Thursday, November 13, 2008

More Emma


Jane Austen and her "creations", originally uploaded by Chez VH.

Especially for Charlotte! :)

Jane Austen (in the maroon dress) was the witty narrator that brought a lot of clarity and connectedness to the story. (Great script by the way, but it was long and LOTS of work!)

The famous authoress is pictured here with (clockwise from upper right): Mr. Knightley, Harriet Smith, Emma Wodehouse, Jane Fairfax and Frank Churchill.

We had our second performance this afternoon. The troupe performed at a nursing home for retired School Sisters of Notre Dame. It's been fun to see these retired teachers' interest in homeschooling. We also put on an Irish Dance performance for them around St. Patrick's Day and they're a very fun audience!

A few random tidbits:

Mr. Knightley is wearing MY boots!

Lyra Face Pencils were a wonderful last minute discovery (and are responsible for Mr. Wodehouse's lovely whiskers in the previous photo - I started with black and then added some white into it). They are definitely going to make the trip to Latin Convention with us this winter.

Most of the costumes were recycled from parents' clothing or rummage sale finds. Jane Fairfax's dress, however, was made by her grandmother.

My one sewing project for the play was Mr. Wodehouse's hat. As long as it doesn't require a machine, I'm good. :)

4 comments:

Charlotte (WaltzingM) said...

Oh my goodness. I didn't even realize that was makeup until you pointed it out. I wish my kids were old enough to be interested in doing something like this. Would you mind going into some details later about the process from start to finish. Where do you find scripts or does someone adapt them? How much time do you devote to rehearsals? Are you able to do any sets at all or is that too limiting because of your venues? Like I said, I'm living vicariously through you!

love2learnmom said...

Sweet - I'll try to! The kids have really organized everything on their own with a little occasional prodding. I should probably get them to write up something about it. They put on Alice in Wonderland last fall and it was fabulous. Emma was a lot more, though. A much longer script, more subtlety to bring out the humor (you had to get certain facial expressions and pauses and things just so to make it work).

There's a script company called Dramatic Publishing that the directors have found these scripts from. Both of the ones we've purchased so far have been really creative and well done.

We have our interesting moments (and I've probably threatened three or four times to not do it again the following year!). Yesterday morning, I was running some last minute errands before our first performance. My sweet little Kate (6 years old) called me on the cell phone (I was driving on the freeway at the time) to let me know that Terri needed a servant's costume. (She had two parts, but had a costume for the other, so I assumed she was good.) Fortunately a quick trip to Saint Vinney's was basically on my way and she borrows Mrs. Bates' granny cap for her little scenes. Sigh. :)

Anonymous said...

LOL on the boots. This looks like so much fun.

Kimberlee said...

Awesome looking bunch! What fun they must have had!