Reflection 3
“What is wrong with me wanting to be the star? I certainly know I’ve earned it.”-Jackie
I’m starting to notice a pattern here. I’m not sure the reason, but I have some ideas. We were district champions for the second year in a row! I love that for us. These kids deserve it. They work hard and they come from nothing. We had a mostly freshmen group this year with some real natural talent, but we focused that ability and they learned a lot.
Then we get to bi-district and we’re at the bottom of the list. We lose to the same schools we beat at district. Why is that? I had a chat with a judge from district who gave us some really great notes and we implemented those changes, just to have the oral critique at contest point out every change we made and suggest what the show looked like at district. So, I am probably second guessing my own good decisions.
My students have an exceedingly hard time getting to school and getting home when there is no bus, so it is really hard to have rehearsal over spring break and that is usually the week between district and bi-district. We had one full cast rehearsal and one rehearsal with three of the characters that needed to do some relationship work. We rehearsed on Monday afternoon and Tuesday morning before Tech Rehearsal and then contest on Wednesday. I’d love to think that they did some work on their own during the break, but when many of them came back on autopilot, I’m going to guess that that wasn’t the case.
I know that I had a couple parents upset that we were going to be home late on a school day. This stress from parents might have also been an issue.
But I do continue to wonder what I can do to better prepare my students for contest after district. We’re clearly making good choices and creating a strong show, but we are crashing out at the next level when shows we’ve beat already are going on.
Things that I am proud of in this show are that we got the best overall tech award at bi-district. I know this is often a congeniality award and I’m good with that. My crew had three students on it. We recorded cues for the first time EVER at our tech rehearsal. If my students were the kindest or most appreciative of the day, then I’m EXTREMELY proud of them for that.
Another thing that I am proud of how much of the stage was hand built. Every piece of corn, all bases and capitals, as well as the bookshelf and “computer” onstage were handbuilt. Every year I have to choose, am I going to focus on intricate props, set or costumes because I’m just one person. I will admit that it is usually costumes, because that is what I feel I do the best and I enjoy the most, but this year it was set.
Another thing we did well was that there were no weak links in our show. Every actor pulled an even amount of weight, whether they had six lines or 100, they were strong in every moment they were onstage. This was particularly difficult because the cast was so young. For many of them, this was their first show and, for even my older students, this was their first UIL One Act Play. It’s a much different set of circumstances in contest season and they handled themselves wonderfully. My lead actor has a noticeable speech impediment in their everyday life that was completely gone each and every time they were onstage. That has more to do with how comfortable they were with their lines and interactions with other characters than anything else and we worked very hard on that. Another one of my actors has violent ticks that affect him when he is under stress. Again, we worked very very hard to make sure that he was comfortable with all lines and interactions onstage to avoid these onstage. He was able to make it through all public performances without any occurring onstage, only in the dressing room.
Things that I think we could have worked on with more time include freshening up the delivery of lines, really nailing down a more solid first minute of the show that mirrored the end of the show more and really utilizing all of the stage in a meaningful way. I would have liked to have rehearsed the quick changes more so that they ran a little more smoothly. I would have liked to have given some more time in some moments during the show, but, overall, I think it was a quality production and I am proud of the work that my students did.