hooray for fall, hooray for theatre

cool mornings... october is here!
my theatre arts two class did a staged reading performance of dylan thomas's play for voices, under milk wood, the past two evenings. we had only four class periods and one evening rehearsal to put it together, which amounts to a grand total of eight hours, and considering that shortness of preparation time, i think it turned out pretty well. the students were focused, enthusiastic, and for me, a delight to watch. with the exception of one student who actually removed her cell phone onstage and texted something into it, everyone took the performance seriously and brought something unique to his or her parts. it was moving to watch them, and it came at the end of a somewhat stressful week.
students are stressed right now in my world. too much work, too many activities, too many deadlines, just too many expectations being piled on them in general.
our play is coming up and we only have a handful or two of rehearsals to get everything done. today we are going up to school for a saturday work day, in which i hope to accomplish a lot. my brother-in-law, one of the kindest people i've ever met, will be there to help us, so that's a real cool thing. we need to get two nine-foot platforms up, build and set up two staircases, and frame and face several wall units. if we do those things, these things will be icing on the cake: paint the walls, stencil, paint the floor, create the fireplace, create the doors, and figure out a way to make styrofoam look like molding.
hooray for the theatre!