At last: first rehearsal week

Wow, what a whirlwind the past 2 weeks have been.  The ensemble had two big hurdles to deal with: casting and shadows.  Let's deal with shadows first since that was fun.  I had a grant from a local fund, the Berkeley Public Education Foundation, that has given me 12 hours with a shadow artist, Christine Marie.  She came about a month ago to introduce us to the shadow world and what might be possible in terms of shadow creation that we could use in this play.  She did this before I actually wrote the play and so as I wrote it I could think in terms of shadows.  And boy did I...there are shadow possibilites everywhere.  So, now she comes in (we are down to 7 hours with her) and actually helps us create scenes.  Attached is a video of our first creation--the opening of the play, where we are trying to create the impression that the outside world is threatening the Hagia Sophia:  it is, after all, May of 1453 and the Ottoman Army is about to crash through the walls of Constantinople.  I wanted to do this in shadow (mostly because it is cool, but also because it creates a whole different feel, than if I had a mass stage combat scene--which I did last year for Macbeth and just wanted to learn something new).  It was a blast and even though we did it quickly without costume, I think it gives us the basis for which to grow.
The second thing was casting which proved, as it always does, both rewarding and difficult.  It is great to think about kids and match them to roles that suit them and stretch them.  This would be a great play for a smaller cast of say 20, or even 25, possibly even 30.  But with 37 vying for key roles (it seems they all wanted to be a few characters), some were bound to get what they wanted and others not.  The details and specifics will be familiar to all who teach young people theatre.  As I say in my storytelling: it was long in the doing, but I'll make it short in the telling:  the play was cast.
And this week, what fun--rehearsal.  On Monday, Christine helped us with shadows, with nearly the entire cast present.  Tuesday I met just with the kids who get trapped in the Hagia Sophia (they provide the audience with one of the through lines for the entire play).  We talked character, purpose and split up lines.  I also met with the Byzantine Artist and Ottoman Artist who open the play feeling the pressure of the "shadow" army that is approaching.  They are creating a new work, a blending of Islamic and Christian styles into something very exciting--but it is dangerous and against both their religions.  The two actors cast are very excited about their roles and in the first rehearsal they really established a good relationship on stage.  Which is key, as this is the audiences other through line for the play.  And their relationship, if it is real and believable will really go a long way to letting the audience invest in everything else.  I am very excited about these two students and their potential.
Wed, no rehearsal for a staff party.  Yes.
Thursday, we had the tour guides and ensemble members to create student tour groups.  What a great rehearsal.  This could be a dead scene.  3 or 4 pages of facts about the Hagia Sophia, but the 3 tour guides totally invested in the enthusiasm and vocal play that was necessary, and the ensemble created fantastic pictures in tableux and through movement that complemented the story.  I didn't have to choreograph or block in a traditional way--I just told them all to use the viewpoints we trained in for the first month and the listen to the tour guides and use that to motivate their movement responses.
The details aren't as important as the reminder that if one is to do ensemble based work, it is crucial that a common vocabulary  and aesthetic is established through training and not through rehearsal.  All that 6 weeks of training allowed them to fully create a scene in a 90 minute session, with me serving as an eye and nudger. 
We are heading into a much needed 2 week vacation.  But this week has reminded me, yes, of all the work ahead of us, but also, of the fact that I think we have an awesome play, and an awesome group of students to build it.

Student reaction

Last week we read the  draft of the play and discussed it.  In general the students liked it, some scenes more than others, nothing different than any other project I have devised with students,  but I also picked up from one student who I trust,  that some students felt the draft didn't necessarily reflect the particular work the students had done.  This lead to an overall discussion and my further reflection on the devising process.  There are as many ways to create devised theatre as there are people involved in it.  Similarly there are as many forms that devised work can take as there are people involved.  In summary, the particular form I used for this project was to tell the story/history of the Hagia Sophia to my students and express why it had such a strong impact on me.  I told them that since my particular art form was theatre I felt compelled to try and create a theatrical response to all I saw, thought about and felt.  And further, that since I worked with young people, I wanted them to be part of the project.  We then worked with themes and they built scenes and movement pieces based on those themes.  We then met for a month and discussed story ideas.  Then, I took all of that, plus mixed with my own research, I wrote a draft of a play, which they then had before them.  I expressed that if I sat down and wrote a play about the Hagia Sophia without their input it would have looked very, very different.  That indeed this play was the way it was because of their input and involvement.  They seemed satisfied with this.  But they were happy that I kept things open for additions as we continue our rehearsal process.
We then continued this week with casting the play.  In some devised pieces in the past, casting was natural in that kids performed in scenes they created.  But because this was not a scene by scene creation, but rather was conceived as a complete play, there were no scenes fully developed by students.  I decided to use a more traditional casting process (which I use for already written plays). I asked students to indicate their schedule (available days for rehearsal),  and the parts they were interested in.  Then we moved to actual auditions.  I had sides from the script available and had the students read from those sides in groups or individually depending on the parts they were interested in.  The nice thing is I already have seen them in their scene creations through the past few months and have some indication of how they move, (which is crucial and often difficult to ascertain in an audition settinging) but I wanted to hear their voices on the large stage. Our auditorium holds 950 seats and can swallow young voices, so it is essential key roles have strong voices.  I will cast the play this weekend and we will spend the last week before the winter break rehearsing what we can. 
The shadow expert I got a grant for (courtesy of the Berkeley Public Education Foundation), Christine Marie, is also starting this week.  I am anxious to see how we can incorporate shadow work into this project.  We have her for a total of 10 hours.