Saturday, October 17th began with a workshop in Trust. The kids started out going through a list of people and elements of their productions in which they needed to place their trust. 

Next came the almost inevitable trust exercises…

It got more exciting when the kids were being gently tossed around in a circle of arms…

And then at the end of the morning, they were racing to successfully lead each other through people mazes giving instructions to one another while blindfolded.

In the room next door, the Bonnets for Bennets project was underway, as we butchered straw hats to make something new and different for the actresses playing the women of Pride and Prejudice.

This project continued through the lunch hour.

I believe we ended up with six or seven finished bonnets. Here are four of them.

After lunch, things were a bit crowded.  Jeff took the Seniors not involved in scene work, as he could get them, for the first hour and a half to begin working on harmonies for some of the Aladdin music.  All the while, he is garnering valuable information and insight into the talents, work ethics and hopes of the students he is quickly getting to know.

The Juniors arrived at 1 p.m., of course, and the goal of the day was to block the first act of their play. Knowing that blocking can be tedious and that there are always boring periods where someone has nothing to do, we made sure to have a craft lined up and in place.  In this case, it was making the Cast Board – the kids decorated stocking and they were set up on a display board where we will label the roles and insert their photos, which were being taken at spare moments through the afternoon and we’ll continue on with that in the next week or two – we got a few too many goofy faces to settle with them and be done. Kudos to the parent volunteers who manned the craft table from which I fled in such a cowardly manner….crafts are not my forte and never will be, but they did a fantastic job!  Thank you, Andrea, Leanne and Laura!

The kids enjoyed the crafts, and had a hard time settling into the blocking (it really is rough going with a play in the first few weeks), but the directors managed to get through it and block Act 1.

Next week, they’ll tackle Act 2 and try to find something a bit quieter with which to occupy the kids who aren’t needed at any given moment to run through their scenes.

At 2:30, Drake took over the Seniors for dance.  They began with warmups, as always.

After the warmups, Drake ran through the repertoire of dance moves that he’s teaching them for the audition. He demonstrates, and then the kids move through in pairs to practice what they’re being taught for different crossing the floor moves.

They love it when he gives them clear directions to travel most of the way through the room, and lets them finish with a few steps of improv.  Just the right balance for them to have fun with!

Before we knew it, 4 p.m. was here.  We’d rehearsed lines, we’d sung, we’d worked on costumes and crafts, done some good blocking, learned about trust, and spent another Saturday bonding with the RTC family.

Another productive weekend for Riverfront!