April 23, 2013

We continued our chronological review of the play today with Act I Scene ii. We focused on Prospero’s story. When we first started exploring this scene, one participant had the idea that if spirits of the island were to act out the story in pantomime while Prospero told it, it would help the audience understand what he was saying. After choosing from the masks to determine which one fit each character best, we began exploring how to do this. We explored different types of movement for each character based on how the mask worked with each participant’s physicality. After some initial hesitation, they realized how moving while wearing a mask is different from moving normally, and they embraced it.

We all worked as a team to figure out how to translate Prospero’s lines physically, and, while it was time consuming, we ended up with a very powerful pantomime. Every group member present made some sort of contribution, many of which were better than what I was coming up with in my head.

We will review the pantomime and add one or two more details to it next time, and then we will plow forward with the rest of the play. Today was a very positive day.

April 19, 2013

Today was the first day I was able to bring in the beautiful masks that Water Works Theatre Company is loaning to our group for their performance. We spent some time at the beginning of the session looking through the masks and trying them on. The women love them and expressed a deep appreciation that they are being loaned to us. Having the masks there proved to be a big morale boost after the challenges we discussed during the last session. Those who had expressed doubts last time made sure we all knew that they are feeling better after our conversation.

We spent the rest of the time working on Act I Scene i. We have some new participants since the last time we worked it, and we were also a little rusty on the decisions we had made at that time, so it proved to be somewhat time consuming, but very constructive. The group continues to come up with fantastic staging ideas that come out of their deep understanding and ownership of the material. They decided that the model ship should be on stage with the curtain closed behind it as the audience enters. At the top of the show, Prospero and Ariel will enter from either side, Ariel will hand the ship to Prospero, and Prospero will “create” the storm. The participants on the other side of the curtain will provide sound effects. Eventually Prospero will laugh, giving one participant her cue to pull the curtain open, revealing the boatswain struggling to maintain control of the steering wheel, which we are miming.

Everyone had great energy beginning to commit to the physicality of being on a boat in a storm, and their ideas for how and when to move, and how to exit, were also fantastic. This is going to be a wonderful, high energy beginning to the performance, and they all are feeling confident in what they have accomplished.

April 16, 2013

Today was a challenging day for the group. The participant who is playing Prospero came in with doubts that she will be able to memorize her lines due to stressful circumstances in her life. I asked her if we could have an open discussion as a group, and she said yes. After she explained what was going on to the group, they were nothing but supportive and reassured her that, no matter what, she will not be a failure to them. They encouraged her to just do what she can and not stress about it. They know she is working hard. One participant had a great idea to put Prospero’s script in a “book of spells” that the actor can carry around with her, which will make it less obvious that she is reading lines.

When a couple of the others stated that they are also concerned about memorization, I mentioned that, if they can get mostly off book and only have a few trouble spots, they can put those lines that need to be read on index cards so that they don’t need to carry around large pieces of paper. They were relieved by this suggestion, since they think carrying around a script will look bad.

I reminded them that no matter where they end up in terms of memorization, they have taken on a challenge and they are going to succeed to the best of their ability – and that it is incredibly impressive that they are doing this, memorized or not. I reminded them of when a participant in the last session had to start her scene over twice in performance, but after she got through it on the third try, she got the most applause out of everyone. Everyone who will be in our audience will see how difficult it is to do what these women are doing, and they will appreciate their efforts no matter what.

I also gave them the option of delaying, altering or canceling the performance, but they were unanimously and adamantly opposed to that.

We spent some more time encouraging those who are having a difficult time, whether it’s in the group or outside, and then decided to spend the rest of the time working on lines individually or in pairs. Interspersed with actual “work” were more words of encouragement and “pep talks.”

While it is difficult to get through a day like this, it is important in that it brings the group closer together. There’s no bravado here, and everyone wants to help everyone else. I didn’t hear one word of criticism or blame for the challenges people are facing. This is a solid team at this point, working toward a common goal. For some of them, this is a wholly new experience, and, even with the challenges, it is a positive one.

April 12, 2013

Kyle Norris from Michigan Public Radio visited us today. The women really enjoyed having her there, as did I. After Ms. Norris recorded us warming up and playing a game, we had a discussion about the group and its effects. I won’t go into detail here about what the women said, since I’m not sure what will end up in the story and I don’t want to spoil anything, but their emphasis was on the sisterhood they feel within the group, the confidence they’ve gained as a result of their participation, and their hope that people can look at programs like this and see past the stereotypes that are out there about incarcerated people. They expressed themselves beautifully and said some very powerful things. I will post the link to the story once it is available.

We then worked on the second half of Act IV Scene i. All of the actors were very gung ho about the silliness in the scene, and it’s working very well.

Everyone left feeling very good today. They are thrilled that their story will be out there soon.

April 9, 2013

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.