Day #11: Rehearsing the Final Performance

Tuesday 2/23: Today was another rehearsal day for the students since the last day of Arts Bridge is Thursday this week, and so their final performances will be that day as well. I just found out that the students, teachers, and I are going to be recorded and interviewed for a new promotional video about the program. I am super excited! Out of all the videos I have seen for both Arts Bridge and the Beverley Taylor Sorenson Arts Learning Program, theatre is not represented very much, so this will be a chance to show what we do in the classroom, and how we incorporate theatre into the curriculum and vice versa.  

First we started off right with our warm-up, as always. We played the focus exercise called "Pass the Clap", which the students have played with me before. We went around the circle both ways, and then I introduced how people can choose to change the direction of the clap in the middle of the game by clapping back in the same direction, which they thought was cool! I encouraged them to try this on their own, when they play it some other time. 

Then we learned some vocabulary words, which related directly to the information and tips they would need for performing their scenes. 

As for the final job, we talked about how the playwright is the person that writes the play. All of them have been playwrights throughout the semester, coming up with the ideas for their group scenes and writing them down.

I taught them the terms for setting props (putting the props where they need to be for the top of the performance) and getting into places (positioning yourself where you are when you start the performance) since I will be using those terms on Thursday to get them situated for the performance. Since they will have an audience, I want them to understand all the terms I use, and for them to feel prepared and to be as professional as possible as they get set up and perform! :)

Blocking is the term for all of the planned-out movements throughout the scene. It is important the the students have their scenes entirely blocked so that they know where they are supposed to move at any given moment so they don't have to do any side-coaching while they are performing, and that we can make sure everyone can be seen. The students can improvise their blocking for a little bit, but they need to have a clear sense of where they are supposed to be standing/sitting or anything else at any given time so as to not look chaotic or pull focus an confuse your audience.

Cheating out means to turn your body toward the audience, even if you are talking to people right next to you. You still need to turn a little bit so that everyone can see and hear you.

Mrs. Bailey's 4th grade class received this instruction for their fossil scavenger hunt scenes.

I took their scripts home over the weekend and typed them up so that the narrator would be able to read it more easily. Then I also took the liberty of adding in sentences to make the story more clearer with a better flow. I also wanted to make them longer so the scenes would not be so short and abrupt. I also had to add the fossil vocabulary words into the scripts for some of the groups who forgot to enter them into their scripts.

As the kids did a practice performance last week, I realized that having the locations be counties in Utah is really cute and educational, but the setting needs to be a bit more specific and imaginative to make the play more fun to watch. So I left new blanks in their scripts after typing them up, asking them to be more specific with the location. For example, a pizza restaurant in Utah County. 

Some groups had a bunch of different interpretations for each fossil, rock, or stick. So I told them to identify who was interpreting the different objects in the scene, therefore mentioning their names in the script.

Another issue we faced when rehearsing last week was that the students were placing the narrator stage Left and moving the scene from Left to Right. That is fine, but it looks better for the audience to have the narrator on stage Right and have the actors travel to their various locations from stage Right to Left. Since stage directions are from the perspective of the actor, that means the actor's right is actually the audience's left. And moving left to right from the audience's perspective mirrors the way that people naturally read: from left to right. So it looks more pleasant to see actors move the same way as they enter a room and travel across the stage to get to their destination.

Each group gets an orange bucket to hold and collect their props
as they go along their scavenger hunt.

The desks are the set. We had an issue with the students facing upstage (towards the board) when they were going on their hunt and finding their props. Then we couldn't see them or the props. So I put the desks downstage and numbered them so that all the scenes look pretty uniform, and they don't have to worry about making sure the audience sees the props, or knowing where they should set their props.

Desk 1 will be where they find their fossil (pentomino).

Desk 2 will be where they find their rocks (blocks).

Desk 3 will be where they find their sticks (pipe cleaners).

Here is the program for Thursday.

Final Performance  

Mrs. Bailey’s 4th Grade Class

Art form: Theatre

Theatre Instructor: Haley Flanders

Curriculum: Fossils and Utah Counties

Scene: Fossil Scavenger Hunt!

Group 1) “The Million Dollar Baseball”

By Addison Goodwin, Ellis Herring, Alex Dean, and Lincoln Boyce

Group 2) “Licorice, Pretzels, and Magic Potions”

By Jacob Ngatuvai, Lex Clayton, Ava Martinez, and Chloe Bremser

Group 3) “Piano Stores and Mansions for Scientists”

By Lizzie Westwood, Ashley Watts, Kynzee Dixon, and Sophie Cummings 

Group 4) “Penguins, Dolphins, and Whales, Oh My!”

By James Lowther, Sky Gammell, Lexi Preston, Lafu Seumanu, and Ashlee Sumsion

Group 5) “Unicorn Rocks and Arcades Games”

By Logan Hansen, William Jacobi, and Parker McClement 

Group 6) “Tigers and Basketball Players in the Tropics”

By Lucy Herring, Tayler Anderson, Donovan Averitte, and Matthew Larson 

Group 7) “Dinosaurs and Skating around Utah”

By Kaley King, Brooklyn Cardon, Lily Overfelt and Tiedra Vantienderen

This is what the students' scripts looked like after they had filled their papers out the first time.
The little sheets at the top of the picture are the two vocabulary words they had to include in their scene.

Here is a list of all the vocabulary words and definitions included in these scenes. Each of the 7 groups had 2 words to include and to put it into context. 

1) extinction: loss of an entire type of organism

    environment: the surroundings and conditions in which an organism lives

2) impression: a mark of design made on a surface by pressure

    infer: a process of reasoning from something known or assumed

3) mineral: a natural solid material that has a particular crystal structure

    organism: a living thing that carries out basic life functions on its own

4) prehistoric: belonging to a period of time before recorded history

    preserved: kept from hard or change 

5) replacement: the process of an organism’s hard parts being dissolved and replaced by    

    other minerals

    sedimentary: formed from mud, sand, small pieces of rock or other sediments that are 

    pressed and naturally cemented to form a rock.

6) trilobite: an extinct ocean shellfish

    tropical: a very hot and moist climate

7) climate: a pattern of weather over a period of time

    dinosaur: an extinct organism

Here are their scripts after I typed up their information (which is in bold) and their vocabulary words are in red. The groups had various amounts of blanks in their script to make the scene more whole (action, people, location) and they filled in these blanks today (Tuesday). I got so many compliments and thank you's from the students for enhancing their scripts.

Here is the program for Mrs. Ormsby's Fractured Fairytale scenes. Today they worked on their laptops in class to finalize their scripts since they are writing them from scratch, based on the information from the character cooking show activity.

 Final Performance!   

Mrs. Ormsby’ 5th Grade Class

Art form: Theatre

   Scene: Fractured Fairytales 

Theatre Instructor: Haley Flanders

Group 1) Once Upon a Twist

By Chris Bodin, Katie Jorgensen, Bree Black, and Luke Williams

Group 2) Odell’s Magical Adventure 

By Alli Hawes, Nate Stayner, Garrett Michaels, and Sara Stevens

Group 3) The 3 Little Sheep and the Big Bad Fox

By Madison Praag, Sayge Nelson, Jessie Johnson, and Trinyti Petro

Group 4) Beauty and Her Beast

by Olivia Abbadusky, Dominic Codella, Kallie Jensen and Trent Wall

Group 5) Alicorn and the Two Girls

by Macie Praag, Seth Jensen, Jack Loudon, and Jordyn Anderson

Group 6) Kira and the Two Space Whales 

by Kendall Williams, Kira Roberds, Jake Hibbert, and Wesley Hunt

Group 7) Little Red Riding Hood and the Two Giant Squirrels

By Maddie Horsley, Alivia Taylor, Taylor Gammell, and Parker Strang

This was their list of things they needed to get accomplished for class today. We also went through props and collected their large backdrops that they had drawn and colored in art class prior to today. They will hang up on the white board as the kids perform on Thursday. Pictures to come!

I allowed the students, one group at a time, to pick out their fabrics and
masks for their scene.

The kids will share fabrics and masks if the groups want to use the same things.
This process was very rewarding; the kids were so prepared with what they needed
for their scenes, and some had even brought their own props and costumes!

The next and final post (day #12!!) will be all about their final performances, which they will perform in front of students at the school. Look forward to that!