February 14, 2009
Fidgety played two shows at
Concord Elementary in Edina Monday with the Perrault cast. This was their first time out, and I was a little worried. We had held three additional newbie rehearsals; Deja had missed two of them and Alix and Justin one each. Teenage moodiness had cycled through the cast like a case of the flu. As soon as one would get over it, another would catch it. We were rehearsing in a cramped space, nothing like the gymnasium with four hundred kids they would have to fill with their voices and their presence. The school was offering us one mic on a stand and three hand-helds which they would have to pass around. We didn’t have any chance to practice with mics, and I was dreading the contrast between unamplified and amplified voices. I was working hard with actors on their diction and getting them to slow down and project, but it was difficult to make the point in our tiny room, with no audience and the stakes low. At the last rehearsal Deja was squirrelly for the first two hours and exhausted for the last two, turning her face upstage and more or less conversing with her fellow actors.
But of course, I should have known. The first show, at 9:45, was good–a few dropped lines and late entrances here and there but they held it together and did very well. We didn’t use mics. Jared came along to hang out backstage and help with props and costumes and push people out on stage as needed.
We had a long lunch break and after eating and fooling around for a while we ran some trouble spots. Some of the actors sat at the back of the gym and gave Chris feedback on whether they could understand his narration. “I don’t talk that slow normally,” he said to me. “Ah, but this isn’t about who you are normally,” I replied. Matt worked with the witches to get them to be physically witchier. Sara found a nice creepy character voice for her witch. Marianna’s wolf, picking her teeth, was amazing. We decided Rapunzel could just come out of the dang tower to get her haircut instead of having to have it turned around. The second performance was amazing! They are on their way. I love these kids.
January 23, 2009
We played
Loyola school in Mankato today with the Grimm cast. Kaela and Seraphine rode in my car both ways. Kaela is one of the veteran Fidgety players. I have almost stopped being surprised by how much she surprises me with her thoughfulness, creativity, patience, sense of fun and professionalism (amazing in an adult, even moreso in a thirteen-year-old.)
I popped in a Jimmy Smith CD on the way up, and had a conversation with Seraphine, who was sitting in the front seat. She came to the US from Cameroon when she was in ninth grade, and will graduate from high school this year. Her parents have political asylum here. She is their only child. Fidgety is her first bit of acting. I told her about my daughter Hannah’s experiences in Cameroon last summer; how she said on her return, “I keep looking for little kids selling boiled peanuts.” Seraphine tells me her grandmother owns a little store back home and that she used to be one of those little kids selling boiled peanuts. And of course…it turns out Seraphine is in the tribe of John Fomuso, whose family Hannah visited there. Then Hannah called me to find out how many cups are in a pound of butter, so I put Seraphine on the phone with her.
Matt sat next to me in the wings during the show and from time to time we would beam at each other as Seraphine was performing. She is utterly convincing and clear, and enchanting to watch. “Oh, I get so nervous,” she tells me on the drive back. On the CD, we were listening to the Latcho Drom soundtrack. “I love singing,” I said to her. “I love to sing and dance,” she replied. I dropped her off at her home, a big apartment complex in New Brighton. The wind was blowing fierce; it was ten degrees below zero. As we neared her house she raised her arms and did a dance in her seat. “I’m almost home!”
January 22, 2009
We had our first performance of the
Fidgety revival Wednesday at the
Nay Ah Shing school on the Mille Lacs Reservation north of Onamia. We’re running two casts now–the Grimm cast (mostly original members) and the Perrault cast (all newbies)–and because we want to squeeze in a few more rehearsals with new cast members we are using Grimm for the first two performances. But as it turned out, we had to swap in a few Perrault members anyway…so for this performance we had only three original cast members of eight: Jared, Drew and Sam.
The new actors-Marianna, Seraphine, Mary Grace, Grace and Deja–did very well. Already an ensemble is developing. They support each other and work together beautifully. Some first-show jitters, but that is to be expected. It was fun to see new interpretations of characters, and I found myself smiling as I played. Now that the show is up, they will really start to play with it.
Our audience was quite young; most looked like preschoolers. They loved the physical comedy. And they adored Deja, our youngest actor who plays Li’l Hood. Yeah, Deja is pretty adorable. At the end of the show the audience stood up and shouted “Migwitch!”
Friday we take the Grimm cast to Mankato, a two hour drive on a cold, cold Minnesota day. It’s great to get out of the city and to drive through the snowy countryside. The actors amuse each other during the drive by calling back and forth between cars on their cell phones. Kids!
