A Tale of Snow White : Rehearsals

    Almost four weeks into the production and everything is coming together. Rehearsals this week were incredible. All the kids came in memorized and ready to work. Due to their speedy brains we were able to jump right into character building this week.
    My duties as a stage manager for an STC show is much different than stage managing any other show. I still have to send emails and keep us on schedule, but with so many kids we have to split them up, so no one is sitting in the house for two hours bored to death. This means I don't have to sit in the house and write down all the blocking.
    We have established a system of sorts. At least for all of the blocking rehearsals, Kiersten will call whoever she needs to stage a certain scene. Then, I will pick a group of characters to work with, out of the cast left in the house. Often since they have all ready blocked the scene with the director, we will go out into the lobby, run the scene and then break it into smaller chunks and really clarify the action. Other times we will sit down and focus on the words and beats. My favorite times though are when I get to take all of the remaining cast out to the lobby and work on activities that will benefit everybody in the cast. We will play games that help them to understand the potential in their voices,
or, how listening well can change the entire show in a great way. It's amazing to see how fast they apply the skills learned in a game to their scenes.