Day 26 and 27

Friday:
Such a hot day today. It was about 94+ degrees. So it wasn't the greatest walk to and from CTC today, but I survived. :) During lunch today, the high school class performed the play they wrote for their camp called Once Upon a Time. It was set outside... which was the only bad thing about it. The heat distracted from the rest of the performance. There was sweat all over my body...it was like I had just been swimming, so frickin' gross. I felt bad for the actors because they were wearing all black and also had capes and other fairy tale costume pieces to also put on. They looked extremely hot. Which was another thing I focused on.

But the play was great. They walked through the park, the audience had to walk with them. So it was like they were walking through the forest (the play was based off the Grimm Brothers' fairy tales). It was a really cool effect. After about 15 minutes of walking with the characters, we were asked to sit down in the middle of the park and watch the rest of the play. It was a awesome idea, I just felt really bad I was so distracted by the heat. :(

Showing were okay today.

The morning one (Onstage), we showed the parents their warm ups and other activities we do at the beginning of the class. Then we showed them the two short plays we have been working on all week and another play we just worked on 10 minutes before the parents showed up! It was really hard saying good bye to this class. Every student gave all of us hugs and good byes. Two of them gave us gifts. A girl named Penelope gave us cards that had pictures on it that she drew. A boy named Quinn made us clay necklaces that were pretty cool. One parent came up to all of us and asked if all of us teachers would be working with each other again. We all looked at each other and said that the chances wouldn't be that great but that we would all be here for the rest of the summer. Then that same mom went to talk to Sean and Debra about getting her son into another class, preferably with Matt. :) After all the students finally left Matt, the other interns and I just stood in the room mourning the loss of our perfect class. Sean walked in and laughed at our silence. Which of course broke up the silence. We talked about how awesome this experience was and the fact that we must have done something right if all the kids seemed to really like the class and if we were so attached to them. Matt is a great teacher. Very very mellow and relaxed but can get things done.

The afternoon class (Monster Tales) was a little different. And when I say it was a little different, I mean it was pretty chaotic. The teacher for this class was the new one who was asked to do it after the normal teacher got sick. So he did a good job. But I think the last two day the kids got a little crazy, whether it was his fault or just the fact that it was Thursday and Friday. I feel like he needed a little bit more structure. Matt doesn't seem to have a lot of structure either...but he would not let the students run around the room screaming, he would just tell them to please sit down on the carpet or get into actor's neutral, he would not have encouraged it. Ritchy kind of tried this but he sometimes would just let them do what they wanted. There were also times we would let them run and scream around the room. This is when I just wanted to shut down...it was frickin' crazy. And during the performance some of the kids did not want to participate and some were climbing on and under things. Ritchy thinks it is because we used puppets for our performances that it was chaos. Which might be true. I think it is because from the beginning we didn't really reinforce that the best ways to perform for an audience are to face them and to stay in character. I think if we spent a little more time on that and made them a little more comfortable in front of an audience...then maybe it would have gone a little bit better. But that's my opinion. I still think Ritchy did a very nice job for his first time and for being pushed into this.

I also talked to Sean and Debra about Honk! Ed, who is the director, told me that my main job will be props. I think I would hate doing props. So I talked to Sean today asking if I will only be doing props or will there be some education jobs too. I told him that I did not want to get stuck doing props and only props because that is not why I am here and that I would rather be working on learning more about theatre education. Sean told me that he would talk to Ed about my job more. He told me that last year Ed was the director for this 4th-8th grade show as well, and Ed told his interns that they would be in charge of props but Ed ended up giving them more education jobs. These interns were upset because they wanted to do props. Sean told me that Ed usually goes into the shows with a huge vision and then realizes he can't do everything the way he thought he could so he has to change it. Then Debra piped in saying that if it doesn't sound like something that I want to do then they can always find me something else. And that even a week into Honk! I can still change my mind and work with another camp. I said I don't mean to be picky. And Debra said "Of course you can be picky with your free intern that you came all the way here for, we want you to get out of it everything you want out of it." I love that lady, and Sean too. :)

I have five more weeks here...that seems crazy. It all went really fast. This next week I have off. I don't have too many plans, so I will most likely be exploring Minneapolis and reading a book. The week after the break I have one camp... I think I will be working with 4th-6th graders again! And then the 3 weeks after that I will be working on Honk! And when Honk! is done, I will be finished with my internship. Crazy, so crazy. Did I tell you all that I am thinking of coming back here next summer!? Hopefully for an assistant job (which actually pays). I have had such an awesome experience here, that I just want to keep coming back.

Saturday:
Today my big plans are that I am going to walk downtown to Target and Barnes and Noble to go shopping! I am going to spend some money on myself since tomorrow is my birthday! So I am going to spoil myself today. It is still hot out but about 84 degrees. I am going to have the perfect day.

Talk to you all later! Remember tomorrow's my 21st birthday! No partying tonight, but I am going bowling tomorrow night with some friends. Should be great!