Week #5 Feb. 4, 2012

How lucky were we to get the opportunity to rehearse at Wilson before tech week this year? Awesome. Every time we’re there for a show it’s great, but there’s always some confusion: Which loge? Wait, I enter from the aisle? I don’t come on from the loge? Oh – this is the pit! It’s amazing how even our veteran actors have trouble with spacing and blocking when we do a show at Wilson. At Kennedy, there are always similar issues, but there aren’t really loges and the theater is a little more straight-forward. At Wilson – confusion. So hopefully, now that we’ve gone through the first half of Act I in our actual space, there will be less of that come tech week.

Now I went to Wilson from 6^th to 8^th grade and we did not have an auditorium. We had a cafetorium. Yep, that’s right – I’m that old! We had a cafeteria that was separated by a curtain from a space that had a stage and a whole bunch of fold-up chairs. And every time we had a school dance those chairs were folded up and put away. So how great is it that there is an actual auditorium at Wilson now? And that we get to use it? How perfect!

Of course, every auditorium has its fair share of problems, and as we will all see come tech week, Wilson has the somewhat unique problem of not having a stage left. That’s right. If you enter or exit from stage left all you have is a closet that goes nowhere. Our fearless crew builds a tunnel for our kids to use to cross from stage right to left without the audience seeing. This has worked pretty well for all our shows at Wilson, but wouldn’t it be nice if it weren’t an issue? Then, maybe Wilson would be perfect.

The very first show NDW ever did at Wilson was Wonderland. It was my first spring as a professional staff member and my first time stepping foot into the new Wilson. It was an awful experience – as in full of awe. What a beautiful space! Now, our 8^th graders were not too happy with this change of venue. They wanted their 8^th grade show to be at Kennedy, as it always had been (for them, for me it was always at Natick High). They complained and I listened, telling them that Wilson was better, but if it really mattered to them, they should start a petition. Well they did start a petition, and some parents signed it and it got to the staff at the Rec Center and that did not go over so well. This year, I was afraid that our current 8^th graders would do something similar because we didn’t get to be at Kennedy at all. They don’t seem to care. Perhaps it’s because they realize that Wilson is the better space?

Another thing about our first time at Wilson? The projection screen came down – in the middle of our show. In the middle of a musical number. Oy vey! That was not fun. The kids kept going and ever since then there is a little tupperware container that goes over the button as a warning. No repeats! This is definitely one of the funnier stories though, and if you haven’t heard it yet, I suggest you ask Cindy or me. We may have different versions of the story, too.

Wilson also gives me the opportunity to design lights, which is easy enough on the light board we’re provided with, but seems to get harder each year as I want to try something new. But I love a challenge and I love that light board. And the disco ball.

So, after getting to use our actual space this weekend, we have to go back to Cole and hope that the things we did at this rehearsal don’t get lost. I have to say though, Cole is our home and as great as it is rehearsing at Wilson, I’m glad that we get to go back to Cole. I wouldn’t want it any other way.

See you all on Saturday and don’t forget that we’re off-book for Act I this week (so make sure all your lines, lyrics, blocking and dancing is committed to memory).

-Debbi

We are on our way! Music is being learned, dancing is being taught and the actors are really starting to get into character.

At the beginning of rehearsal I handed out some research on Robin Hood that I had done 6 years ago – the last time we did this play. (Did I mention that I love history?) I don’t know if any of the kids are planning on reading all of these notes, but if they do, hopefully this will help to inform some of their characters a little more.

Then, the cast sang with Sam. She started teaching them harmonies for one song and it sounded AMAZING. How awesome! Hopefully, everyone will remember their parts and everyone in Natick will get to hear how amazing our cast sounds!

After that we split up. Some kids went to costumes, some to learn more music and some to learn dance moves. Funny story: Lisa was going over basic dance moves with all of our actors as an introduction to dancing before she begins teaching choreography next week. At one point, Kay and I walked into the gym to see how it was going. Kay then began to follow along. She was doing some jazz squares and was so intent on doing them just right, that when Lisa called out, “Pivot on your left,” Kay did a jazz square starting on her left. Maybe you had to be there, but both Lisa and I teased her about it later.

Anyways, before that happened, Kay and I were in one of the back rooms doing character work with some of the kids. This was our second round of character work that day and we were busy working with the Sheriff’s Wife, her daughters, Lady Merle and Lady M’s ladies. These girls did an excellent job and were much easier to handle then the big group we had earlier! Each of Lady M’s ladies has a different back story and personality that the girls all worked together to figure out with Isabel, who plays Lady Merle. As for the other girls, their characters are already easy to decipher, so we worked on bringing those characters to life. Maggie needs to find an annoying laugh she’s willing to do onstage, Marlee needs to be clutzier and Olivia and Elyssa are already doing great things with their dialogue.

The group we worked with earlier included the Merry Men (and Women), the Stranger, the Sheriff, Deputy and Constable, Lady Merle and Maid Marian and her ladies.  With them I did that annoying thing where I ask questions about their characters and don’t just tell them how I think their characters should be. My first victim was Meghan, who plays Maid Marian. One of the challenges with this character is making her multi-dimensional. Looking at the script she’s basically a damsel in distress and we want her to be more than that. So our discussion took a little while, because I wanted to make sure that Meghan and the rest of the cast understood how important it is to make all the characters come alive.

After that we moved on to the “evil” people in our play. I enjoyed asking the Sheriff, Deputy and Constable why they work together, how they feel about each other, Lady Merle and Robin Hood and how they ended up with those jobs. They have a really good handle on their characters and how their characters interact in our Robin Hood world.

Later in the day, I had the kids get up on their feet and read through the first scene while putting their own blocking in. The fight scenes were interesting. First, they had imaginary weapons and second, they didn’t know what they were doing! I had to get up and explain to them how a quarterstaff fight would work without giving them actually moves to do. It was not easy for me. But the kids did great and hopefully they’ll be able to feel good about what they did this week.

Before ending this blog I just want to thank everyone for getting up early on a Saturday morning in the snow. I drove from Waltham and it was not the most fun thing to do (although RT 9 in Natick was the best road I was on all day). So thank you.

I look forward to seeing you all on Saturday!

-Debbi