The Theater!

Megan and her friend/colleague Dan work for First Stage Theater Academy in Milwaukee. Megan asked me in the beginning of July if I'd like to work as a TA with them for the last 2 weeks of July.

I jumped at the chance! As you might know, I'm into theater a bit and love to be goofy, have fun and be around kids. What a great chance to do all of these things!

I was house sitting in Hartland at the time, so the drive to Hartford was 20 minutes less each way than it would have been from Waukesha. I drove to Hartford's Shauer Center each day, listening to NPR and hearing people complain and discuss everything from President Bush to Kevin Barrett.

The camp was set up nicely...9-3:30 each day, usually about 1 hour per activity. Movement first thing in the morning, followed by voice (a nice way to warm the entire body up!), followed by scene work.

Lunch from 12-12:30 and recess (yes, recess!) from 12:30 - 1.

At 1pm we did something called "Creative Drama". I wasn't around for the first 2 days of this, but the kids, Dan and Megan were playing explorers who were setting out to explore a tropical jungle in the middle of Antarctica (a geographical anamoly). Each child thought of their own part to play in the exploring group, how their character would work with the group and what their character could bring to the group.

It was, admittedly, a lot of fun.

Next was more scene work followed by improv at the end of the day. The kids really enjoyed improv - they really enjoyed everything, actually.

The improv was set up using a lot of games from "Whose Line Is It Anyway?" Lots of fun, always a lot of laughs.

This was such a fun experience - it brought my interest back into the theater and maybe, just maybe, you'll see me up on a stage again soon.

Curtain.