Through our time with the Higher Achievement students we were able to learn a lot about leadership, theater, and children. Our once a week visits may not have seemed like much but in that one hour we spent with them and our preparation before hand was really educational.

Learning about leadership came in our ability to engage the students but also keep them orderly. Since they were all about ten years old, they had very different ideas of what made something fun, exciting, or even just what theater was. We had to learn to appeal to their perceptions of fun and how they acted out theater but in a way that allowed us to accomplish our goal of having them present act 1 in front of everyone. We also had to figure out the leadership between the three of us as well to ensure we were efficient and on the same page. In order to do that we each took over roles of different things in respect to kids, the materials needed, and how we planned each visit. As we went on through the semester we were better able to do this overall.

We were able to learn a considerable amount about theater. First off, is how much preparation is needed even for small productions. The scripts required work that you don’t always think about and trying to put the different parts of the act together and how to best do that was all knew to us. This required us to step out of our comfort zone but also work on a level the students would understand. Then the props and costumes require careful consideration because we wanted the audience to see a difference between the students. There were many more factors in this theater production than one realizes.

Lastly, we learned a lot about handling children and how to understand them. Our students were very young which made them more susceptible to acting out, needing things to be repeated, and having lots of energy. This required us to come up with ways to use that energy in a way that helped prepare them for the stage. We were able to come up with educational theater activities that they enjoyed. We learned to repeat needed things but also we would be firm about certain things that we shouldn’t have had to repeat and they would understand we were not playing around.

Overall this was an educational experience on many levels. Not only did the students learn but we did as well. We feel that the students did have a good time preparing for their act and had fun all while learning about Shakespeare and theater.

We were finally able to bring it all together and the Higher Achievement students were able to show their hard work. Although they did not have much time to prepare at the theater location due to some timing issues they still held it together and gave a great performance.

Once the students arrived we quickly started preparation. We were happily surprised that the girls were able to remember to bring their dresses which helped them look the part. They all had some sort of makeup done which helped them get into character more and feel excited about going up on stage. They all received their props and scrips, which they managed to keep track of. We also had some students missing who had big parts so we made last minute changes. Although we had to make these changes the students handled it very well and no one could tell that they hadn’t read those lines before.

Their overall performance went well. They read clearly and knew when to switch characters. There was only a little difficultly having the students come off and on the stage for certain parts of the act but they still did well with that aspect. The students didn’t seem nervous and handled the stage lights very well. After the play they did reasonably sitting in the audience but it was expected that they would struggle to sit still and watch the other acts go since they are young. They seemed to enjoy the play and being able to act out their part. It was a good experience for them to see older students acting as well so that they could see what they could do in the future. They even commented that they would miss us the next week since we would no longer be coming which indicates they enjoyed our time with them.

We felt overall that it was a successful presentation of act 1 and that it was beneficial to our students to be a part of the Jepson Project.

I really enjoyed the experience we had with Higher Achievement and the final performance. It was so nice to see the kids get involved and excited about a project, a nice break from their usual studies and homework sessions. Although there were definitely bumps in the road with trying to focus the kids, I did feel like we not only gave them an exciting experience, but they learned something out of the process. We managed to teach them who Shakespeare was and both explain/show them what the play Midsummer Night’s Dream was about. I’ll never forget the moment when the crazy and complicated love triangle clicked for one of our students. Or when we helped improve their vocabulary by explaining certain words in Shakespeare’s texts.

While there are clearly many improvements that could have been done to our actual performance, I think the value of the experience lies in the process. We managed to build a relationship with these kids that I didn’t even realize we were building. During the practices, I felt like the kids didn’t always want us to be there and were sad when we made them switch from theater games to actually practicing their lines. But then, when we had finished the final production, I was talking to the girls in our group and they said they were going to miss us and kept asking their Higher Achievement person what they would do on Tuesdays from now on. They even asked to take a selfie with me at the end! Overall, I thought the experience was beneficial for both us and the students and given the few practices we had, they did well in their performance.

The big day of the performance finally arrived. We came early to organize props and highlight the finalized scripts for our actors. The night started off with a setback as the Higher Achievement bus pulled in a little after 5, over an hour late due to a miscommunication. When the kids did arrive, they were a little hyper but we gave them lunchables as a snack and they slowly started to focus on the show. Since we didn’t have time to do a practice run on an official stage, we sent them right to Professor Bezio for makeup and got them their props. I took our group of girls to the bathroom to change into the outfits they brought. They had each brought one of their favorite, nice dresses and were so excited to wear them on stage. One girl even brought a floor length mini ball gown because she was playing Hippolyta. The biggest test of the night was organizing them all outside the hallway, handing out scripts, trying to get them to calm down, and giving helpful tips to remember for when acting out the play. We had two people missing from our original group and needed two other members to step up with their role. One of our boys had been nervous to have more than one line but he stepped up when people were missing and took on the role of two different characters. I was so proud of their enthusiasm for taking on multiple roles.

Some of the kids were definitely a little nervous, but all of them stuck with it and made it onstage! For the age level they are at, I thought our group did a good job. There could have been more acting involved and smoother transitions between scenes, but they definitely did their best considering their nerves. There wasn’t much enthusiasm to their tones and they stuttered more on stage than they ever had in the classroom, but overall I was pleased with their performance. It was more about the overall experience than how they actually acted. Although they could have gotten stage fright, I think many of them were happy with their performance and were so excited to hear Dr. Soderlund tell them how great they did.

After our final day at Higher Achievement on Tuesday, we realized we would need to cut down our play because the final rehearsal we had done was about 30 minutes long. Not only were we facing the time constraint, but the kids definitely were finding it hard to read a long set of lines, and we figured it would be even harder when they were actually on stage in front of an audience. We also shortened the lines in the hopes of keeping the other actors (who weren’t speaking at the time) focused on the play and ready to read their lines. Because there were such lengthy paragraphs read by characters at a time, it was easy to see the other characters get distracted and fidget while on stage. We knew this would be a distraction to both the audience and the kid speaking, so we cut down our play rather significantly from 9 to 7 pages. When editing, we keep the most essential lines to relay what was happening in the plot and took out the more unnecessary language for certain characters. Overall, I think it was a good decision to cut some lines.

The second half of our work day was spent deciding which props the kids should use during the play and which props we would use to differentiate characters. We had the two different scarves for Helena and Hermia and different hats for all of the boys characters. We had a lot of fun with this and tried to think of what each kid would want to wear. They had given us a few requests about hats/mustaches the week before so we made sure to factor that in too! We think they are going to love the props and hopefully it will inspire them to be more enthusiastic about their character’s lines.

After Thanksgiving break, we had our final rehearsal at Higher Achievement with the kids. The week before we warned them to be prepared for this final day and to get excited for the play because it was right around the corner. We had already sent home permission slips and came with the intent of finalizing who we would have on performance day. However, there were still many kids who were not positive if they could come. Two of our main characters were missing on this last day, but we had enough students there to do a run through of the whole act. Kesha brought us the tentative list of who would be there on Friday and we got a head count of 11 students and were able to mostly finalize a character list. While we began rehearsal, a worker at Higher Achievement called for the remaining students and after that we were only unsure about one or two which was great news. We would definitely have enough kids there for our Act.

The first thing we did once we got organized was have the students line up and walk on “stage” to practice saying their name and character. Then we worked on the switches between scenes within the act and began a final performance of the act as a whole. After giving their names, we had the next scene of characters stay on and read their lines. We did this for the next two scenes as well. The kids definitely needed help with the directions and struggled staying focused while in line, but hopefully the actual performance would be fine. The timing of the play came out to be around 30 minutes, which was longer than we expected. Overall, the final meeting went well but I am definitely nervous for the night of the play. They have been working on their lines but struggle with acting them out while reading them. I think they are going to love the atmosphere though on Friday and they are all really excited about dressing up and getting props!

I am actually kind of sad that the Jepson Shakespeare Project is now over. Going off campus to Boushall middle school once a week was a breath of fresh air away from the college campus bubble. Even though at times it was extremely difficult to deal with the children and they would not always behave, they definitely showed enthusiasm for the project throughout the whole semester. I think we were most successful in teaching them about plays in general. For instance, I remember the first day many of the kids did not know what a play was or who William Shakespeare was. Now they understand both of these things, as well as some of the basic principles of theatrics. Since they were so young, it was harder to keep them focused on learning about William Shakespeare and the play itself because it was late at night and none of them really wanted to learn. While we tried our best to teach them both of these things, I am not sure how much of it actually stuck with them.

When reflecting on the day of the play I thought the whole day went pretty smoothly. Besides Higher Achievement being late, all the other groups seemed to get there on time and were prepared for their parts. It was really cool to see how different the Acts were. I thought the Act that was mostly just our classmates did really well!! I also liked the Act that played the music and I thought it brought a whole new set of vibes to the performance. I think Act 5 killed it with the acting and it was especially entertaining to watch.

The day of the play was very exciting! Higher Achievement ended up leaving a little later than expected. Me and Melissa were waiting outside the Webb for them to pull up when we saw their shuttle drive straight past us. About ten minutes later we saw their shuttle pull up again and I ran to get them. Kesha wanted me to get on the bus to show them where to park so I got on just to drive about 50 feet to meet Melissa. When I got on the bus the kids were really excited and they really liked my face paint which I think got them even more excited. When we got off the bus me and Melissa walked the group back up to Perkinson where Dr. Bezio did all of their face makeup. The girls all brought pretty fancy dresses to change into and were really excited to get their makeup done. The boys were also particularly excited to get their face makeup done. While the kids were pretty rambunctious and wouldn’t really listen to us before the play, once they got on stage they actually settled down a lot.

I believe we ended up having about nine students total, missing two that we expected to be there. We were able to arrange the characters in a way so the kids who wanted to speak more got the lines of those who were missing. Getting the children the appropriate props and getting them on stage went smoothly. Their performance was okay for their age and how much they had practiced. They tended to speak very monotone and stood in a straight line the whole time, reading off the paper. Some of them used a little bit of enthusiasm in their delivery, but most of the kids forgot everything we had taught them and didn’t really use an theatrics. I think a lot of them may have gotten stage fright. When they got off the stage they sat in the audience and behaved pretty well when watching the other Acts. Overall, I think Higher Achievement did pretty well.

Yesterday was the final day of going to the Villa, and oh how productive it was. Matt informed us that only two students would definitely be there. According to him, one of the students who required extra assistance lives in a group home while the other lives almost an hour and a half away. Additionally, another student informed us he would not be able to come due to an issue of transportation. We were under the impression that this was already handled by the administration at the villa. Of course, consistent with the semester as a whole, communication was broken overall. Nevertheless, we will work with the two that we have come time for performance this afternoon. I believe that the two will move throughout the show well. Confidence should not be an issue, and hopefully they can walk off the stage knowing more about Shakespeare than before. As we wrapped up practice yesterday, I could not help but think about how working with the Villa affected me this semester. I truly learned patience as I dealt with the inconsistent and unorganized systems within the organization. Working with Haley truly made me realize that doing what you enjoy is what is most important when it comes to finding a job. The kids made me appreciate the fortunes that I have regarding my learning capacity and overall life experiences. Even though there were a lot of difficulties, the semester brought important growth by dealing with the Villa.

After last week’s sudden cancellation of rehearsal, Molly got into contact with Laura to figure out what happened. She told Molly that her husband was in the hospital and she didn’t know when she would be back to school, therefore Verenda would be updating us on future rehearsals and her status. By Monday morning (November 16th), we heard nothing from Verenda or Laura, so we figured that rehearsal was off. We didn’t want to call Laura and harass her about rehearsal if her husband was still in the hospital, because obviously the Shakespeare production is not as important as her husband’s health.

We updated Bezio about this in class, and discussed the possibility of joining with the Osher group from Act 5.

On that following Wednesday, I received an email from Bezio saying that Laura sent an email to Dr. Soderlund complaining that no one showed up to rehearsal and there were kids waiting after school (shockingly).  Long story short, there was some miscommunication between our group and the site that needed to be fixed.

By the end of the week, everything was sorted out. Rehearsal would definitely be back on the next Monday before Thanksgiving break.