Spanish Fork Arts Council Showcase

We performed the garden scenes in the Spanish Fork Art Council Showcase Saturday. We worked the scenes furiously over the past week and made some excellent progress. We got some laughs and had some fun at the show. I missed a line but all-in-all, not bad for our first experience in front of an audience. Great job everyone! There will be a mention of us and our group in the Spanish Fork Press, including a picture of us on stage (so I was told by a pressman at the show). Carob is leaving for Seattle this week and will be greatly missed. Becca has been named as board president and we will have meetings in the near future to delegate opportunities for board members to help move the group forward. Bio's for our players will appear on the blog as I receive them from the players. Rehearsals will now be at Becca's house, see you there!

Marie Knowlton

Marie Knowlton has been involved in theater since elementary school. She has a BA from Southern Utah University in Communications and Theater Arts, and is currently working on a BA in English from UVU. She has served on the boards of Art City Community Theater, the Villa Institute of Performing Arts, and is currently on the board of Springville Playhouse. She has acted, directed, and been otherwise involved in dozens of shows, including "Midsummer Night's Dream," "The Crucible," "The Diary of Anne Frank," "The Wizard of Oz," "Dracula," "Harvey," "Once Upon A Mattress," and, currently, "Scapino," which runs March 5-27 at the Springville Playhouse. She has also had poetry, short stories and speculative fiction published and her work appears in the National Gallery of Writing. We are very pleased to have her join our group!

February 13th Rehearsal

Expect to see a bio here on the blog next week for our new Director Marie. Marie is working on Scapino for the Springville Playhouse but has generously taken on directing our group as well. She is a professional and knows how to keep us moving from where Carob and others have brought us. At our rehearsal Saturday she worked blocking exercises for several scenes where some physical comedy will bring smiles and laughter... She had some great ideas for our live statues who will show some actions and emotions to mirror and interact with characters and audience. Anyone else have a skinned knee? After Carob loosened us up with some animal impersonation exercises and Darin shared oranges and bananas, most of us were ready to let loose. 'Bigger' was the most frequently put advice. I heard a 'less feminine' in there more than once. So men, man up and ladies and gentlemen get more physically emotional, energetic and powerful. Since we are at a distance from much of the audience, facial expressions, while essential in helping us feel the emotion and convey emotion in our voice, will be hard to see. Since much of the language is unfamiliar to our modern audience, expressions in physical and audible emotion are our best tools for telling this story. My first experience with Shakespeare I was fascinated by and found respect for the playwright because I felt a shared humanity in a 400 year old story. The human emotional range of the characters while lifelike and believable as played by some great actors, was also 'big' and obvious. Once we understand the emotional content of our lines, we can start thinking about 'big' physical ways to convey how our character feels. Carob's assignment for us this week was to watch Fame. This is drama!

February 6th Rehearsal

We had an important discussion about the future of our group with Carob and Bjorn. Bjorn, President of the Spanish Fork City Arts Council, expressed his support and excitement about our group and would like to see us succeed. He felt like the rest of us, that such a theater group would be a meaningful addition to the communities in Utah Valley and he hoped to get us some additional funding. He also believed we could be a part of the annual Harvest Moon Hurrah in August likely to be held at the library park in Spanish Fork. This is a great event with lots of activities, there will be a good crowd, perfect for our debut year. We all had a chance to show Bjorn our commitment. There was a positive feeling in that meeting about our group's future. After the meeting we split up into focus groups and practiced some of our scenes. Wont it be great when we can get off book! Keep up the good work!

Carob's Coaching

Give Carob the chance to give some personal coaching for your character. She's great at asking the questions that will help you understand the character and can help improve understanding of the emotional content in your lines. Set up an appointment with her next rehearsal if you haven't already. Be sure to do your homework and have your scene analysis completed. You'll have a great time, develop your acting skills and Carob will have the chance to express her artistic talents in direction. Also check out this discussion on our facebook page on the definition of blocking.

January 30th Rehearsal

Wow! Isn't Meg great! Carob knows how to find talent. We were blocking at a furious pace at rehearsal Saturday under Meg's direction. She really knows this play and knows how to set a scene. She asked us to take good notes during our rehearsals, so it's up to us to make sure her creative vision isn't left out of the play. Remember she gave us some great pointers on how to do scene analysis and create notes. She used an example from Othello. Refer back to the example sheet to prepare your own notes in your script. We also tried on some of the costumes for the ladies. These are lovely simple dresses which resemble period fashion. Great work Carob!

First Theater Rehearsal

Hello friends!

We had a great rehearsal on Saturday at the Little Theater at Spanish Fork High School. We started some blocking exercises at the direction of Carob and Meg. We also covered some basics about the stage layout, which will help us take direction in the future. We are learning the language of theater! Exciting! We are just warming up and are about to hit our stride. We have some exceptional and energetic talent leading us who have experience and vision. We have a great group of players and we are starting to get comfortable and loosen up. As we warm up to each other and get comfortable and friendly with everyone in the group, our acting will become natural. This is the debut show for Theater in the Park and we get the chance to make first impressions in our communities. We want the families who attend to bring their friends back next year! In the future blog entries will be added at least once a week on Sunday evenings and will include a recap of our Saturday rehearsals, a summary of our board meeting discussions, updates on funding, venues, schedules and costumes.

If anyone has friends and family, bring them in for a visit to a rehearsal and maybe we can convince them to join us as an extra! We are also looking for anyone with carnival talent to join the show, i.e. juggling, unicycle, acrobats, tumblers, fire breathers, sword swallowers, minstrels, the works! (Kidding about the sword swallowers!)