Please refer to my previous post if your child is having any difficulties with memorization, and I'll be happy to answer any additional questions in class!
Last week, student got to try on their costumes for the first time. While I still have a couple more to finish (the fabric was not cooperating!) they are all pretty much done. This week will be our final time to really work on things before we have a dress rehearsal next week and the final performance the week after! Students did extremely well last week with pages 1-10 memorized, and I hope our run-through of the final 10ish pages is just as successful.
Please refer to my previous post if your child is having any difficulties with memorization, and I'll be happy to answer any additional questions in class!
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(Note: sorry for only have a sentence of this originally posted. On my end, it looked like the entire post was up, but apparently it was not!)
These students are doing so well! We have gone over a little more than half of the script, and they are picking everything up very quickly. Your students should continue practicing at home. Next week, they should come with pages 1-6 memorized. Some tips for memorization
Thank you to everyone for providing measurements! We'll be able to start incorporating props and costumes in the next couple weeks. The sooner you don't need your script, the sooner you'll be able to use all of your props. I look forward to next week!! Ask your student if he/she auditioned last week...There's a good chance you'll hear, "no." The reason why is simple: I like to keep auditions as stress-free as possible. We played a little warm-up game, learned part of a song, then read some of the script.
Through all of that, I was able to learn quite a bit about each student. For example, my original plan was to have everyone sing in part of the Greek chorus. However, after only 5 minutes of learning a song, I knew that there were a few who would rather be doing just about anything other than standing on stage singing. During the first class I also had the chance to observe: volume, comfort on stage, stage presence, willingness to try, and more. Once all of the student left, I sat down with their audition forms, the character list, and my notes and began to assign parts. We have about 15 characters split between 10 actors, but I have complete confidence in everyone's ability to do a wonderful job. This week, students will be able to take their scripts home, and practicing every week between classes will become extremely important. As always, if you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please do not hesitate to get in touch! I look forward to seeing you Wednesday. This session has been absolutely wonderful! This group of students has been working hard to learn their blocking and their characters.
For week 4, we did a quick run-through of the first 7 pages (which we learned during week 3), then kept going to learn all but the final two pages of the script. That is great progress! This week we also began introducing props and set pieces in order to really help everyone get into the reality of the play. Usually, around this time, we'd be really pushing for better volume and projection, but this group doesn't seem to need that as much as others have in the past, which is fabulous! Students should come back to Week 5 with the first 7 pages memorized. I can't wait to keep pushing through and seeing how great we can make this show! AWK! The sky is falling!!!!!
I'll bet you can guess what story we'll be exploring in both of our classes... That's right Chicken Little Or maybe it'll be Butterfly Tiny, or Alligator Huge... we honestly have no idea yet. As it turns out, Chicken Little is a bit boring. Who wants to dress up like Goosey Loosey or Turkey Lurkey when there are owl and tiger costumes lying around?! With the younger group, we worked on our best animal impressions, including attention to how certain animals might interact with other animals. We practiced animal sounds and different ways that animals move, even focusing on how similar animals might move differently. A hummingbird does not fly the same way an eagle does! In the older group, the students helped me to come up with some "cooler" animals than the typical ones already present in the Chicken Little story. It'll be fun to come up with a new script based on all of the interesting animal combinations they came up with. Everyone has a pet peeve or two. I -- admittedly -- have dozens, but nothing makes me sigh heavier than students counting lines.
"I have twelve lines." "I have nineteen." "I only have nine." So far, in this class, I've only had one student tell me how many lines she has, usually I'd have a majority by now. There are a few reasons I'm bothered by the line counting, and they are very much related to each other. Firstly, while acting is a competitive field, being in a show with someone else shouldn't be competitive. It's all about working together and building an ensemble. Speaking of ensemble (and on to point number two), every moment that someone is on stage, they are very important. It's one thing young actors always struggle with: you aren't only "in character" when you're speaking. Your character also listens, thinks, and sees! This is why, during Week 3, we did some exploring with Stage Business. The first scene of our play has everyone on stage, but, for the most part, the conversation is limited to five characters. What are the others doing? Looking around the boat shop, listening to the conversation of the others (especially for those who respond to it), perhaps they're even talking to a fellow pirate (silently, of course). When we ran through the scene with everyone, it was MUCH better! No more bored pirates on stage unsure of why they were there. Now to work on pet peeve #2... forgetting scripts. =] Don't worry, I typed that title just how I wanted! Week 2 was all about sensory awareness. How do actors use their ability to smell, taste, touch/feel, hear, and see to make their acting better? In both classes, we listened to the video below, based on the wonderful book Tuesday by David Wiesner. Students discussed the sounds they heard, and what could possibly be going on in the scenes. Who would have guessed it was flying frogs? With the younger kids, we enjoyed re-watching the muted video and trying to imitate as many of the sounds they heard as possible! We then got on stage, with our voices all warmed up, and worked on the story of Chicken Little. With a combination of call-and-response line readings and enthusiastic sound effects, it wasn't hard to bring the little chicken to life! In the older class, listened to even more scenes (a busy street and a farm) and it was amazing the questions they were able to answer about what was going on. Without any images, the kids knew that the truck they heard was "old", one even telling me it was red. The knew which moments happened in the morning, and which came at night. Some where able to answer questions of what they smelled -- dirt, fried food from street vendors, car exhaust, manure, etc -- just from hearing a recording. It was a very successful week with both classes, and I can't wait to get to week 3 to see how much more we can all learn together! Apparently the Weebly App on my tablet has issues with publishing new blog posts =[ Sorry for not posting after Week 1.
After some low-stress auditions (I bet if you ask your students, most of them will not have even realized they did audition), we talked about how to read a script, then started a read-through to get everyone acquainted with the story. After class, Miss Francesca and I sat down and assigned our new actors characters in the play. Week 2, after a quick refresher of everyone's names, we got right onto the stage and started to learn how to navigate the parts of the stage. Ask your student where upstage and downstage are, and what in the world a "wing" is. We also got to my favorite lesson today: it's okay to cheat! Cheat out, that is. We had the chance to work with our bodies to make sure the audience can always see our faces when we're on stage -- referred to as being "open" -- using a technique called "cheating out". Week 2 also brought the fun surprise of two new additions to the class, which is very exciting, but does mean Miss Francesca and I will need to play with the script a bit in order to make room for everyone (this is my favorite problem!) Next week, we'll keep working on learning the script, building on cheating out and being open, and also begin to focus on projecting our voices so ever grandmother in the back row can hear what we have to say! But it should be!Week 1 was all about getting to know one another. We played some games to help learn everyone's names, and shared some fun facts about ourselves.
Theatre (and subsequently drama) is all about ensemble. It's important to get to know the people you're going to be collaborating with in order to be the best theatre artist you can be! Things might not have seemed very fun just yet, but things will definitely get more hands on and exploratory as the weeks go on. It was wonderful to learn what makes each of the students unique and excited for drama. I even discovered that one of my students knows "everything there is to know about acting." We'll see if I can dig up some new things to teach him! One of the most exciting parts about Week 1 was finding out that I have a set of twins in BOTH Creative Drama classes!! That's never happened before. I can't wait to test my memory in Week 2 and see how many names and fun facts I can remember! It was our first day with everyone in attendance! Having every character on stage really helped students to understand the story and understand where they fit in on stage.
This week, we got up on stage and really got the chance to act out their script. We even had some props available to help answer the age-old question: "what do I do with my hands?!" The dynamic of the group is really wonderful. They're giving and taking suggestions well, both from me and from each other. A few students have needed occasional re-direction (and a gentle reminder to not try to be the teacher), but it's nothing out of the ordinary! The first time we read through the script -- during week 2 -- a few students were apprehensive. "We're doing a play with dead people?!" But, as it turns out, there's nothing a child loves more than the chance to act out an untimely death on stage! Students should be starting to memorize their lines while they can. We also talked a bit about alibis this week. Anyone who plays a suspect should come next week ready to answer the question, "Where were you at the time of the murder?" Please, don't let them stress about it. We will work together to take their excuses and develop them into short monologues so that every student has a chance to shine -- and prove they didn't do it! |
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April 2017
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