To improve my theatre skills, I decided to co-direct the Middle School Production with Ms Jackson. This is completely different from the theatre goals I mentioned on my first CAS post, but it does fall into my goal to be a risk taker. Since I’ve never co-directed a production here and only got inspired because of our production proposal unit in theatre, this is for sure something that was brand new to me. Other than me being director, I’m also helping with backstage, making sure that all props are where they’re supposed to be.
Chicken Bones … What ?
Chicken Bones in the Teenage Soup is a play cut up in different stories mainly focusing on pessimism. This is the play that was going to happen in 2020, but got cancelled off due to COVID (as someone who was performing, it is very cool to direct this play). With the 16 actors we have in the cast, we needed each person to play at least a few characters.
Mr Lakshitha and Sam (MYP 4) are also helping out with the technical aspects of this play (lights, sounds, etc.). Which is nice because the lighting and sound is really important in this production.
Spending our Saturdays Together
To make sure we can make sure that everything goes smoothly and perfectly before the 2 big nights, we had to use 2 Saturdays to rehearse.
Our first rehearsal was on 18th February, this rehearsal was mostly on the transitions as well as perfecting the prologue and epilogue. We spent the last few minutes taking the Instagram story photos for the transitions (will get into that later). This was a good rehearsal because it was also a good bonding session when we had the pizza for our break. Our second rehearsal was on 18th March, less than a week before the big nights. Unlike the past month, we had a dress rehearsal and the cast had to remember their lines.
Instagram Stories
Rather than having a narrator to tell us what scene is next, we decided to use Instagram stories to indicate the transitions.
Charlotte (MYP 3) and I made ourselves in charge (collaboration), our job was to put the photos we take this year and ones from 2020, and put them on Instagram as stories. This is different to any of the productions I’ve seen, which is really cool.
Big Night, Big Night
Ah, this is it. The moment we’ve been waiting for. All our practices and efforts matter now. Both nights ended up being a big success and it was such an experience, especially when I was on stage bowing and seeing that I’m put as director on the program booklet (not even just co-director !!).
