We were unable to meet for rehearsal this week because it was during Thanksgiving Break…on Thanksgiving Day, actually. Thankfully, we are on schedule to meet with the group next Thursday, which happens to be the night before the final performance. Although we have not met with our group in 2 weeks, I am glad we will be meeting this Thursday rather than any other day in the week, because rehearsing the night before the performance will be a good refresher that they can carry with them the following evening.

This week we were unable to meet with our group because T.C. Boushall was hosting their own group Thanksgiving for the entire after-school program. Unfortunately, this break from rehearsal is unfortunate because last week was the first week that the students actually participated.

“Well, God give them wisdom that have it; and those that are fools, let them use their talents.” – Feste (Act 1, Scene 5 Lines 13-14)

Yeah, so this is a little late.

Do I have legitimate excuse? No.

But what I do have is a pretty good recollection of how this rehearsal went.

Well, the bright side was that we managed to get the students we were dragging their heals on actually being on stage to all take parts, and we actually had one or two students with smaller roles, like our captain, who also agreed to have another part.

But that all came after we finally had to raise our voice for them to sit down and settle in for the evening.

Look, I was a middle-schooler too once, so I know that Shakespeare rehearsal isn’t going to be what people feel like doing, but for whatever reason that night we couldn’t even get our students to stop falling out of their chairs and running around the room.

We’ve tried to make it a pretty fun and open environment, but sometimes you just have to be the bad guy to get their attention back on what they needed to do.

We did try to start with some movement games at least, which is usually enough to help them settle down on their own, but for whatever reason that wasn’t enough for this rehearsal.

The good news is that everything was fine once we got them settled in, and we took the time to explain that we were sorry we had to yell before we even tried to have them go through the script.

We got through a whole reading, and I think we have a very strong group for Act 1.

I unfortunately will not be at the next rehearsal since I will be out of town, but it’s crazy to think that we only have a few weeks left until opening (and closing) night.

Well.

Today was our last official rehearsal before the Big Day, this Friday December 2nd. We had five students join us: Rufus (Sebastian), Christina (Feste), Talia (Olivia), Dale (Sir Andrew), and Charles (Malvolio). We began the day as usual, with a brief introduction and an overview of the day’s objectives. We prefaced this particular overview with a note that Friday is performance day–this seemed to sober the group a little more than usual, and I suspect it contributed to their increased focus today.

We then reminded everyone of their roles and let them know that, if they arrive for the show on Friday, they can expect to keep that role. Timone was especially helpful in incentivizing the students; he has arranged for the participants who show up on Friday to take a field trip of their choice sometime next week. While I was fairly certain that every student who showed up today would have shown up on Friday regardless, the incentive did reassure our group that we would definitely have a solid group for performance day.

We then ran through the act twice. We had the students focus on three specific components of the performance: (1) projecting their voices, (2) facing the audience, and (3) never quitting. The last part was especially important because timing is essential; all of our run-throughs have been at the upper limit of the time bound for each Act, and we wanted to make sure we were going at a proper pace. Personally, I was most concerned about Christina’s continuity in reading, because she often struggles to get her words out, and mixes word order. I coached her quietly in the vestibule before she made her entrance–“Remember, they won’t know if you skip a word here or there, or if you change a word or two. Just keep going, try to read as clearly as you can, and don’t give up.” She then went out and gave what was, in my opinion, her best two performances as the Clown yet. She had a few small reading hiccups, but she took my advice and made minuscule alterations as she went, which improved her clarity dramatically. She also projected her voice louder than anyone else performing, and was very attentive to the way in which she entered and exited the stage. I am so proud of Christina today!

Talia’s confidence is also growing after today’s performance. In previous rehearsals, she would sometimes appear reluctant to participate, but after successfully entering on her cues and reading her lines with what clarity she could manage, she even exclaimed at the end of the first run-through: “That wasn’t so bad!” We were all pleased to hear that she felt more sure about the performance after that.

Charles and Rufus are as attentive as ever, and are the clearest readers of the group. Charles is so sweet and gentle, and Rufus just has a spunk to him that makes me crack up every time he starts reading his lines. Both of them seem to need the least assistance out of all the group members, and I have no worries about either of them for Friday.

Dale is the final concern. Today he was particularly energetic and goofy, so his focus was especially impaired. Even when he was seated and calm, he struggled to follow along with the script and pay attention to what lines and cues were being delivered. With Jacob most likely portraying Sir Toby on Friday, he will be able to guide Dale (Sir Andrew) onstage during the performance, with some discreet prompting. However, I think it would also be wise to have either Natalie or myself in the vestibule and having him standing and ready, several lines before his cue. He is not the fastest or most reactive mover, so we will have to compensate for this. I think that, with the appropriate coaching, Dale should do fine on Friday.

Our setup of the props seemed to work well. I think Act 4 will do splendidly. Can’t wait for Friday!

Weeks 9 and 10 we had off for Thanksgiving. Week 9 they hosted a Thanksgiving at Boushall and week 10 was Thursday November 24th as in Thanksgiving day itself. I am worried about our production as we have not been able to get the kids to run through the act once. Hopefully we will week 11, but as of right now I am not sure how our performance will go. We have been able to determine which kids are good readers, which kids like theater/acing, which kids dislike theater/acting, and which kids have difficulty reading Shakespeare. If we had the time, I would like to help those kids who have difficulty reading. However, given the time constraint it would be difficult to do at this point. There are not enough rehearsals and so the kids who have difficulty reading will just have to have smaller roles. Also, overall the kids have issues with paying attention/staying on task. While we can generally get them all to participate in the theater games, it is difficult to get them to focus on the play. Perhaps for the next class I will bring candy to bribe them to focus on the task at hand. If they focus and we get through the act then they get candy. If not then no candy. It’s unfortunate that I would have to resort to that, but as they say, you gotta do what you’ve gotta do.

This week we were able to get the kids to act through several scenes. I was unable to be there due to a mock trial conflict unfortunately. However, Colby and Aleeza said we made good progress to a certain extent. The kids who weren’t acting out the scenes at the time were unruly and unable to focus on the task at hand. It’s really hard for us to maintain control while rehearsing. Granted, all the kids are pretty young so no one said it would be easy. I think it’s more so that there are so many of them. Typically there are about 15 kids at each session and usually there are only 2 or 3 of us at each meeting, so that’s 5-8 kids per jepson student. We’ve been trying to channel their energy through theater games. Sometimes it gets them to calm down, but sometimes it just engines them. We haven’t truly run through the full act with all of them yet. Yes we have read them and gone through each scene, but never in it’s entirety.Hopefully we will in the next session.

This was our last rehearsal. It’s been so cool to see how the students have grown, not only as actors, but into themselves. A lot of them, like Rufus or Talia, seemed very reserved during the first couple rehearsals. Now, however, they’re emoting, enunciating, and projecting while reading their lines.

This week, we had Christina (clown), Dale (Sir Andrew), Rufus (Sebastian), Charles (Malvolio), and Talia (Olivia). It was confirmed today that Jacob would not be attending the show on Friday. This means we need someone to play Sir Toby. During the rehearsal, we had Jacob (from UR) play that role. Maddie and I stepped in as the smaller roles like Fabian and Maria/Mario. We decided to run through the act twice today. By letting them know this in advance, we avoided a lot of the confusion or complaints we usually got during the second read through. We stressed to the students to take this rehearsal seriously, since it would be our last before the show. We reminded them to always face the audience, read along even when not speaking, always stay in character, and remain quiet while offstage.

When we cast the show, everyone seemed okay with their roles. Talia was really enthusiastic about being Olivia, and even shouted, “Yes!” Christina still seemed interested in Olivia, but Maddie stressed to her that Feste was more of a pivotal character. I think this, and Feste’s hat, made the role more appealing.

These run throughs went really well. We managed to get through it the first time in 19 minutes and the second time in 15 minutes. During the actual play, I think we might stay on or near stage to help things progress quickly if someone forgets their lines.

We ended the rehearsal by asking them if they had any questions, telling them what time to get there, and reminding them to wear dark or black colors. Charles wanted to know if he had to wear a “bow tie,” or suit, which was really funny.

Overall, this rehearsal went really well. I’m so impressed with how well the students read their lines and stayed on track the whole rehearsal. Talia, who previously said she had a lot of stage fright, even said it wasn’t that bad today and that she had fun. Dale said he might sing his lines on Friday to make things more fun or interesting. Before we left, Charles told us that Jacob, Maddie, and I did a “great job,” which was really nice to hear. I hope things go just as smoothly on Friday!

At our second-to-last rehearsal (woah), there were a few surprises. Jacob (the student) told us that he might not be at our actual performance, and Christina was mysteriously absent! We hope Jacob is able to make it, and we hope Christina comes back for our last rehearsal.

For rehearsal we had Rufus, Charles, Jacob, Dale, and Talia. At this rehearsal, we really wanted to focus on blocking. Overall, the lines are going very well. Most of our students read very well at this point (Rufus, Charles, Jacob). While Talia’s speech is hard to understand, she is very committed to her lines and gets through them at a good speed! The last reading problems we have are Christina and Dale. For Christina, we cut down a number of Feste’s lines to make them easier for her to read (and to cut down on the amount of time she talks, as much as we didn’t want to!!!) And for Dale, we decided that one of us will go on stage as the role of Fabian, and we will help Dale read his lines if he gets stuck.

At rehearsal, we ran the act twice! Both times it was within our 15 minute time limit (though this was probably because Christina wasn’t there, and the three of us switched off for Feste and read the lines much faster). Still, it is encouraging that we have gotten it down from being over 30 minutes! We also finished blocking the act, and most of the students seemed to remember the blocking well from the first run through to the second. The biggest issue we had was that some students were not following along in their scripts backstage. We emphasized that they should always be following along, but we think that at least one of us will be on each side of the stage so we can make sure the students make their cues!

I must say, I am so happy about the commitment and enthusiasm of our students! Most of them understand what they are saying, and all of them use some emotion in saying their lines! Dale still gets discouraged when we run the act more than once, but luckily in the show we will only do it once, so hopefully he will have sufficient enthusiasm for that one time!

Finally, I wish that we could officially cast the show, but it continues to be all but impossible because we don’t have the same students show up every time. We have pretty much cast the show at this point, but it’s technically not finalized. We will just have to see who shows up and take it from there.

So excited for Friday!

Unfortunately, this week, we took a few steps back in our rehearsals. Things the last few weeks just seemed as though they were too good to be true at times. While we had made great strides in our line reading the last few weeks with Adrian, Jemiah and Tamaiah, this week we had Khalil back. While it is a pleasure to have Khalil at rehearsal, he can at times be very distracting to the other students, and has a very apathetic approach to the performance. While Adrian, who is currently playing Duke Orsino, is very invested in the performance, Khalil is very much not insisting that he is not attending. Thus, at times durring rehearsal, he and Adrian antagonize one another to annoy one another. This week, Khalil kept yelling that Adrian wasn’t reading his lines clear enough, then Adrian would respond that Khalil couldn’t say “easy” words in his monologue. The two would then proceed to get into arguments, and both were so frustrated, that they could not proceed with the rehearsal. So this week, instead of working on reading our lines, we usually had to divert our attention to breaking up Khalil and Adrian from their continuous arguments.

Another huge setback to our performance was that this week, we learned that Marcus, who was supposed to play a number of roles, will not be in attendance at the performance. This was big for us because Marcus has consistently been a calming presence at rehearsal. Additionally, Marcus has always been willing to pick up the slack when other performers do not want to take on a role, thus his presence in our performance will be missed very much.

Given the setbacks we experienced this week, one positive did come of all of it. Finally, amongst the arguing and joking around, we were able to see some glimpses of passion from our students regarding the performance. We noticed that many of the arguments that were taking place between the students were a result of their passion and their desire for the performance to be good. While this detracted from the rehearsal itself as I outlined above, I thought that it was really cool to see how much the students cared about the performance. This reassured, at least me, that our performance, no matter how bad it may seem in rehearsal at times, will be acted properly and well so long as the students have passion for what they are doing.

After a productive rehearsal last week, our students regressed in our penultimate rehearsal. We were back up to four students from three last week: Adrian, Tamiyah, Janiyah, and Khaleel (he was not present last week). Perhaps it was Khaleel’s presence this week that derailed our productivity. On the whole the group had trouble focusing at the beginning of rehearsal. Unfortunately our rehearsal further regressed as tensions between students flared, leading to some physical confrontations. Such aggression tested Dylan, AJ, and I. Eventually Khaleel stormed out of the room, Dylan left to track him down while AJ and I stayed behind to try to reconcile our rehearsal without Khaleel. Without Khaleel we made some progress, but not at the level of productivity of the previous week. By the time Khaleel and Dylan returned, Khaleel was diffused but disengaged, sitting alone on his phone. After awhile we tried to engage Khaleel with the rest of the group again, but with similar disruptive results. We ended the rehearsal playing acting games, which though fun, do not help us much with only one rehearsal remaining before our performance.

The tension within the group makes things difficult as Khaleel plays two parts in our play. Compounding this problem is the absence of Marcus, a solid student who held three parts and has missed our last few rehearsals. Recently I learned that Marcus will not be performing with us any longer. This leaves us with three students who mesh well and hold the three leading roles of Act V, Orsino, Olivia, and Viola. Khaleel plays Antonio and Sir Tony Belch, important characters who are critical to the final production. But Khaleel’s spotty attendance record and behavioral problems make him hard to count on. He has also claimed he will not come to our final performance. This leaves us needing to rely on our fellow UR students for help with most of the minor characters. Though I am grateful for their willingness to help, I cannot help but wish we could’ve completed the play with only our students. For the most part our students are invested in this play, and do not want to disappoint them.