Anyway, tomorrow we will be performing our last show at Lund Pond, located on the Waldorf College campus; the show starts at 6:00 p.m. I am excited for tomorrow’s performance not because it will be our last one but for the fact that my mother will be attending the show.

I think that this class has definitely educated me in several different ways. For example, I learned a lot about some of the other cast members and have become close friends to some of these individuals. Emily is someone that I didn’t even know, and we are now good friends. It’s unfortunate that as I grow closer to and build stronger friendships with some of the other cast members, that the class is almost over.

I have also learned more about theatre and all of the work that actually goes into a show. Even though I was in a few theatrical productions in high school, I was just an actor. When I came to Waldorf, I’ve had the opportunity to work in a few different crews; I’m currently one of the “Paint Crew Heads”, but other than acting and painting the set= I never realized all of the “business” work that it took to make a show actually happen!

I now have a new level of appreciation for the theatre and all of the work it takes to physically have a show put together; this surprising because I already appreciate the fine arts (including theatre). At any rate, it’s been a great learning experience for me, and I’m so glad that I’ve had this opportunity!

Take care everyone! I hope that you have enjoyed reading all of these blogs about “The Taming of the Shrew”. 

At the start of this evening’s rehearsal, we had a theatre company meeting that lasted approximately an hour long. During this meeting, we discussed what we were going to do about our financial problems that we have been dealing with.

There were numerous possibilities and/or solutions to this little dilemma of ours, and we made the executive decision not to go down south for our Alabama tour. This is what we chose to do simply because we weren’t able to raise enough money to go on this trip.

What this is showing all of us is the level of difficulty that it takes to be in an actual theatre company. Funding normally tends to be an issue, but we now have a better understanding of just how much work it takes to actually run a successful theatre company.

Just to clarify: the tour to Alabama was only going to happen if we raised enough money (and therefore was always “up in the air” if we would be going). The significance of this is the fact that we weren’t exactly hurt/crushed because we never were sure if we were even going to make this trip.

Afterwards, we decided to have a “line through” of the show, and this was somewhat of a struggle because it had been a three-day weekend. Therefore, some people were a little “rusty” with lines, and the fact that we didn’t have props, entrances, and exits being acted out didn’t help the situation, either.

But, at any rate, we have another performance tomorrow at the Lund Pond (on the Waldorf College campus at 6:00), and I’m hoping that we will have another good turnout because the first performance at this location had a fairly large crowd.

Well, I look forward to blogging again with another update J Take care!

-Nell

Anyway, tonight we obviously did a full run of the show, but we also added in the preshow, which consisted of music and a speech. Before we did the run of the show, we actually had a meeting to discuss concessions, and we will be selling water, pop, sunflower seeds, and Waldorf Theatre pins.

We have also come up with a neat idea, which is to sell programs to our audience members, and the person with a signature of one of the cast members will win the prize of getting one of everything from the concessions. Therefore, the winner would get a free drink, sunflower seeds, and a pin to wear. We have also discussed having a free photo of the cast as well.

Since the weather was extremely hot today, and the fact that yesterday’s heavy rain soaked our costumes, we were somewhat relieved that we didn’t have to wear them for one day since we will have performances four days in a row (and several of us are wearing wool, myself included). Anyway, some of the costumes were still in the dryer, and others were still hanging up in the theatre, so wearing them might not have been the best idea.

I’m nervous for tomorrow, and I’m hoping that everyone will remember all of their costume pieces, entrances, lines, props, etc. But: ready or not, here we come!

I look forward to our first performance and am excited to see who we will have in our audience, since Shakespeare allows for such a large amount of audience participation!

I’ll be back again soon to give you all an update! J

Some actors are still struggling with lines and are finding themselves fighting with the strict rules of no prompt the cast has set. Long pauses are still among us and make us more and more frustrated throughout the rehearsal but we move forward. This isn’t helped by having another person read the lines of Petruchio.

At yesterday’s rehearsal we did workshops of scenes separately. This gave the actors room to play with their lines and actions. Each person made what they were doing as funny as they could and I think that the character work we did lead into today’s rehearsal. I noticed that each person had something new to do in each scene. Instead of just standing and just listening to who was talking they did so actively. This movement and action made each scene interesting. Hearing the laughter of people watching encouraged us to go farther and funnier.

We ended a bit early tonight after we discussed our run through. We determined that we have passed our crisis stage and now may only need to really focus on some lines and other bits and pieces.

Although tonight’s rehearsal was a bit rough I do believe that when we open in six days the show will be magical. What little break we do get this weekend will rejuvenate everyone and bring freshness to our stage that will lighten our performance.

The sharers are working hard and doing a lot of work to make sure that it will be truly a fun introduction or re-introduction to “Taming of the Shrew”.

and pictures will be added soon on Facebook also.

 Tonight was the first night that was planned for the use of no prompting; it was also very different because we also didn’t stop a scene to direct and/or fix any problems that were occurring. The run of the show was definitely much shorter without all of those stops.

 At the end of rehearsal, however, was when we used the time to give each other notes. We also sat in a circle and went from person to person, discussing that individual’s character(s) choices and how they could improve. It was a beneficial exercise that it really helped me, personally, and it motivated me to “go all out” with my character and to just have fun!

 This rehearsal also included the finalized entrances and exits for this production, and it didn’t take very much time to discover that the curtains of the arch needed to be attached on the sides because otherwise the curtains would fly up; this would be a problem because a few of our characters have to make costume changes behind this curtain, which is directly in front of our audience members.

 The goal for tomorrow will be to incorporate the audience in every scene; also, each individual is supposed to make “big character choices” and/or take more “risks”.

I’m excited to see how all of this will turn out, and I hope that you’ll be able to make it to one of our performances!

The majority of our cast members have their costumes put together and now its time to finalize movement in them.  We still have a few noted changes to make but by the end of the week, we should be putting on full runs and getting the show time down to about one hour and forty-five minutes.  We’ve gotten other aspects of the production mostly completed including attaining and incorporating properties, compiling live music for various intervals of the show (to follow one of Shakespeare’s original practices).

Last night’s rehearsal, focus seemed to be a little off but as we continue today with our first full run, with no prompting, I am hopeful that everyone has done the work that is needed to continue the progression of the show.

My apologies for a shorter entry today but it is time to get back to work!  Until next time.

Sam