Rehearsal number two, but proper rehearsal number one.

I have finished a rehearsal schedule for every practice leading up to the performance, as that was due on Monday. It had forced me to be organised, which is very good. I do like being organised, I'm just not very good at it sometimes. I wrote up a more detailed rehearsal plan for today, but I don't think I will get time to do one for tomorrow. I know what I want to do though.

We started today by reading through the scene again. The girls had not looked at it since last week, which I expected, so the reminder was good. We also changed a few words as we went - con to learn, comptible to sensitive and cantons to songs. We all agreed that these words were difficult to understand, even in their context, and so it was better to change them. I do prefer to leave the script as close to original as possible, but I am making a big effort in this production to have a reason for all my choices - other than I like historical things. I am trying to ensure this scene demonstrates relevance to the audience so they can understand it. This is also why I am thinking, that although I would love to set it in Elizabethan times, I will not. I'm going to pick a setting that a modern audience can identify better with. I am still thinking something slightly older - the 20th century sometime, instead of modern day. To emphasise that it is set in the past, but it could happen any time.

I had prepared plot and character summaries off the Internet which I distributed and we discussed. They both enabled us to identify elements of the characters that the girls did not know. In order to increase their understanding of the characters, as well as their ownership of them, I had chosen three exercises for us to try.

Firstly, I asked the girls if they agreed with the given character analysis, and what hints they could find in the scene that confirmed it. I then asked them to pick five items to put into a box that would summarise the life of their character. Shannon, as Olivia, picked a mirror representing Olivia's beauty and elements of vanity, a family heirloom jewellery piece representing her love for her deceased family, a hairpiece to represent decoration, a glass flower nic nac to represent her delicacy and beauty, and a book to represent her intelligence. Lee, as Viola, chose a notebook that was a gift from Sebastian representing her love of her brother and grief over his supposed death, a man's hat representing the boy whom she impersonates, a pocket knife to represent her resourcefulness, her mother's brooch to represent both her ties to her family and her womanly beauty, and a painting of a bridge in her home town to represent where she came from and the bridges in her life that she crosses. I was pleased with the creativity showed by the girls in this activity.

To summarise what we had discovered about the characters by playing Speed Dating: each girl, as her character, had 1-2 minutes to present herself to me as her speed date. The girls seemed to forget the initial character elements that we had discussed from the summaries, but instead focused on previously unexplored elements. It led us to briefly consider the emotional state of the two women in the scene, however we did not go into depth as I wish to return to this later.

I have asked the girls to study people on the street over the holidays to spot any elements of their characters and study how people portray these characteristics, how they react to situations - whatever they can glean from observation. I asked them to consider how emotions written into 16th century characters still exist today, and how we can use these to relate to our audience. I have also asked them to come to our first rehearsal after the holidays dressed as their character would dress today. I learnt both of these exercises from John Bell's writings, and am keen to discover how well they increase characterisation.

Shannon and Lee are also planning to learn their lines during the holidays. I have requested that they know them by Thursday in week 11, as that is when I plan to start blocking.