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.

April 2, 2013

We finished our work on Act V today. Everyone is very relieved to have the end of the play figured out, and they are feeling better about things in general. The work today went very smoothly, with lots of great ideas volunteered by a number of people, and the scene is working very well. Some of the participants feel that the entire group should work more on the script outside of our meeting time and prepare for things ahead of time. In light of this, we formed a game plan for the next few meetings to cover what’s left of the play. On Friday, we will work on Act III Scene ii, and then next week we will take the two days to figure out Act IV Scene i. Upon realizing that we are so close to having covered the entire play on its feet, more relief was expressed by a number of people. The group then decided that, after this phase, we should begin working through the play in chronological order, regardless of who is absent. Since this desire comes out of their passion for the project, comfort with and growing ownership of the material, I am completely okay with it.

One of the participants then stated that she’s fallen completely in love with Shakespeare, and that whenever she hears something about him on the news or in passing, she feels her ears perk up. She is probably the most intensely dedicated to the group, and it shows. She challenged the participant playing Stephano to a “remember-off” – they are having a friendly competition to see who can get all of her lines and blocking memorized first. She is taking this very seriously, and it is clearly having a positive effect on everyone else in the group.

March 26, 2013

We had a few additions to the group today, so we began with a welcome. We followed that up, after warm ups, with a game to “audition” them. This is a new idea from the group – to throw new participants right into an activity to make sure that they are willing to go out on a limb and take risks on stage. It seems to be working well so far. Continuing with scenes we haven’t worked, we launched into Act V, which is one long scene that ends the play. The participant playing Prospero is beginning to really fall in to her monologues, but she is still hesitant to go all the way with the emotion. She began to express doubts that she will go as far as she should or wants to, when our veteran interrupted, but not rudely, saying, “Stop. Don’t speak things into existence.” She encouraged the other woman to resist being negative or doubtful about her eventual performance, to focus on the process, and that she will do a great job if she does that. Everyone else seconded that feeling.

We discussed some specifics as we worked the scene. The participant playing Ariel is showing an ever-deepening understanding of her character, and got nearly everything she needed to know about her objectives in the scene from the text. We talked at length about why Prospero says so little to Alonso, as opposed to Antonio and Sebastian. The group talked about Prospero relating to Alonso as a father who may have lost a child, as someone whose daughter has just married his son, and then we got to what is likely the crux of it: that Alonso repents his actions, and that’s really what Prospero wanted in the first place.

One of the new participants gave some really excellent constructive criticism to the woman playing Prospero. She said that she couldn’t tell, just from the way the woman was standing and speaking, whether the character was strong or not. This is a great note because we know that not everyone in the audience will understand all of the language, so physicality is very important. The woman playing Prospero was very glad to get the feedback, and will keep it in mind as she continues to work.

March 22, 2013

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.