A Show for Nativity Prep

Today was the first showing for an audience of about 50 8th grade boys from Nativity Prep. It was a strange show for us.

All of us had to adjust to the young men's attention span and tastes which differ so much from Doug's:)

We cut 6 minutes off the show by speeding things way up. There was no wallowing in moments--although i couldn't help but take some time with Christian's death scene.

The kids were great! They asked a lot of questions during the talk back.

It takes a very good actor to perform for kids, especially kids from all different types of backgrounds. Each performance is catered to that audience--it has to be. In this case, the show is not just a piece of theatre for the sake of good theatre---it's theatre for the kids.

I tried today to honestly do what I should do in character, but technically, I had to make sure I could be heard, that the energy was up, that everyone was following and paying attention to what I was doing---my luxurious moments with Cyrano could not be today...I almost felt like I was back in grade school myself---would they think I was cool? could they relate to me? No they wouldn't understand the death scene completely, but how can I truly be Roxane when I have to constantly be checking in with an audience that I haven't been including for the past couple weeks.

Doug wanted a lot of what I was doing to be just Cyrano and myself....like a private world. But I can't ignore the audience. Or else I may loose them. I am the one person in the show that doesn't really use the audience and it makes me feel a little strange. I must talk to Doug about this.

All in all, The show went well because we did it.