Rehearsals and Workshop

Workshop

The workshop was a really great experience. My main goals with the workshop were to get them on the website and utilizing it, help them to understand the fairytales from which their characters come and bring as much of that into their acting as possible. I also want to prepare for the lobby display and playbill by using this time to have them write their bios and a little character recap and send it to me. 

We spent a lot of time exploring the website and looking at how the show has evolved over the years watching fascinating and fun videos of previous productions, as well as interviews with the writers. They found it fascinating which was a ton of fun. 

Then I had them use a QR code I had prepared so that they could access the website on their own devices and I had them each read the fairytale that their character is based on, gathering as much information about their character as possible. After that we played several improv games where I challanged them to bring in as much of the fairytale as possible and try to ignore the writing in the script for the present. 

They took that and ran with it. We got some really fun details that came out in the improv, like the Harp that always tells the truth. 

After that, I gave them a little bit of time to work on writing their bios and character recaps. Not everyone was there, but those who were sent them to me right away which was EXTREMELY helpful in the future when I was curating the Lobby Display and Bios. Overall, I felt like the workshop was a sucess, and particularly when the performance came around and they were all interacting with the audience beforehand I saw a lot of that improv and character work shining through which was really fun and rewarding. 

Rehearsal Journal

Below is the rehearsal journal that I kept. I started it part way through rehearsals, and was often up and helping with music which meant it wasn't as detailed or focused as I would have liked, but I thought I'd share what I do have.