Shakespeare Summer Club: Projects Week Two

Sorry to everyone who has left a message over the past week or so, I just haven’t had any spare time to answer them or visit your blog back.  I love hearing all your thoughts and I will endeavour to reply just as soon as Thursday’s performance is over.  It all hands on deck right now, and I’m kind of wishing I had more than just two hands.  This week I am sharing the process of their projects from start to finish.

This week was all about getting scripts written and rewritten.  This was also the week we were all exhausted from our shenanigans from the week before.  I was so proud of how hard the children worked at their projects even though they were also learning about Romeo and Juliet at the same time as being very tired.

This was a familiar sight through out the week as everyone tried to get their act exactly as they wanted:

Lorna and K12 did a sterling job separating the wheat from the chaff in Act III.  They had the difficult job of deciding what to keep and what to get rid of for the only act we would be performing in tradition costume using Shakespeare’s own words.  It was a huge job – thank you both, you did such a great job!

C12 began transforming Act IV into a Glee style modern Act IV.  She did such a fantastic job of choosing really appropriate songs which went so well within the context of the story.  We had allowed twelve minutes for each act, figuring an hour was as much as we felt comfortable asking the audience to sit still for.  C12 came with a sheepish grin on her face having timed her act, saying it had run over slightly.  It transpired it had lasted for 34 minutes!!  So she, very reluctantly, got editing.

B13 and T13 probably made the most headway with their acts, possibly because their were two working on them.  They had Act I written up and towards the end of the week they went into the woods nearby to find an ideal place to film their first scene.  Whilst they were gone Lorna (the nutter) was on the loo when she began humming a little tune.  By the time she had finished she had rewritten the song and sung it to the girls.

If you go down in the woods today you’re sure of a big surprise
If you go down in the woods today you’ll never believe you’re eyes
For Thooomas and Braaadley are skipping along so merrily
You’ll really wish you hadn’t gone down to the woods today…… (or something like that!)

We had a little giggle, deciding to sing it to the boys on their return home (Oh, my.  Have I told you how much I have laughed in the past few weeks?).  Here are the photos of their reaction.  Priceless!

Yes, it was everything it should have been!!

L12 decided to begin designing her puppets.  The puppets would eventually be wooden spoons with sewn costumes, but for now she used cut out card people and tissue paper.  I thought she did a really good job:

A dead line was given that all acts are written completely as they are to be said and acted, as well as photocopied and all the parts highlighted by the beginning of next week (giving everyone just two weeks to learn their lines).  In addition the children needed to have allocated all the parts.  It would be a very busy weekend….