Happy Fiction Friday everyone!! Today, I wanted to talk about the show I am currently working on! I am directing School House Rock Live! Jr. at an elementary school near where I live, I am beyond thrilled to get to direct again and I thought I would share some thoughts on it as we are in our second week of rehearsal!
I have about 32 kiddos in my class (they are fifth and sixth graders) and they honestly all blew me away at auditions. They were so incredibly talented all of their song choices were phenomenal and they all sounded beautiful.
Now we are into my favorite part, table reads. Table reads are great because we finally get to dive in and get a sense of who we are as characters and who we are as a cast. We start the very beginning stages of finding our identity. I was so proud of my kiddos as I was talking about intention and wants, that they all were able to come up with a want for their scene.
What I mean by that is as your character knowing why you are in the scene (besides “because the script says it”) and what you want to leave the scene with (do you want an answer to a question? Do you want to convince someone something? etc.) and then we talked about how you obtain what you want.
Though kids drive me through the roof; I’m really impressed (when they’re listening and behaving, which incase you were wondering only happened once so far *eye rolls*) that they were thinking and had answers for me of what they wanted and how they were going to get it.
As much as I don’t really enjoy children, getting to work with them and watching them fall in love with theatre and discover something new inside them is such a rewarding thing to watch. Theatre and any type of art is so extremely important in a child’s development, especially emotional development, and I’m so lucky and honored to get to work in a district that understands theatre’s value and importance.
The fun part is I get to listen to “Conjunction Junction”, “Interjections” and “Interplanet Janet” all day, which I have zero complaints of cause I love it. I was so surprised how many kids already knew most of the songs! I mean I know how popular School House Rock is but I was nervous that its too old, I was pleasantly surprised and the kiddos are LOVING it, which is amazing. Seeing them realize you don’t need to do the silly Peter Pan or Annie Jr to do a show and can do something more unconventional is such a great feeling coming from a Liberal Arts degree and being exposed to more off the beaten path shows!
Until next time,
Cheers! xoxo
Amy
Amy Minola 