Drama-rama at RVS

3/3/2013

These kids are super talented and motivated and wonderful and happy.  They adlib, project and put a play together in 5 days. They performed their play last night, about how to take advantage of the opportunity they have to learn at the school. They wrote 4 songs about leaving home, coming to school, being hopeful, and how to best use this opportunity.  The plot followed 4 students, 2 two who took the opportunity and 2 who did not.  I wrote a bare-bones script based on the plot and characters outlined by a team of four writers, including the boy, Immanuel, who had the idea for the play in the first place. 

The actors got very into their characters, and added lines and pieces that made the whole thing so heartfelt and authentic.  Immanuel also suggested that to transition scenes, we have two lines on each side of the stage with the whole cast. The two lines crossed, and those in the previous scene joined the lines and those in the next scene stayed on stage.  It worked super well!

                …The government is looking upon you

You are the leaders of tomorrow

Take it in your hands

You have all the right

To brighten your future

This is your chance.

Dear learners, we are here for school…

                (I apologize for the poor video quality-my battery died right before the play, so I got this from a teacher who took it with his phone.)

           Our dining hall/school hall is very big with terrible acoustics, so projection was a major issue we worked on in rehearsals.  One girl, who often brings an “I can’t” attitude to things was struggling with being loud enough.  I took her to the window and had her get her friend’s attention from 100 yards away.  She aced it on the first try and during the play, was super audible.  Get it girl!

            

            Before and after the show, we had boys dancing kwaito, girls dancing cultural dances and hip hop.  All of the dancers just killed it!

             The whole night left me feeling high as a kite, and the kids feeling super proud and accomplished.  It’s moments like that which remind me how awesome kids are.