set expectations for the rehearsals that are in line with Higher Achievement’s expectations for the scholars. We could then ask the scholars whether they would like to audition for roles, have us decide, or just try roles out until they find a dynamic that they like. With a group of this size, hopefully some of our scholars will want to help us with staging things like the storm or Ariel’s magic. If we have time after discussing the characters, we can have some students go through some of the monologues if they like. However, with such a big group and such little time, it might be better just to end with a quick wind-down game. Overall, I am excited to meet our scholars and get started!

Bliss and I did not expect to have many students at our first rehearsal, and we did not expect for the students we did have to be especially interested in the Shakespeare Program we are leading. However, we ended up having about twenty students at our first rehearsal, and the students we had were fairly engaged in the activities we led (minus one student who kept playing the piano throughout the rehearsal). We started the rehearsal off with introductions, which was a fun way for us to get to know the students and for some of the students to get to know each other. Then, we played a game of Zip Zap Zop. In addition to serving as a fun activity for us and the student’s, Zip Zap Zop served as a great way to lead into our first acting exercise, as Bliss and I emphasized how the game demonstrates the importance of communication and collaboration between actors on stage. After Zip Zap Zop, Bliss and I led our first acting exercise. We used one of the exercises from The Basics packet, entitled “Head, Heart, Gut.” We chose the “Head, Heart, Gut” exercise because we felt it would be a good way to teach students how lines vary based on the context of a situation and the intention of a character. We used different monologues and scenes from Acts IV and V of The Tempest for this exercise, and provided students with background on the characters and context of the monologues and scenes.

In this exercise, three students stood out to Bliss and me. One student named Chris read a Sebastian line in one of the heart scenes and really got into it, experimenting with different tones, paces, and mannerisms. We feel as though he would make a good Caliban, as he read his line in a somewhat malicious way after he was provided with background on Sebastian and Sebastian’s intentions in the scene. Another student who stood out to Bliss and me was Lauren, who read for Miranda in the same heart scene as Chris. Finally, Bliss and I think that one of the students (whose name is Aaron) would make a great Ariel, as he incorporated dancing into the scene he read.

Overall, I am very content with how the first rehearsal went, and am excited to see where the next rehearsal takes us.

Welcome to the Production and Reading/Viewing Response Blog for LDST 368!

To post about your production group for the Jepson Shakespeare Project, just click “+New” and “Post.”

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Although the Shakespeare Project performance never got a chance to come to fruition, I believe that our portion of the play would have gone very well. Our Osher participants were very prepared for their performance and I think we would have seen some acting from our participants that would have come out differently because of the thrill of performing live. I was very excited to see our Osher participants finally perform their portion of the play because I knew how hard they all worked. Each participant would take their scripts, mark them up at every performance and practice their lines at home. We had such brilliant conversations during our rehearsals about the characters’ goals and their inner ambitions. I was very interested to see the other participants from the elementary schools’ portions of the play because i expected there to definitely be some difficulties with their productions simply due to their ages. Overall I am very pleased with our Osher participants’ productivity throughout the play.

Okay, so half of this blog is going to be focused on our final meeting at St. Joseph’s Villa (which was somewhat upsettingly similar to our first meeting) while the second half of the blog is going to focus on how I imagine the performance would have gone had it happened.  When I say that our final meeting was unfortunately similar to our first, it simply has to do with the fact that we had no idea who would be showing up.  At any given point, throughout the entire semester, we could have lost a Macbeth, a Lady MacDuff, or gained seven people, none of whom would return the next week.  It got really difficult to manage casting as students often returned after a few weeks of absences hoping that they would return to the role they left.  This usually wasn’t the case as we were constantly filling roles.  The students seemed to get upset but I will say I think that throughout this semester the issue of casting actually taught the students an interesting lesson about responsibility and accountability.  With the help of Timone giving the kids a hard time about being fickle toward something they had committed to, the kids really started learning about the importance of sticking to their word, or at least they understood that the consequences for not sticking to their word (losing their part) were legitimate.

As far as our last rehearsal went, well, it was a bit of a dud.  I will say that overall it was a resounding success because for the first time we were able to sit down at the table and have people sit down, stand up, come, go and speak in the general vicinity of when they were supposed to.  Also, we finished our part of the play without any major speed bumps, so I can’t complain.  For these reasons, I was really proud of the kids and I think, despite some of their unwillingness to show it, they were proud of themselves.  The reason I say it was a dud, though, is that there were some people there we hadn’t seen in weeks, and some that we had been seeing weren’t there.  It kind of set us back a few weeks, but with the help of some of our student leaders such as Deandre and Kristina, everybody stayed on track.

One thing that I will say about the final rehearsal, and every other rehearsal for that matter, is that it was fun.  And to be honest, in a scenario like this, I’m not sure if there’s anything of higher importance.  First of all, it keeps the students coming back and it keeps them from being miserable in your presence, but they also pay closer attention to the material than even they realize.  Week in and week out, we kept the energy level high despite the rotating cast of characters.  Because of this, students didn’t really get discouraged and even in times of struggle, everybody was able to make jokes and we were able to keep a positive attitude about the performance.  At a certain point, the kids aren’t going to be worried about the material.  They just want to enjoy themselves.  In my opinion, it was our job to make sure that happened as well.  Of course we were there to teach the students, and I think they gleaned some important lessons from Shakespeare.  But at the same time, we are just 21 year old kids who don’t have the right to demand too much out of anybody, and for that reason we found it was important to be friendly and energetic with the students.  I guess I had the mindset that if I wasn’t going to teach them lessons about Macbeth, I could teach them a few things about overcoming anxieties and finishing something you started.  If I had a mark in that sense, this was well worth it.

Now, I’d like to make a short note about how I think the performance would have gone.  To be honest, I think it depends on your standards.  If you want a visceral, persuasive performance of Macbeth you would have been in the wrong place.  But if you wanted to see a group of young students overcome their fears and complete something they put a lot of time into, then I think this would have been a resounding success.  Regardless of who was going to show up, I know that the kids would have given it their best shot, because those who were there never quit while they were there.  A few students definitely would have stood out, as a few of the memorized a couple of their lines.  But for the most part, the play would have consisted of rigid, scared kids looking at their lines and speaking too quietly.  The important part is that after the play you would have been looking at a group of kids who were proud of themselves, and I would have been proud of them too.

There was a great wave of disappointment when I received the email saying that the show Friday had been cancelled. Bright and early I had printed fresh copies of scripts, gone through and highlighted each scholar’s lines. As Dr. Bezio said, “the curse of Macbeth strikes again”. All I could think about that afternoon was how upset our scholars must have been. Although many of them had shown disinterest in attending, there were a multitude of scholars that were looking forward to being on stage. They had practiced at home and really gave it their all during rehearsal.

I remember the first week of rehearsal, and the looks Jessie, Bridget and I exchanged. There were approximately 30 fifth grade students staring back at us and they were loud, wild and distracted. I was completely apprehensive of the weeks to come. Those weeks were definitely not easy. With each week that went by, we were able to control the scholars more and keep them engaged. There came a long stretch of time without rehearsal, and our anxiety of putting the show together came on strong. We had yet to cast roles and read through the script. Two weeks before the show, the scholars finally had scripts in their hands. I was completely impressed by their reading skills (especially of Shakespeare) and the determination they held. They supported and encouraged each other. Although they did not fully act their lines, they put emotion into what they were saying.

Although they did not perform, the scholars made Bridget, Jessie and I very proud. The last run through we had at rehearsal was great and I know that the performance would have been just as good, if not better. I’m thankful for the relationship we built with our scholars. Last semester for my justice class, I volunteered at Henderson-Higher Achievement. This semester, I was able to work with familiar faces which made the experience better than I could’ve imagined. I plan on continuing to volunteer at Henderson, if my schedule allows, to maintain these bonds. Come the spring, I hope my group can work with Higher Achievement to put on Macbeth. I would love to see them perform, especially after the challenges faced and all the hard work put in. This was definitely an experience to remember.