First, I had my first School Board meeting, in which I was sworn in, signed on to two committees, and made a bunch of motions and/or seconds to motions.
Got my first call from a community member complaining about something in the schools.
There are some things going on with my summer job which I can't discuss at the moment, but it has me reading and responding to emails a lot lately. In about ten days I fly to Connecticut for meetings.
I direct the local high school's one act play for the Minnesota State high School League's One Act Play Contest. We've been rehearsing since October, and were planning to do the challenging show, No Exit, by Jean-Paul Sartre. My cast was phenomenal and I really think that they were college-quality. Then, on January 5, I had to let my lead actress know that she could not perform in the show, due to her violating the law. It was a crushing blow for the rest of my cast who decided that they really couldn't perform that show with the understudy. The relationships are key to the show, and to put someone new in, someone that they didn't trust, quite frankly, would be likely reheasing a completely new show, and it's such a difficult show, that we wouldn't have the ability to do it "right."
So I gave the cast three choices: 1)Do No Exit with the understudy going on; 2) do no show at all; 3) do a completely new show in two weeks.
Well, they didn't want to give up, and wanted to do a new show. I went home, did not sleep that night, as I read through every book of plays that I own (and it's a few), trying to find plays that I thought we could do. I brought five plays to my cast, I gave them what I considered to be the positives and negatives to each of them, and then they shared them and read them over the course of a weekend. On Monday, January 8, we met after school and decided on a play... Cannibals, by Heather Dundas. We read it aloud about four times, with different people reading different roles, and at the end of the "rehearsal" period, I announced what the cast would be. We had our first rehearsal January 9. There was no rehearsal on the weekend of the 13th-14th, for various reasons, and the 15th turned out to be a snow day and though some kids showed up at school at 3:30, most did not , so we could not rehearse.
And so, after only eight rehearsals (and much stress on my part, trying to piece together something that resembled a set, some costumes, props, sound effects, and lead in and exit music), we had our sub-region competition on Saturday, January 20.
Although I firmly believe in the talent of my cast, and I had seen each moment of the play done exceedingly well, I had not seen it all together well. And I actually feel that our performance on Saturday the 20th was not our finest.
And yet...
...we took home the sub-section champion trophy (by winning it).
4 comments:
Can you even rehearse on a day when there's a snow day and no school? I'd check into that, Mr. School Board Member, but I think it's against MSHSL rules.
I'd be glad to be pointed in the right direction, Mr. Teacher, because I'm not finding anything on the MSHSL web site when searching through a variety of search terms.
Is it only when there's a snow day? What about holidays? Weekends? School breaks?
Oh...and I didn't say I was having rehearsal, I said some kids showed up and most didn't so we couldn't rehearse. I actually wasn't planning it, but it occurred to me that some of the more dedicated kids might show up, and if by chance, they all did, we might rehearse. Whether allowed or not, we didn't, so it doesn't rightly matter I suppose.
(But for future reference, it would be good to know. What if we all showed up at the local eatery, could we run lines, or would that be a rehearsal?)
My understanding is that you can't practice if there's no school due to weather. I have practiced over breaks. Weekends? I know we can't practice on Sundays. We did hold Sunday practices for the all-school play (which isn't associated with the MSHSL), but we can't for OAP. This might be a school district policy, but I think it's more than that. Your local AD should be able to give you info on this, if you still need or want it.
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