Dogs: The Revenge!!
Or,
What Happens At 3 am?
Adventures in High School Theatre, Part the Second
Some members of my group were a little slow to wake up, so I ran around with a barking dog toy and made it go off next to each of their ears. :) That worked.
So.... we all ate breakfast "as a family" and got into our groups at 8:00 AM for another rehearsal. I did some warm-ups and stretches with my group to help them all wake up, then sat them down an informed them of the big change in our show.
I told them we were going to stage the show as a rehearsal of the Broadway Bomb, "Dogs" by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This meant cutting two of the songs and re-doing ALL of our dialogue. At first, it was all I could do to lift their jaws off the floor.
The looks in their eyes screamed, "But we only have a few hours!!!"
"Guys, I know you can do this. If I didn't know you could do it, I wouldn't have suggested it."
That seemed to help.
By our lunch break at 12:30, we had a pretty solid foundation for our show and had done a walk-through of the backstage and set. The whole group rehearsed the opening and closing numbers after lunch and I didn't see my kids again until 3:00, at which point we had our last rehearsals before the final run-through and MAKEUP.
As is my style, I kept stopping them in our rehearsals to add a line of dialogue, or tweak something exactly right, or tell them, "No... it'll be funnier if you do it this way,"...
every time they would look at me questioningly I would get them all to yell with me,
"Why are we doing it this way? Because it's COMEDY!!"
At about 4PM we totally hit our wall. It was giggle-time....EVERYTHING was funny and we truly realized we had been Awake Forever. I gave them a break, they came back after 10 mins and we went through the show one last time.
"Well, that's all I got. You have to get dinner now... "
They looked tired, but also seemed to want to go through the show again.
"We don't have time for another run-through," I reminded them, "Right after dinner you've got a LOT of makeup to get into, and then we have a show at 7!
" Whatever happens out there tonight, just remember to Have Fun.
You have been awake all night creating this play -- YOU did this, allright? The audience will appreciate that whether or not you screw up of drop a line. There's a reason we call it a play. So go play! I'm so proud of you... "
My pep talk was cut short when I was dog-piled (pun intended) by the whole group...I got lots of hugs and 'Thank You's before they ran off to get into costume.
* Le Sigh* Und zen I sent my cheeeldren out into zee vorld...
*****
Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of What Happens at 3 am? !
What Happens At 3 am?
Adventures in High School Theatre, Part the Second
Some members of my group were a little slow to wake up, so I ran around with a barking dog toy and made it go off next to each of their ears. :) That worked.
So.... we all ate breakfast "as a family" and got into our groups at 8:00 AM for another rehearsal. I did some warm-ups and stretches with my group to help them all wake up, then sat them down an informed them of the big change in our show.
I told them we were going to stage the show as a rehearsal of the Broadway Bomb, "Dogs" by Andrew Lloyd Webber. This meant cutting two of the songs and re-doing ALL of our dialogue. At first, it was all I could do to lift their jaws off the floor.
The looks in their eyes screamed, "But we only have a few hours!!!"
"Guys, I know you can do this. If I didn't know you could do it, I wouldn't have suggested it."
That seemed to help.
By our lunch break at 12:30, we had a pretty solid foundation for our show and had done a walk-through of the backstage and set. The whole group rehearsed the opening and closing numbers after lunch and I didn't see my kids again until 3:00, at which point we had our last rehearsals before the final run-through and MAKEUP.
As is my style, I kept stopping them in our rehearsals to add a line of dialogue, or tweak something exactly right, or tell them, "No... it'll be funnier if you do it this way,"...
every time they would look at me questioningly I would get them all to yell with me,
"Why are we doing it this way? Because it's COMEDY!!"
At about 4PM we totally hit our wall. It was giggle-time....EVERYTHING was funny and we truly realized we had been Awake Forever. I gave them a break, they came back after 10 mins and we went through the show one last time.
"Well, that's all I got. You have to get dinner now... "
They looked tired, but also seemed to want to go through the show again.
"We don't have time for another run-through," I reminded them, "Right after dinner you've got a LOT of makeup to get into, and then we have a show at 7!
" Whatever happens out there tonight, just remember to Have Fun.
You have been awake all night creating this play -- YOU did this, allright? The audience will appreciate that whether or not you screw up of drop a line. There's a reason we call it a play. So go play! I'm so proud of you... "
My pep talk was cut short when I was dog-piled (pun intended) by the whole group...I got lots of hugs and 'Thank You's before they ran off to get into costume.
* Le Sigh* Und zen I sent my cheeeldren out into zee vorld...
*****
Stay tuned for the thrilling conclusion of What Happens at 3 am? !