Jepson Shakespeare Project Production Blog

I was extremely anxious for the performance, but was pleasantly surprised at the success of the entire show, as well as our two acts.

Taylor and I had done a quick bout of last-minute cutting before the show after Aaron, our Prospero at the time, had lamented over the sheer length of his many monologues.

Even on the Monday before the show, we were unable to get through the final act of the show, and it was not until the performance was scarcely hours away that we were able to make it through the entire show backstage.

True to form, we experienced a final last-minute change of casting, with some of our returning cast members taking on two roles, such as Laura, who played both Caliban and Miranda, and Jacob, who played both Alonso and Trinculo, which made for a hilarious final act in which both of them changed character onstage.

All in all, a recurring theme of this entire process has been my anxiety over the project or the students themselves, only for the end result to completely exceed my expectations and turn out wonderful in the end.

I was very happy with how the actual show went. Our scholars seemed very excited to be a part of the performance, even those who had originally expressed that they wanted no part in performing on stage. They were more than excited to get their makeup done and run through lines before hand, which was a relief to see. Some of our scholars even volunteered to fill in for the other groups, including our Ferdinand, who ended up playing Ferdinand for the entire play.

Overall, the scholars were very cooperative with us and the other actors in the play. When it came time for the performance, only a few scholars were nervous, though with all their friends on stage, they really seemed to have fun with things. They really made things less stressful than I anticipated, which helped not only their act, but the entire play run smoothly. I’m very proud of their hard work throughout the semester and during the performance. The end of the play was somewhat bittersweet, as some of the scholars were sad when they realized that Julia and I would not be coming back to teach theatre anymore. At the end of the day, I’m glad that we could provide a fun project for the few scholars interested in theatre, and I’m very happy with how the production as a whole turned out.

The final rehearsal with Higher Achievement Boushall was simultaneously our most productive and chaotic rehearsal. We actually started on time for the first time in a month, though we had our entire group back. The group had also just come from the gym, so they were all pretty hyped up. Once we got them into the music room and they saw the props, it took quite a bit of convincing to get the scholars to leave the props alone. While our scholars with lines were very excited to begin working with the props, those who hadn’t enjoyed the theatre elective from the start were not satisfied to leave the table of swords and funny hats alone. While some of the scholars worked on the pirate ship, others sat and watched, and a disgruntled few sat in the corner complaining. However, once everyone was settled into their costume pieces and various jobs for the day, we began rehearsing.

The props and costume pieces seemed to give a new confidence to the scholars who were performing, which made Act I much more interesting to watch for those who were not participating. Thankfully, no one hit anyone else with a sword, and the scholars handled the props very well. We finished reading everything through just in time for the end of the day, so I felt good about the amount of practice our scholars had with the scripts. At the end of the day, this practice didn’t matter as much as who would actually show up to the performance the next day. Unfortunately, the scholar meant to play Caliban told us that she couldn’t come to the performance. This was extremely disappointing, as she showed the most promise in her reading and performance skills. We finished rehearsal that day with a lot of scholars excited, either for the performance, or the end of their forced theatre elective.

I was extremely content with the way our production of The Tempest went. I will admit that- at first- Bliss and I were a little bit stressed when we found out that Aaron (our Prospero), Lauren (our Ariel) and a few other students in our cast would not be performing. However, having people in our class fill in for some of the missing performers was extremely helpful, and Bliss and I were also lucky that one student in our cast (Neveah) volunteered to take on the role of Prospero last minute.

For the most part, the students were highly cooperative- they agreed to run through both acts once before the show and followed along in the script during the actual show, keeping track of when they were supposed to enter and exit scenes. The only minor incident that occurred was when the student playing Prospero left to use the bathroom towards the end of Act IV. However, thankfully, another student in the cast came to the rescue and filled in for her, and then the two smoothly transitioned back into their original roles at the beginning of Act V.

The students seemed to have a fun time with the production, and many utilized the costumes, props and makeup we provided them. I feel as though the production ran extremely smoothly, and I honestly couldn’t ask for it to have gone any better.

This week, Bliss and I led our final rehearsal at St. Joseph’s Villa. This rehearsal ended up being our best rehearsal yet, as the students were the most engaged they had ever been, and many of them seemed very excited for the show. At first, Bliss and I were slightly concerned, as when we arrived at the Villa Timone alerted us that we would not be able to practice in our usual rehearsal space, which is the chapel where the final production will take place. However, practicing in the smaller room ended up being better than practicing in the chapel, as the students were a lot more focused practicing in the smaller space. Luckily, all but three students were in attendance at this rehearsal, which also contributed to things running so smoothly.

Bliss and I started off the rehearsal by announcing the final cast list, and giving each student the props and costumes that went with their character(s) once their role(s) were announced. I think this helped get the students engaged in the rehearsal right from the start, as the students were excited to receive the props and costumes. After Bliss and I announced the final cast list and gave out the props and costumes to students, we played the question game, which seems to be the students favorite game. The students had a fun time playing this game, and almost everyone went up to play at some point. We ended the rehearsal by reading through Act V (this was our first time reading through this act). At first, Bliss and I tried to assign the students blocking, but as the readthrough went on we realized that the students weren’t really paying attention to the blocking and were starting to lose focus, so we stopped assigning blocking.

One thing Bliss and I noted during the read through was that Prospero has way too many lines, so when we went through the script to edit it one last time we cut about two pages of his lines. Overall, Bliss and I are feeling good for the production, and- as long as we get a pretty good student turn out- feel as though it could turn out pretty well.

In my experience, the genre of space movies has been consistently dominated by white males with a white woman tossed in every now and then. Hidden Figures breaks from this mold by highlighting the stories of a group of black women who had an integral role in advancing the work of NASA. Every other space movie that I have seen positions the male astronaut as the protagonist. Hidden Figures is different because it brings to the forefront the efforts of those who have previously been considered “behind the scenes”.

The Calculated Response article was very interesting because it brought to my attention aspects of the movie that have been adjusted from reality to target a white audience. In particular, the article analyzes the role of Al Harrison, who is portrayed throughout the movie as being an advocate for equal rights. One of my favorite scenes was when he tore down the bathroom sign, signaling to Katherine that she could use the bathroom that was previously forbidden to her because of her race. When watching the movie, it did not occur to me that this scene and Al Harrison’s character were actually fictional and that he was inserted into the story in order to make white people feel better. After reading the article, I realized that was exactly the affect it had. When white people are faced with confronting the inequalities of the past, instead of acknowledging their wrongness, they grasp for a silver lining of sorts. Al Harrison’s character allows white people to watch this movie and in the midst of all the blatant discrimination and mistreatment, they can focus on him and say “look we weren’t all bad!” The upside of this is that it makes the story more appealing to white people thus broadening the scope of the audience and increasing the exposure of this very important story. The downside is that it detracts from the efforts of Katherine by implying that her success can be partly attributed to a white man. It begs the question, why was this necessary? Can white people really not enjoy a movie unless they are featured in some type of positive light. Would the movie have been better off without the “white savior” plot line? Or do the benefits of increased exposure outweigh the negative repercussions from a slight deviance in actual events? Additionally, I wonder if the decision to include Al Harrison was a conscious choice on the part of the director to cater to white people or of he just thought Harrison would make the movie more interesting without realizing the deeper implications.

This past week, Timone cancelled our rehearsal last minute as he was unable to attend and could not get someone to cover for him in time. While Bliss and I were disappointed that rehearsal was cancelled, we were also somewhat relieved, as rehearsals have become increasingly stressful due to lack of student interest and stage fright. At our rehearsal, Bliss and I had planned to review the revised cast list, and to conduct our first full read-through of The Tempest.

As of now we have only conducted a full read-through of Act IV, and have yet to read through Act V. As we only have one rehearsal left before the show, the students will pretty much be conducting a cold reading of the script the night of the show.

Next rehearsal, Bliss and I plan to review the revised cast list, conduct a full read-through of Acts IV and V, discuss blocking, and to review the different characters and the plot of The Tempest. Bliss and I will also be bringing props and costumes, and we will be incorporating the latter into the read through.

As the show approaches, I am nervous that very few students will attend/ go through with playing their roles during the show. However, the show must go on, and Bliss and I will do everything in our power to make do with whatever conditions present themselves the night of the show.

This week was fairly similar to last week, in that we were only working with a few of the scholars while the rest worked on another project. Unfortunately, our Prospero and Ferdinand had been picked up early, so we had some other brave volunteers read the lines for their friends. We finally made it through the entire script in one go, so our other characters will be much better prepared when we run things through with the originally cast Prospero and Ferdinand two weeks from now. Script readings have gone well the past two weeks, our only challenges being volume and the scholars’ comfortability with Shakespearean language. However, we are still left without sailors, though we do have a few scholars willing to read for the nobles. Again, this seems like it will have to be a last-minute decision, depending on who is available and willing to help with the water and pirate ship on the day of the performance.

Hopefully when we return from Thanksgiving, we will have our entire group to help us finish the pirate ship and fill in for sailors and stagehands where needed. We should bring prop hats and the “water” next time we go, so that we can mark which hat goes to whoever and get our scholars used to their props before the performance the next day. Maybe the realization that the performance is impending will inspire some of the scholars to participate more, though ultimately, it depends on who shows up on any given day.

The final night of my Disney trip happened to align with the 20th-anniversary performance of Fantasmic. My friend and I attended this performance but had no idea at the time that it was the 20th-anniversary performance. We did, however, pick up on the fact that the overall vibe seemed to be very different from the past times we’ve seen the show, and that more people were in attendance than usual.

Once the show began (while neither of us could put our finger on exactly why) both my friend and I could tell that the show felt very different from the previous performances we had seen. For example, during the show, everyone around us was absolutely silent and fully engaged in every number, which is not usually the case for Fantasmic. After the show, we both noted that the show seemed even better than it has been the past few times we had seen it, and wondered if perhaps Disney had made recent changes to it.

A few hours after the show, I saw a post on the Disney Instagram that stated how the 20th-anniversary performance of Fantasmic had occurred earlier that night. I immediately showed the post to my friend, who responded “that makes so much sense!” I found this to be interesting, as we had both been able to detect that there was something different about this specific viewing of the show solely based on the audience’s reaction to the show that night.

When I was at Disney over fall break, I attended one of the Halloween parties. At the Halloween parties there is a parade called the Boo-To-You parade. This parade is one of the biggest things that draws people to Disney’s Halloween parties, and happens twice throughout each party. Both my friend and I love the Boo-To-You parade, so we planned our party night out so that we could see the parade twice. The first Boo-To-You parade occurs midway through the party (around 9 pm), and the second Boo-To-You parade occurs at the end of the party (right before midnight). Because the Halloween party goes so late, a lot of parents who have younger children leave after the first parade. As a result, the first parade tends to have a much younger audience than the second parade.

Thus, when watching the parade the first time my friend and I found ourselves surrounded by a very young audience- in fact- the people surrounding us predominantly consisted of parents and toddlers. As anticipated, the toddlers LOVED the parade- they would shout the names of the characters and try to high-five them as they passed by, and were singing along to the music the entire time. Overall, the excitement the younger audience had for the parade combined with the fact that I had not seen this parade since I was seven years old made the experience fun, uplifting, and nostalgic for me.

However, my friend and I had a much different (and slightly less positive) experience at the second parade. At the second parade, my friend and I were surrounded by older teenagers and college students. A lot of the older teenagers who were near us were heckling some of the characters, and others were complaining that certain sections of the parade “weren’t scary enough.” Of course, other factors likely contributed towards my experience being slightly more positive at the first parade than at the second parade besides the audience. For example, the first parade occurred earlier in the night when I was less tired, and I was more excited for the first parade than for the second one as I hadn’t seen the parade in years so everything was fairly new. However, I would say that- overall- the people I was surrounded by/ the audience did largely contribute to my overall experience at both parades.