We began rehearsal last night for Dewey School, under the direction of the fantastic Molly Brennan, who encouraged us to think about STYLE. We wrote some lesser-used ways to tell a story up on the board, such as Greek Chorus, Vaudeville, Opera, Horror, and many more. It was delightful to see how performers could use tone and style to add to what the author wrote, while still honoring their story and what’s on the page.
A favorite moment: crazy Laura McKenzie and Brandon Cloyd as Lunch Ladies spilling slop (drool) into the food and, unable to remove the slop, throwing it out the window, only to be attacked by kid zombies who were HUNGRY! I hope this story is coming to theatres next Halloween.
Being a new monkey in the group, it’s just so cool to me to see the huge amount of creativity that comes out each adapting. You get to see people’s personalities in how they bring a story to life, and with so much energy bouncing around the room, it is always entertaining.
We also had a lot of acrostic poems in the kids’ journals at this school. I had no clue what the word acrostic meant either. Best to demonstrate with a poem by Tiesha in the 4th grade:
Turtle is slow
Ice is a brick
Elephant is big
Slice of pizza
Hungry as pie
Apple so juicy
TIESHA!
(Aaaaand…we are turning this story into a song – stay tuned)!
-Philip
| Link to this entry