Yesterday (Monday) was the first day of the children's program and official rehearsals for Oliver! It was truly an exhausting day. It began at 8:30 AM as I was supposed to open the rehearsal space. Slowly but surely all the kids began to arrive while Michelle, Katherine, and I tried desperately to get some of the younger kids who arrived early to come out of their shells and play a few games with us. It didn't exactly work, but hopefully that will get better as the days go on. Honestly, these kids are exhausting. We have a few that get easily distracted and thus distract the rest. Not to mention we have an age range of 3 to about 10, maybe 11 or 12. It is extremely difficult to design a theatre program for this large of an age range with kids. Whenever the younger kids seemed to be catching on and enjoying themselves, the older ones were bored out of their minds. And when the older ones we really into it, the younger ones had absolutely no idea what was going on. And of course to make matters worse, we are teaching bilingually, and we have some kids who don't speak and English as well as some who don't speak any Spanish whatsoever. So this means we are translating every single sentence we say, including when we are teaching them "Food, Glorious Food" from the show. I hope things go better today, but I have a feeling this program is going to be exhausting and frustrating no matter what we do!
After that minor catastrophe we began our official rehearsals for Oliver! with our senior cast. I felt infinitely better about this part of the day. Some of the cast members still don't seem to quite understand the attendance and tardiness policies we came up with, but I am hoping they get used to it or else they're going to be owing us a whole lotta tech work outside of rehearsal (which I don't think we'd really mind so much if it weren't for the inconvenience during actual rehearsals)! As usual, we started with some stretching, a few focus games (space stuff!), and vocal warm ups to get ready to sing. Lisa taught "Consider Yourself" Part III, which actually sounded pretty nice. They'll have to get used to singing harmonies and singing loudly so that all the parts are equally represented, but I am confident that Lisa will drill it into them! Then I took over with dance. I think it went pretty well, even if many members of the cast do not agree. They just need practice! And for those of you who have worked with me as a choreographer/dance captain, y'all know that I will make them do things over and over and over again until I am satisfied. :)
The last two hours of rehearsal are reserved for individual things (i.e. blocking rehearsals, solo songs, smaller dance numbers, etc.). So I got some work done during that time, and when Dario was finished singing we got in touch with a bunch of press people. It was actually very successful - far more successful than when I tried to do it myself! It seems like a lot of people are interested in FCCMT and our mission and our show this year, so hopefully we'll get some publicity! It's all becoming very real and very exciting.
Last night I rediscovered "Once On This Island" - I so miss my Casa theatre kids! In fact, I am currently listening to the soundtrack. Until Katherine and I broke out into "We Dance" last night, I hadn't thought about this show for a long time, and I had forgotten just how incredible the music is! I would love to choreograph this show - heck, I'd love to be in this show again! Who's up for a revival? :)
As of today, I have been in Costa Rica for two weeks. It's strange, sometimes it feels like much long, while at other times it seems like I just got here. I think it's a result of having done so much in such a short period of time because I've accomplished so much in just a couple weeks, but I also haven't had any time to catch my breath so it feels very short. I am very much enjoying the Tico lifestyle, though. Everyone is very relaxed and not too tied to any schedule or too preoccupied about commitments. Of course this is very problematic for FCCMT's purposes, as we need people to show up to rehearsal and to do so on time, but in a general cultural sense, I quite like the relaxed nature of everyone here. Not to mention everyone is very friendly! I feel like I say this constantly, but people here are really nice! And even if they don't like you, they'll pretend just to make life easier. The kind of national motto is "Pura Vida," which literally means "Pure Life." It means to just let life be good and pure and enjoy what you're doing. Not a bad national motto, if you ask me.
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