Once again, I’ve found that these two weeks have just flown by so, so quickly.  I would have liked to document the process more, but I just haven’t had time!  Between LYTE during the day and Three Musketeers at night (and seeing “Inception” with Amber, my stage manager and Jessie, my production manager… and karaoke night with the 3M cast!) it’s been all I can do to eat and sleep!

(Although there’s an idea for a future post… taking care of yourself while working on multiple shows!)

But… it is nice to know that I’m out there being busy and being useful and really living my life!  How boring would it be if all I did was sit around and blog all day?  Get out there and live!  Experience everything!  Try new things!  =)

So, as I did with Session 1, here’s the lowdown on what I learned from Session 2 (there’s always a lesson to be learned in every experience!):

• I’ve learned to pick my battles.  There is quite a difference when going from the 7 to 9-year-olds to the 10 to 13-year-olds… they are more focused on being cool and trying to fit in, and oftentimes there are kids who try to act out and be silly to try and get attention.  However, I’ve gotten to the point where I can tune out the silly behaviour and focus on getting stuff done.  If I got upset over each behaviour “thing” then I’d get absolutely nothing done and my head would probably explode.
• That being said, when you’re trying to get a bunch of kids’ attention (if they’re all talking at once!), I’ve found that sitting there silently and just looking at them works SO much better than yelling!
• I am still so pleased each day when the kids come to me with their ideas and thoughts and suggestions for the play.  They’re like little dramaturges and have really helped me adjust and fine-tune the script.  During the first week I had them write out mini-biographies about their characters and some of them were so detailed and funny!  It’s great to see them really embrace these characters that I wrote and bring them to life!
• I have been so fortunate to have an extremely talented and dedicated crew of staff and volunteers who have just gone full-out to bring Inspector Noble to life.  The costumes, the set pieces, the lights… it all looks incredible and they’ve done such a fantastic job.  They’ve really put it all together… I just look at it and say “OMG that looks AWESOME!!!”  =P
• One thing that disappointed me a little bit was that the kids were sometimes hesitant to try new things, such as different warm-up exercises and games.  However, I think I was able to push them out of their comfort zones a bit and by the end (in some particularly stubborn cases, today!) they’re all trying pretty much everything!  I want to encourage them to try everything and really experience life!
• I’d like put together a package of information that I use for each session about specific theatre training, such as rules of the program, why we don’t talk backstage, theatre etiquette… and maybe even develop them into lesson plans and worksheets that I can use and/or market to other theatre programs, or even school drama classes!  I just think it’d be fun, but useful as well.  I’ll put that on my to-do list!

I’m sure there’s more, but that’s all I can think of right now.  Tomorrow’s the show!  And I’ve got to get everything prepped for Session 3 starting on Monday!  July has just FLOWN by…