It is back to work Monday night the 17th. Last week we were off so the goal for tonight was to review the characters that we have already learned and pick up some more of the script and the music. Everyone (we missed you Claire, we will see you next week) arrived in groups as we quickly had a quorum. Elizabeth started cranking out the tunes and the dance party was on. With everyone’s energy up Emily led us in a some warm-ups for which everyone went bananas. Our check in question followed, “What did you do during your fall break?” Sam R. had family visiting and helped with the kids. Emily spent time with her dad and mom.
Now that we were all in a circle it was time to play some ensemble games. We started with an ABLE essential. Elephant starts with one person in the middle. They point to someone in the circle and say elephant three times. By the time they reach the third elephant the person they are pointing to has to form the trunk. The person on either side of them has to form the ears. After a few rounds we added in alligator. It is the same but if they say alligator you must form the jaws and the eyes. Our next game we have not played in a while and that is Party Quirks. One of our actors and I were hosting a party. One by one they guests come in and they have a unique trait that they pulled from a hat that we have to guess. Colleen and I hosted the first party; she set out chips and punch. Emily came and was very thankful. When Lucy hosted the party she put out ribs, which were delicious. Andrew came into the party and he was very mad and was soon followed by a crazy Sam R. As Andrew hosted the party we put out some left over ribs and hot cocoa. This time around the guests came as characters from A Christmas Carol. Lucy told us that she had just broken off her engagement with her boyfriend and we knew that it was Belle. Anna told us about her big family and how she works really hard, must be Bob Cratchit. This game led us to our Character Work for the night.
Thinking hard about who Andrew might be...
Kaylie explained that tonight we would be reviewing characters through tableaus. We broke into groups of two actors and one facilitator. We each had three lines. The goal was to read the lines and strike a pose that represented that scene. In addition in preparation for staging the scenes Kaylie reviewed levels and what that means for a stage picture so every scene had someone standing and someone sitting or kneeling. Ben got a little off script but showed us just how excited the character was.
With character tableaus in mind we got to explore a little more of the play. We started with scene four. At the beginning of this scene Scrooge (Sam R.) is waking up in his bedroom. He is then visited by the Spirit of Christmas Present (Lucy) who takes him to visit the Cratchit house. Every actor was on stage for this scene as it contains Mr. and Mrs. Cratchit (Andrew and Emily) and their children Tiny Tim, Martha, Peter, Alice, (Anna, Sam F., Colleen, and Ben). Scrooge learns that even with little they have, they have everything they need.
We had enough time to go through the rest of Carol of the Bells. We reviewed what we had learned the previous week and started to learn the verses. Everyone did so well we were able to spend some time with each verse and try it all together. As things were winding down we gathered in our circle for our check out question. “What are you going to dress as for Halloween?” Colleen is going to reprise her role from The Spy Who Knew Me while Andrew is going to be Captain America. With that we did I Take From the Heavens all together and headed out. Fall break was nice but it was definitely time to get back to work.
Kaylie leading us through the verses of Carol of the Bells!
