Day 3 proved to be very fruitful. We intentionally decreased the number of scenes and increased audience participation each day. That meant Day 3 consisted primarily of audience participation. Stephanie and Ebon performed one scene, facilitated, continued scene, and the rest of class was supposed to be forum theatre, and a talk by Angela from Safe Places. Our forum theatre didn't work. There are three reasons: 1) the scene itself wasn't very forum-able, and 2) the middle school students had a hard time not giggling which meant the scene lost its power, and 3) Our actors weren't experienced enough with forum. After struggling through forum for two periods, we relied on discussion for the remainder.
It was great having Angela from Safe Places there to talk to students. She was able to engage the students with a level of seriousness about bullying that I don't know we were. She also gave them her card in case they or their friends needed to talk about bullying, dating, or domestic violence.
At the end of the day, Angela, Stephanie, Ebon, Holly (the teacher), and I sat down to reflect on what worked and what didn't. It was a very useful conversation to me. We decided that the storyline was strong although it needed some tweaking to be more age appropriate. We want to flesh out the male character a little more as the play focuses a lot on the female character right now. We want to play him up as a strong, confident alternative to our male antagonist. I want to rework some of the facilitations. The students' individual packets were liked by all.
I feel very proud of our work, and, hopefully, we can continue to make it better.
At the end of the day, Angela, Stephanie, Ebon, Holly (the teacher), and I sat down to reflect on what worked and what didn't. It was a very useful conversation to me. We decided that the storyline was strong although it needed some tweaking to be more age appropriate. We want to flesh out the male character a little more as the play focuses a lot on the female character right now. We want to play him up as a strong, confident alternative to our male antagonist. I want to rework some of the facilitations. The students' individual packets were liked by all.
I feel very proud of our work, and, hopefully, we can continue to make it better.
RSS Feed
