Get the $#@% Here!!!

The one act performances for region drama were on Tuesday. Here’s a (not so) quick rundown of what led up to this point.

When I first got to the school for student teaching, I was given the option of directing the one act play. At first, I didn’t want to, but when I found out that I could use class time to rehearse, I decided it wasn’t a bad idea to rack up some more high school directing experience. You may recall that in 2006, I directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream for Meridian and it made it to state. That’s the only time I’ve actually directed something in a high school, though.

I was given the choice between a script that CT had chosen, or finding my own. While looking through my scripts, I found my copy of The Monkey’s Paw, and remembered how fun my concept had been when I did a 3 minute scene for my directing class a year ago. The concept was to do the show as a live classic Universal Horror movie, complete with over-acting and spooky sound effects. Combining that with the idea of black and white makeup, which I used in my SAST show last year, I thought it was something that could get the kids excited, and it would be something interesting and conceptual- two words that you don’t hear associated with high school theatre enough.

I pitched the idea to the kids, and they got pretty excited. In addition to the over-acting and the black and white makeup, this time I added in live sound effects via a foley crew. The foley crew were to be costumed in color, to show that they were not a part of what we’d see on the movie screen.

We had auditions and started rehearsing. I was really frustrated with the rehearsal process, because it seemed like we never had enough time to get through anything. Add to that the fact that the kids weren’t doing too hot with their memorization, and the fact that we had crew members who weren’t doing ANYTHING to help. Also, we kept getting booted from the auditorium by the dance company and the choir (even though were had more right to be there than they did).

Last week, everything started coming together quite nicely. My biggest concern was that the kids were so scared to look stupid that they weren’t quite grasping the over-the-top acting. I warned them repeatedly that if they didn’t stop doing the acting half-arsed, the concept wouldn’t work, and the judges at region would just think they’re bad actors. I found out who the judges were, and I told them that I knew one of them would complain about how quiet they were, and another might not be a huge fan of the concept. They started to step it up more. However, it still wasn’t enough to get a ticket to state drama. I called Teri after our last rehearsal to invite her to see the show, and I flat-out told her “It’s better than I thought it would be, but it’s not very good.”

We arrived at region Tuesday morning, bright and early. We were scheduled to go last. Some of the other shows we sat through were AWFUL. I was really embarrassed for some of the schools. After the lunch hour, we immediately started getting costumed and made-up. The black and white makeup takes FOREVER to apply. Putting white base all over everyone’s faces, necks, and arms (and for some girls, chests), takes twice as long as performing the whole play.

We finished getting getting ready with only minutes to spare before our performance time. I helped the kids get the stage setup and then my stage manager, Chris, and I went out the backstage doors and down the hall to get to the back of the auditorium where the booth was, so that we could start the show. To our surprise, all of the doors were locked. By the time we got to the lobby and backtracked into the auditorium, they had started the show without us. Guh! I missed the first minute or so, but when we got to the booth, I crashed. I had gotten so stressed during the prep time that my brain pretty much shut down.

The kids did surprisingly well. SURPRISINGLY. All day, as we watched the other performances, I pointed out flaws and said “Make sure YOU don’t do that.” Sure enough, the judge I had warned them about gave feedback to other shows about their volume. They learned from watching the others (hooray for going last) and most of the notes I had given them over the last few weeks were fixed, or at least markedly better.

After the performance, the judges gave us feedback. It was VERY positive. We were given a few suggestions to fix it (one judge apparently didn’t get the concept), but it was clear all three judges liked the show. During the feedback, one judge said “It felt like I was watching an old black and white suspense thriller” and all the kids started clapping and cheering, so I joined in. One of the other judges went on and on about how good the blocking was. That was probably my favorite comment, because I’m always paranoid about my blocking, after somebody publicly bashed on my blocking in Bye, Bye Birdie.

The kids were floored by the feedback. Some of them didn’t believe that the judges really liked the show. They said that when the judges had critiqued other schools, they were more harsh and not as nice. I had to try to convince them that they were genuine. Some of the kids were paranoid that they were disrespectful by cheering during the feedback. I assured them that it was okay.

Late that night, I got a text from someone telling me that one of the judges had been telling everyone how good the show was. He had brought up the show at least 3 separate times to praise it. I thought that was really nice of her to text me and share that.

The next morning, I was sleeping in because I had stayed up way too late. I was awakened around 8:30 by my text message ringtone (a quote from Airplane where the pilot is questioning the little boy about gladiator movies and stuff- hehe!) going off three times in a row. Then I heard the phone actually ringing. I rolled over and checked it a few minutes later. The text messages were the same message from my friend, Laura, which had been sent three times for some reason. It was congratulating me on getting straight superiors at region. Her cooperating teacher had just gotten the e-mail with the results. Then I checked the voicemail, and it was CT telling me that we were headed to state. CT and I played phone tag for a while, and when he called me back one time, he called during class and held the phone up so the kids could cheer.

I found out that one of the other judges saw Trash Ball and told her how good the show was, too. When I went to UVU, my department chair got really excited to hear the news, and he started bragging to people that he saw in the halls. I was quick to point out that this was not the first show that I’ve taken to state. :)

So, that’s the story of region drama. We’ll go to state in a few weeks, so I’m sure you can expect more boring blogs about it over the next month.

Oh, and the title of this blog comes from the fact that half the cast couldn’t say the word “fakir,” so we had to practice by comparing it to that phrase. It’s probably not accurate pronunciation, but it’s better than what they were stumbling with before.