Filed under: Teaching, Theater Making, Uncategorized | Tags: Outdoor Theater, Teaching during the pandemic, Wizard of Oz
Rehearsals continue for the biggest show I’ve ever directed in the shortest amount of time I’ve ever attempted. 104 young actors, k-12 in a great big outdoor play that moves from place to place. These are some snapshots. My first pass at trying to get at what compels me so about making theater with the young.
April 7th
Today was music day
At the piano like old times
In Tucker Hall
Our post war cafetorium
dark all this last year.
People have trouble remembering
How to turn on the lights.
A sudden wind blows
In the smell of rain
Coming soon.
The trees dance.
It felt so good to us to be back again
Where we’ve all rehearsed so many things
Rehearse
Go over
again and again
Conjure the story
Up out of the page.
Dorothy sings like an angel,
Everyone in school knows this.
No one could imagine a different Dorothy.
Tin Man’s voice has dropped so low
It needs a rescue party
To haul it to the note.
The Lion is afraid to sing.
Bold and hilarious in our small class,
Today she is hiding behind her mask.
The Scarecrow is in quarantine.
He visited a college over break
And now must bide his time.
One step at a time we go,
Trusting the path.
Raining now
Lightning and thunder
Spring’s first.
Resurrection rushes in.
I did an inventory of what I had stashed behind the stage from the last couple of productions, mostly pieces of the rigid foam insulation which is the best thing that has ever happened to school theater design. I congratulate myself that I found room to save all those large scrap pieces from when I cut out the giant cattails last year and the London skyline the year before that. These will do nicely for the Emerald City, painted green and made sparkly. The playground transformed. And I’ve got plenty of stone wall flats for the witch’s castle, I won’t have to buy any new sheets of insulation. Which is good because I’ve blown the budget on that revolving house.
April 8th Emerald City. Middle Schoolers. So much to prove. Bravado and bluster, Bruising like peaches. Playing on the playground Explaining how the play Moves from place to place The audience must follow. There are different ways to tell a story. (God I hate directing through the mask. The wind the traffic the lawn mowers- my voice can’t cut through to their ears. I hate that I can’t see their whole faces. I hate that they can’t see mine.) Movement is set Direction is given Music We play the scene Seems simple, it’s not. Seems easy, I’m glad. It’s not. The sky to the West is suddenly dark The Witch seems to be making an entrance. A few droplets and we make the call To evacuate Emerald City. We pack it up, Make sure everyone Has everything, enter the Lower School doors and trek to the gym From kindergarten to high school, An entire childhood traversed in minutes. The sky bursts Thunders down on the roof. We giggle, we made it Just in time.
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The Fox at Dawn 