Today was the first day for our new volunteer, Bethany Hedden. The group embraced her presence, energy and input right off the bat. She is happy to be with us, and we are all very happy to have her! Bethany will be making blog entries as well pretty soon. We spent most of our time today working on Act III Scene iii, in which Ariel terrorizes the shipwrecked characters. Since the participants have been disinclined to write themselves notes as we’ve worked scenes in the past, much of the blocking we worked out before had been forgotten. Luckily, our “director” remembered it in great detail and reminded everyone of what they were supposed to be doing.
The woman who is playing Ariel made great strides today toward increasing her physical energy in the part. She has great vocal power, but she needs to match it with her body. She assured us that she will be working on it more on her own, but the improvements she made today were wonderful to see.
We were all equally pleased by the participant playing Alonso being off book for this scene as well as the other we’ve worked. She’s been in the group since September, and I think she has really taken her commitment to heart. It serves as a great example for everyone else.
We also reviewed Act II Scene i so that Bethany could begin to get a feel for it. That went very smoothly for the most part.