We began today by figuring out which scenes we haven’t worked together and deciding to focus our energy on those to ease things as we get closer to the memorization deadline. We decided to work Act II Scene ii today, since we have recently lost our Stephano and Caliban. A participant who joined on Tuesday volunteered to step into the role of Stephano, and, after I encouraged two women who’ve been in the group for quite awhile and find memorization easy to consider taking on larger roles, they each volunteered to stand in for Caliban and Trinculo (who was absent).
We worked on the scene for quite awhile. All three women dove right in, being very goofy and having a lot of fun. The new participant was immediately comfortable on stage, reading Shakespeare, and is very excited to play the part. The participant who, up until now, played Sebastian, enjoyed Caliban and told us that she was willing to take on the role for the good of the team, if the group “elected” her to do so. The rest of the women resoundingly voiced their support for this decision.
The women felt that today was a very good day, and that they were really “feeling it.” It was really encouraging for everyone that these three were so willing to jump into a scene that none of them had read aloud before, and that they did so well with it.