Today we worked the first part of Act IV Scene i. The participants who have the fewest lines volunteered to play the goddesses in this scene. The group decided that the best way to stage this was for the goddesses to enter through the audience and then come to the stage, circling around Ferdinand and Miranda. We worked a lot on making sure everyone had a good understanding of the text and that the staging made sense to everyone. One of the participants pointed out that it was difficult for her to hear her cue to come in from the back of the house because people are not projecting their voices. We discussed the need to focus on that, and I gave them some tips, but we will definitely do exercises as we get closer to the performance to help.
I was especially excited today by the efforts of one participant in particular. She has been playing the Master, who has very few lines, because she is uncomfortable reading aloud in front of a group. She also has not always appeared to be paying full attention during our meetings, and she is reticent to participate in discussions. However, we recently came to an understanding that she needs to be a more active participant in order to remain in the group. Today she was completely different. She spoke up during our discussions, volunteered ideas, and then had no problem taking on the role of Iris and reading her lines. And she did very well. I pulled her aside when everyone was leaving to let her know how much we all appreciate the effort. I told her that I know she was going out on a limb reading that text, and she did a great job. She was very happy to hear that.