Three weeks into rehearsal, almost the entire show is rough blocked, I don't have a choreographer, the vocal director has been gone more than he has been there, and there are some major attendance problems.
For the most part the kids seem to be enjoying themselves. Which is good, but many just seem to be there for the social aspects, instead of really wanting to put on a good show.
I have one student who I have been told might make Varsity Swim and if he does he plans on quiting the play. He is one of the principals...if he quits I will never cast him in another show. He says he knows this (other kids in the show have talked to him), and he says he will just do community theatre instead.
This is what I don't understand about this culture of students...they want to have a good show, but they don't want to rehearse or do the fundraising needed to make the show quality. Last year I actually had a student tell me "It's Orange High School" when I commented on not wanting things to look bad. Implying that we can't have a quality show because of where we are. I don't care how disadvanged a school is, there is not reason why we shouldn't have a quality program, doing quality productions.
But other than this kid and one or two others, I am really happy with the cast and am enjoying working with them. I just need to get the ensemble more involved. That is one of my plans for this weekend...figure out their staging for alot of the ensemble scenes and numbers, and figuring out how to make them feel more important in the dialogue scenes.
I think one thing I might do is check out a bunch of Peanuts comics from the library so they can read them and get to know their characters.
So we are now at 13 weeks and counting. Which may seem excessive, but with only working 2 hours a day 3 days a week, I feel it is not enough time. Especially with these kids. When I have trained the kids to work harder then we can work on shortening the time period.
Anyway, wish us "break-a-leg"!
No comments:
Post a Comment