Alice in Wonderland, vol. III and more

One and half weeks in, and we're still on track. We've staged and discussed the entire first act (there are three). Yesterday, K and I split up for a majority of the rehearsal, which was a relief for me, having felt for a few days that dividing and conquering would be the best strategy for getting some of this work up and running.

We're starting every rehearsal with a warm-up and a set of exercises/games. Yesterday, we played a game S and I invented while bored once, in which we all sing a song, one word at a time (S and I mastered "Hit Me Baby One More Time"). The cast and I started with "Twinkle, twinkle, little star." First person sings "Twinkle," next sings "twinkle," next sings "little," etc. It's about keeping the rhythm of the song more than anything and is surprisingly challenging. The kids did well though. Then we explained the idea of playing the opposite, and assigned short phrases to each kid, then gave them an apparently opposite situation to play: saying "I love you" at the end of a long argument with your boyfriend, for instance. These kids love these intention games, which is exciting and gratifying and entertaining.

I worked with Alice and Rabbit on the end of the first act, while K tackled a group song that happens in Act III. Then I specified some blocking in the Mad Tea Party scene. It's pretty complicated, and I found myself trying to do math and then justifying the amount of chairs we'd chosen to put in the scene. I'm not convinced it worked, but it's OK for now.

I hope we'll continue to split up some of the labor, and Monday we're going to work individually with some of the younger kids.

In the meantime, I've registered for my fall semester classes. I'm taking Drama as Education I, which is a core for getting my teaching license, Principles in Acting, with a focus on Augusto Boal, and Performance Theatre and Community, which is a core for my Theatre and Community focus. There are 35 incoming 1st year grad students: 28 women and 7 men.