A Tale of Snow White: First Week of Rehearsal

      We decided quite some time back that we wanted to use lots of rhythm and body percussion for this production. Not only does the script lend itself to this, with all it's raps and limericks, but it would also be a great way to force the kids to work together.
      Before we even had a blocking rehearsal we started teaching them some of the rhythms we had appropriated from various YouTube videos. We hoped this would get them into the world of the play together, rather than having them slowly seep in one at a time as we blocked their various scenes. It seemed to work. Most of them picked up on it very well. If one of them didn't, the rest of the group was more than willing to jump in and assist.
      Besides rhythm we also worked on our animals for the show. In one of the scenes, Snow White, flees from the huntsman through the forest following the advice of some clever animals. There are only five animals we needed to create but we figured it best to have the whole ensemble brainstorm which creatures would be the best. After a while we had them get up and try some of these animals out and then we pulled the best ones and had them explain how they were doing it to the rest of the cast.
      During the next rehearsal, I worked separately with just the five kids who were cast as animals. Having selected what animals they would like to be we started building these animals layer by layer. The first layer we called "safe and curious". Humans get from point A to B (most the time) in the most direct way we can. Animals on the other hand seem to take the most inefficient route sometimes, stopping, backing up, walking in circles. The kids and I decided the animals weren't inefficient at all but rather distracted by their great senses of smell, sight, and hearing, which could tell them if the thing they were approaching was safe or not. After experimenting with this layer we were out of time for that day but I told them all to go home and watch videos of their animals so we decide how each one individually moves next time.
       It felt really great to see all the kids come together over creating animals and stomping their feet. And unlike the last show I was involved in, it feels like their is always something that every kid can contribute. Even if it's just them watching their fellow cast mates and saying "Hey, that looks like my dog!"