Director's Corner: Top Ten Tips for a Great Musical Theatre Rehearsal

Every director wants their rehearsals to run as smoothly as possible. However whenever you bring 50+ students together after school, with one tired teacher and try to get them all to focus on creating a production chaos ensues. Trust me I have been there. I can still remember about half way through my first major production, just sitting  in a rehearsal and thinking "this will never work" kids were running everywhere, no one was focused and we were not accomplishing anything. Something had to change. Luckily I have learned a lot since those first disastrous rehearsals. Read on to see my ten tips for a great rehearsal.

Have a plan- then over plan

If you missed last weeks post on creating a rehearsal schedule, go back and read it. Having a completed rehearsal schedule will definitely help your rehearsals. Not only does it help you plan your daily rehearsal, it also lets the kids know what to expect. There is nothing worse than kids showing up without a script to a read through or worse kids showing up in binding clothes for a dance rehearsal. Having a plan already sets you up for success (I could quote the ever popular saying "if you fail to plan, then you plan to fail" but who needs that in their life). Once you have a plan, you can also know what needs to be done. For example if you learn one dance you will know exactly which dance you need to teach next without searching through the script. This is even more valuable with blocking and singing rehearsals. Having a plan and letting everyone know the plan will definitely set you up for success.

Create a sign-in procedure

This is a simple tip but has saved me so many headaches. From the first rehearsal on have a sign-in procedure for all actors and tech. There are two reasons for this. One, it allows you to very quickly see who is here and who isn't (especially great for runthroughs and performances). Two it keeps the kids accountable. All of my students must sign a rehearsal contract. (More on that next). Part of the rehearsal contract is that if you miss too many rehearsals you can't be in the play. Students are responsible for signing into rehearsal, if they forget it could count as a strike against them. This helps teach responsibility. 

Have all student actors and tech sign rehearsal contracts

As I mentioned above a rehearsal contract is a must. This contract outlines exactly what is expected for the students in the rehearsal. I include parts about attendance, tardiness, late pick ups, grades, backstage behavior, and costume requirements. This contract has saved me many times. It gave me a way to address parents who were picking their children up two hours late. It gave me a way to talk to students who would constantly talk backstage. It also gave me easy answers when students ask if they can skip rehearsal. If you want an easy contract download from my teacherspayteachers store.

Allow the group to self manage

It is very rare that I have to raise my voice in rehearsal (at least because of discipline). My students know that I will not continue rehearsal until they focus. This can be a huge problem for them. We typically have over 1,000 audience members every night of a show. That is a lot of pressure. My students know what they risk of they don't focus. They know that I am doing all in my power to to make them look good. If they are talking, I can't make them look good. That is a huge issue for them, when things start getting out of hand all I have to do is stop talking and look at my watch. This lets them know that they are wasting time. Usually after a minute of this kids start whispering shhhh and such and they refocus themselves. While this approach takes a little more time, I like it because it keeps me from yelling, and it helps create a since of ensemble. We are all working together to succeed.

Train you tech separately

I am a huge advocate for having a student tech crew. I think that tech is one area of theatre that is hugely underrepresented as a whole. Tech is fun and gives students who aren't "stars" a chance to shine and participate. This is also where you are going to build your leadership skills. Let students take control of their area, let them have some hand in the creation of props, costumes, lights, and sound. Give the some responsibility. That being said, you need to teach them what needs to be done on each tech job. The time to teach this is not when you have 60 actors who are also demanding your attention. Your first meeting with tech should be without the actors, and if possible your first tech through should be with only tech. You can also work with them on days when your music director or choreographer is working with the actors. You want your tech to know what to do enough so that once you start runthroughs they know what to do and you don't have to worry about them. A good tech crew will make or break your show, train them well! If you need some help, my rehearsal packet also includes a tech packet to help prepare them.

Allow collaboration

Theatre is a collaborative art form. You cannot create theatre without collaboration. This collaboration comes in many forms. First trust your other teachers. I can't dance. No one wants to see me dance. Really I am that bad. My choreographer for the show is an amazing dancer, and she is even better at choreography. She creates so many things that I could never think of. I just have to give her my very general idea and she makes magic. (I can tell her I want something's flow-y and cloud like and she creates beautiful ballets). If I didn't collaborate with her, my play would not be nearly as awesome as it was. I have to trust the other adults to do what they do. I could give you so many examples of this. If there is someone on your team who has a talent, let them be responsible for that part. It allows for magic to happen and you don't have to worry as much about it getting done. Teachers can also collaborate with students. I know this sounds crazy but our students are so creative and have so many great ideas. I was once blocking a scene where Pecos Bill tamed a mountain lion and made him into a horse. When the two students exited, bill jumped piggy-back on the lion's back. It was unscripted but wonderful. We ended up keeping it in the play and the audience loved it. Allow the kids to try some of their ideas. You can always adapt or say no to them if they don't work. Students have a great ability to think outside the box. Use their creativity to your advantage and collaborate with them.

Celebrate small wins

A big production can seem overwhelming. Break the play down and celebrate the small successes. The first time students learn a dance: celebrate. The first time students go off book:  celebrate. The first  time you make it all the way through the play: celebrate a lot! These celebrations don't have to be big. Sometimes just a big cheer or a mini dance break is all you need. Just something fun to let them know you are proud of them and they are doing a great job!

Use remind.com

I mentioned this service the other day. This is a FREE text service that allows you to text your parents while still keeping your phone number private. It is a great service for drama. You can text rehearsal changes, costume reminders, time of performances etc. Really I cannot recommend this service enough, you need to go and sign up. It really will change your life.

Create a safe space

This is very very important in any class but especially in a rehearsal setting. You are asking students to show raw emotion on stage. They will only give you their best performance, if they feel safe. Do not let kids mock each other. Nip any of that silliness in the bud. I realize that a lot of this happens behind your back where it is hard to hear, let the kids know that if they are caught being mean to one another, they will be kicked out of the show. Typically if you can catch a couple of main offenders and talk to their parents, this will usually nip it in the bud. You might also want to consider blocking sensitive scenes with as few students as possible. This is very very true for any love scenes or kissing scenes. You do not want kids trying to figure out how to kiss in front of the whole company. Make sure students feel safe and do whatever you can to encourage them to show those true emotions,

Have fun!

This is an after school production. Students are here because they want to be. They love being in shows and they like learning about theater and the love performing. Have fun, try not to stress so much about the final product that you forget how much fun the process is, enjoy the experience. You and the students will miss it when the final curtain falls. Enjoy this production and have fun with your students as you create!

Purchase my Rehearsal Packet at my TPT store

These are some of my best tips for having a rehearsal. What tips did I leave off? What would you suggest directors do to have a successful rehearsal?

Brain Break: What Can It Be?

What can it be? Is one of my favorite creativity increasing brain breaks around. It works for any grade level and can be played for as long or as short as you like. This game is super easy to set up and will have the kids thinking creatively and critically in no time!

The premise of the game is simple, give the students an object and say "I know this is a ------, but what can it be?" Students then use their creative and critical thinking skills to come up with as many different ways you could use the object and demonstrating that use. I only have two rules for this game 1) must be class room appropriate 2) you can't repeat what someone else said. 

Here is how the game is played at my school. 

First everyone comes and sits in a circle (you could have them stay that their desks but I like to get them closer together for the game). 

Next bring out any random item you have. I like to start with very nondescript items (length of fabric, a stick) and move towards more specific items (toothbrush, pencil)

Then tell you students "I know this is a ------, but what can it be?" ( if this is your first time playing you night want to give a few creative examples to get the thinking flowing).

Finally have the students answer the question one at a time acting out their answer. (For example the stick could be a baseball bat- act out swinging a bat, a dog stick - play fetch, or a curling iron - act out curling hair). The round is over when either everyone in the circle has passed or you run out of time.

For me this game is all about creativity. There are no wrong answers. If they can act it out and it's class appropriate, it counts. After the first round, if students can't think of an idea I let them pass their turn, but in the first round all must compete. This also forces some kids to be very creative. If possible I try to set it up so my more creative/gifted kids get the item near the end of the round, while my quieter students get it first.  I like to have the class compete against itself to come up with the most creative answers. Our towel is the winner at 55 different uses!

This game is great because it is simple, yet very funny. It really makes the kids look at items in a different light and try new ideas. Below are several of the ways the kids came up for what a towel can be! (unfortunately I was not taking notes they day we played with a towel, so several of the answers have been forgotten).

A skirt

A dress

A head wrap

A blanket

A pillow

A shawl

A hula costume

A rope

A whip

A mask

A parachute

A backpack

Rapunzel hair

A table cloth

A picnic cloth

A ghost costume

A trap

A foot warmer

A belt

A jump rope 

A tug of war starter kit

A necklace

A bracelet

A sleeping bag

A dog toy

A way to hide from penguins (the white towel in snow)

A band-aid

An animal carrier

A sweat rag

A super hero cape

String to a really big guitar

A door mat

A dog drying device 

I hope your class likes this game! How many ways did you all come up with for using a towel?

Students as Puppeteers, How to Make 80 Rod Puppets in a Week

I teach a lot of students. I mean I have a crazy number of students (over 500). This means that when we want to do any sort of art project I have to be able to do it for an entire grade level. This means that 80 kids need to be able to create puppets in the same week. It's a little overwhelming to say the least. For my upper grades I really try to do a meaningful puppet with them, so we create rod puppets.

I love rod puppets. They are easy to make and look great. I also like to introduce Japanese Bunraku Puppetry with this unit, even though technically Bunraku puppets are much more complex then the rod puppets we make, the students get a kick out of learning about a new culture. I use this video to introduce Japanese theatre. The link on amazon is down but you can probably find it somewhere. After the students study Bunraku we are ready to make our puppets.

Materials per puppet (buying in bulk helps save money)

12 in dowel any diameter

Masking tape

Newsprint or any scrap paper

Tissue paper or construction paper (I like tissue but construction works and is cheaper)

Googly eyes

Popsicle sticks rubber bands

Craft accessories (yarn, scrap fabric, pipe cleaners, feathers, anything you want rid of)

1 square foot of fabric (ask your parents, fabric stores or friends, there is usually someone who will donate this, I haven't bought fabric for years, if you can't get anyone to donate go to good will and buy lots of sheets, you can get plenty of colors for so much cheaper than at a fabric store)

The cost for me to do an entire grade level is relatively cheap

80 dowels -$10

Sheets - $10

Scrap paper - free

Tape - free 

Popsicle sticks 1000 count - $4

Rubber bands - free

Eye 700 count - $6

Yarn assorted -$8

Other accessories - free (scavenge your room and others, people always have stuff they are throwing out.)

Total about $40 (that's about $0.50 a student so not to shabby)

Step one.

Give each student a rod, square of fabric, tape, scrap paper, and tissue paper. 

Crumple the scrap paper into a ball and tape onto top of rod. I like to make a ball with one piece of paper, then cover it with more onto the stick until it is the size I want. Tape paper to stick head. Make sure some paper is actually taped to the stick.

Step two.

Once you have a big head (haha) add tissue paper to give you puppet a face color, tape this down.

Step three.

Cut a small hole in the middle of the fabric. Pull the fabric up over the stick and tape in place underneath. Hold puppet up. You now have the basic puppet done!

Adding arms 

If I have time on the first day we add the arms, if not wait until the end of 2nd day. Add Popsicle stick to end of fabric secure with rubber band.

Final Product.

Allow kids to decorate their puppets. To save supplies I tell the kids they can choose only 4 items. Every one chooses different supplies and their puppets are always end up being as unique as they are.

I always like to have the students perform with their puppets after they make them. This year we learned about flashback and foreshadowing. Students had to write a mini scene that represented one of those vocabulary words and perform it with the puppet. This turned out great! The students always love this project and they learn a ton about theatre!

I hope you liked this project. Let me know if you try it in your class I would love to know how it turns out.

Parent Communication when you have 500 Kids.

For those of you who don't know I teach over 500. Each one of those students has a parent who desperately wants communication. It can sometimes feel like all you do is communicate with parents. If you let it, it can become very overwhelming to deal with all of the parent communication. The parents of my students are awesome and(but) very involved in their children's lives. I have found for them, the more mass communication you have the easier it is to deal with the one on one communication that also comes up. For any type of communication you do, I highly recommend you keep a record. This is not only great for your observations (it's a TKES standard in my state) it also helps when parents say they did not know about an event (being able to pull up the dates of the mass communication really helps).

Mass Communication

There are three basic forms of mass communication I use and then several secondary forms for the really important communications.

Letters home

Obviously the easiest form of mass communication is paper letters home. I keep hoping that we will soon be able to move beyond paper copies home but it is a very slow process. I have found that often the letters never make it home or they get lost in the shuffle. Parents get so many pieces of paper home that often what I send never makes it to the parents attention even if it makes it into their house. Still while this is not the most effective form of communication, when there is a dispute about what is going on parents like to see a copy "what was sent home." I recommend having one day a week when parents know that important information is coming home. That way they know that they need to pay more close attention to papers that day. For us that day is Monday. I also recommend putting any information on colored paper (the brighter the better) you want anything that will help catch parent's eye or stand out in a sea of white notebook paper. If you don't already do this I would highly recommend starting a weekly/monthly newsletter. This will be something that parents come to expect and will look to for information about what is going on in school. This is especially great Fine Arts classes who often have performances and community events coming up every month. Being able to communicate dates to parents easily is very important.

Call Out

If your school is like mine you have a way to send mass phone calls to all students. We have started a thing called Tune in Tuesdays. Every Tuesday we do a mass call out with all of this week's announcements. This is great because it lets parents know what day and time to tune in so that they can know quickly what is going on in the school. I usually just submit the same letter I sent home to be read on those days. Make sure you keep a record of any time you utilize this service since there will be no obvious record of this type of communication.

Mass Text / Email: Remind.com 

Stop whatever you are doing right now and sign up for Remind.com if you are not already using this service you have no idea what you are missing. This is the best parent communication service ever! I love this app. Remind provides a fake number for parents to text to sign up to receive text messages or emails for you. This means that you get to keep your personal cell phone number safe but still have the ease to use modern communication. I have also found that parents are much more likely to read a text message or email. Remind is also great because you can attach a digital copy of the letter you sent home. This allows parents to have a copy of the letter on their phone when they need to refer to dates and such. Seriously this is quickly becoming my favorite form of communication. Please sign up and try it too. You will love it!

Labels/ Stickers

Desperate times call for desperate measures. For awhile we were having a horrible time with our mass communication. Students just were not taking the letters home, we had not discovered the wonderful Remind.com yet and parents were getting tired of listening to our Tune in Tuesdays. To ensure that parents knew very important information (upcoming performance date, time, and attire) we would use shipping labels to create stickers for the students. This worked so well for our younger students. Parents could simply read the sticker stuck to the shirt to get the information they needed. The stickers were a hit or miss with the older kids. I honestly had one student ask me for information that was literally stuck to his chest one day_ He hadn't bother to read the sticker that was stuck to him. If you need to get information home quickly though labels might be the way to go. We use the Avery 2inch X 4 inch labels and can fit a ton of information in a small space. You can also customize each label to a particular student using mail merge. I will have more information on how to do this in a later post.

Website

This is one form of communication that I wish I used more. I have this very cute website set up. It tells parents the standards I teach and a quick summary of all my lessons, there are a few cute photos. On the whole though I very rarely touch my website. I know I should use it more, I know it would be very effective but I just haven't. If you have any tips on how to use a website, I would love to hear it!

Marquee

We have a small marquee outside the school to advertise events. I use this to advertise performance, awards nights, and deadlines. This is very helpful since we have a ton of parents who come out and sit in the car lane.

County website and tv channel

Once again these are usually only used to advertise dates. This is especially great for our big productions.

Google Drive

These are just a few of the ideas that I have used. I just read an article here about a teacher who uses Google Drive for parent communication. She had some wonderful ideas! I personally have only used Google Forms to conduct parent surveys and online applications (I teach at a magnet school that is open to all students in the community, not just those zoned for the area). I have loved using forms, and this article has really inspired me to try using more of Google Drive next year!

How do you communicate with the masses, is there anything on here that I left off?

Director's Corner: Rehearsal Scheduling aka How to Create an Awesome Rehearsal Schedule for your Students!

Planning out a rehearsal schedule is perhaps one of the hardest parts of preparing a play. There is no one size fits all for  planning a rehearsal schedule. A simple but detailed plan is vital to the success of the play. You want to make sure you plan on when you will rehearse every part of the play. You also want to make sure that your schedule is flexible enough to handle any craziness that might come up (we had a freak snow storm the week before our show a few years ago, we had to condense tech week into two days.) you never know what can happen with schools and after school rehearsals, you want enough flexibility to be able to handle any surprises.

There are several things to take into consideration when planning your schedule. First you want to block off any dates that are already booked for your school or any school holidays that you are unable to get into the school for. You also want to talk to your musical director and choreographer to see of they have any conflicts you need to take into consideration. Once you know the dates you can't rehearse, it is now time to figure out what days you can rehearse and what you are doing on those days.

Start with the end in mind.

Ideally I like to have two and a half weeks at minimum to run through the play from start to finish before tech week. This sometimes doesn't happen but if I have this as a goal in mind it helps set me up for the weeks before. Let's say that you have three months from the time you post the cast list to the time the curtain rises that means you have approximately 12 weeks to get your kids ready. You want to have taught the kids everything they need to know in 9 weeks so that they can review and add technical elements in the last 3 weeks.

For each of those 9 weeks I try to keep the weekly schedule about the same. Depending on your and your teams personal schedules the day of the week you choose for each section doesn't really matter. My team set up our weeks like this: 

Monday: choral rehearsals- this is for company numbers to learn the words to the song. You can typically get through 1 full song or 2-3 reprises.

Tuesday: solo/duet rehearsal- this is where you can focus on helping your soloist shine. These should be small rehearsals where you can focus on just a few students really learning the words and songs. You can typically get through 2 full songs or all reprises. 

Wednesday: blocking rehearsals- this is where you help students go over lines. You help students figure out where they will stand and how they should enter and exit the stage. This is the hardest to schedule. You could go quickly or slowly depending on your kids. I start off by dividing the scripts lines into 8 parts and saying that's what's we are going to try to get through that day. It gives us a good goal. Some days we get through that and more some days we don't get all the way through, it all evens out that way though.

Thursday: choreography. Teach the kids to dance. Most of your students will not be dancers so this will be the hardest part for many kids. Plan on learning only 1/2 to 1 song a rehearsal. Once they learn the dances, use this day to rehearse and prefect all the pieces.

Friday: DO NOT REHEARSE ON FRIDAY! It sucks to do, the kids don't want to be there, you don't want to be there. Seriously unless it is a true rehearsal emergency (freak snow storm stopped all the rehearsals) do not rehearse on this day. Your kids need a break and you do too!

Saturday: at most only rehearse one to two Saturdays a month. I like to do a four hour rehearsal  in the performance space if possible. I work mainly on choreography and blocking on these days. You do not have to do these but they are really very nice. 

Sunday: Do not rehearse on Sundays. I have found there are two many family and religous conflicts to make these rehearsals worth while. 

Once you have a basic plan, simply plug in the songs and pages for your rehearsals each week. If you have done it correctly you should have taught your material in 9 weeks. This will give you two weeks to do runthroughs and one week to add in your technical elements. 

Tips and tricks

- try to teach the lyrics of the song before you teach the choreography. Most kids don't count their music they move based on the words.

-only give out one month rehearsal schedule at a time. Also make sure parents know that the schedule is flexible and can change at any point.

-keep rehearsals as short as possible, 2 hours max after school. Kids still have homework and jobs they have to do as well.

-if possible give kids fewer rehearsals or cancel rehearsals on really tough school weeks. Kids can get burned out if you rehearse too much. You want to keep the show fresh.

- feel free to look at my rehearsal schedule for Aladdin as an example . If you would like me to create a custom schedule visit my teacherspayteachers store.

Good luck if you have any questions or need any advice leave me a comment! I am more than happy to help!

Brain Break-Splurt

Warning this game is extremely silly and can cause fits of giggles from your students. I will be honest there is not much educational value in this game. Students aren't learning great insights into improvisation or acting. This gme does help students work on their concentration skills. It helps teach kids to adjust to changing circumstances and be aware of their surroundings, but really this game is just to give the kids a break and have fun. Depending on your class you might have to referee the game. I tell them that my call is final.

Have the class form a large circle in the room. Make sure you can see everyone clearly from the center. Choose one person to be "it." This is the person who gets to spin in the center choosing the people. 

Here is how each round is played (it sounds much more difficult than it it). It spins in the circle and stops picking someone at random. The person "it" chooses must duck down. The two people standing on either side of the chosen person must look at each other. The first person to say "Splurt!" Wins (the looser must sit in their spot. (This game goes quickly so students should have the opportunity to stand again in a few seconds). The person who ducks can stand back up once Splurt is shouted. 

The game continues until you have three people left. I then choose one of the three to be the new "it" and the game starts over. A couple of notes, kids need to pay close attention to who is out in each round. Once a person is out you have to keep looking around the circle to find the next standing person. This means that two kids on opposite sides of a circle might be saying spurt to each other if everyone between them is out. 

Take a look at a couple of examples of some "monsters" playing this game for more explanation. I hope you enjoy this game. Did it work for your students? Did they have fun playing it?

Students as Sound Designers- A STEM to STEAM Lesson

If you are looking for a great STEAM activity, look no further than this lesson. This lesson is super cheap and great for teaching about sound waves in class. This is also a great lesson for students to explore how sound can impact a theatrical performance. Depending on your students' age and maturity, you can become very advanced with this lesson or keep it very very simple.

Prep: Download Audacity onto any computers you plan on using for this lesson. This is a free download that works on both Mac and PC. I would recommend you also downloading this to your computer as well so that you can demonstrate the sound effects creation as well. If your computer has a built in microphone you can use that for a free solution, or there are probably several sets of microphone headsets at your school that you can borrow for the purpose of your lesson. If you want to go a little more advanced and get a better quality sound you might want to consider purchasing a microphone from amazon. I got one similar to this for about $20.00 you can find them cheaper and more expensive if you are interested. For the purpose of the lesson the type of microphone doesn't matter, but if you are actually interested in creating your own sound effects for plays a good recording microphone is a must.

Begin by letting your students explore sound creation. Have them practice and create the most original sound they can come up with. I would record all the sounds onto your computer while the students watch. Audacity is great because it shows the sound waves recording in real time. Once students have recorded their first sounds, play back the track. Have the students make observations about the types of sounds they hear verses the sound waves displayed on the screen. This is the perfect opportunity to introduce sound vocabulary including Crest (peak of the wave) Trough (Bottom of the Wave), Amplitude (distance from the midline) and Wavelength (distance from one crest to the next).  Students should begin to recognize that amplitude affects the volume of the sound wavelength affects the length of time. Giving students apple opportunity to explore sound and sound waves will help students get a better opportunity of these science terms (it will also inspire lots of creativity and silliness and who doesn't love that!)

Once students have had some fun and have good handle on sound effect start having them work towards creating specific sound effects. I love to start off with the thunderstorm for the younger kids. They love snapping their finders and stomping their feet to create the rain and thunder. Older kids often get a kick out of creating haunted house sound effects. Let the students use different props and classroom items to explore how they affect the sound. Have them make predictions about what the wavelengths will look like for each sound effect.

For the final project give students a scene to read. Have the students analyze the scenes and create sound effects that will compliment the scenes. Students must create the sounds and record them on audacity. To emphasize the science component, students should then print off the wave length picture and label each sound effect. You might also want to have students draw and label all fo the parts of the sound wave as well.

I hope your students like this activity. Mine love using the computer to create and use sounds in presentations. How do you integrate Science and Theatre?