Drama Club 2/13/08

I got caught in a torrential downpour before I went to work today. So I was not in the best of moods to start. I also came to a bit of a realization today. The Drama Club has been feeling a little draining lately. I've realized that, although I love acting, theatre, and drama, I don't think the kids really care. Certainly not on the level that I care. I guess the reason that it's taken me a while to come to this understanding is because it's a Drama Club. Hello. I figured that the kids were there because they were interested in Drama. But now, I think it's simply because they've got nothing else to do. And no choice. But now that I know, I'll make the most of it. So it was very difficult to run through the scene for the Black History Show because I was missing about four of my students. In fact, of those four, one of them, a girl by the name of Storm, has not been there for the past week. So I'm not sure if she's going to be a part of the show. In fact, I'm not really sure who is at this point. Because it's a small club, when kids flake on me it makes it very difficult to produce a quality show. It may end up being more of a staged reading. Since the turnout today was a little lower than usual, we ran the show twice (as best we could) and then played games. There is a game I use almost everyday where the kids each say the To Be or Not To Be speech one word at a time in succession. As they say each word, they pass a little beanbag when it's their turn. This time, as they said each word, I had them say it with a specific emotion. If they were to say the incorrect word, take too long, or drop the beanbag, they had to take a seat in the center of the circle until someone else violated a rule. In fact, I played the game with them and was guilty of dropping the beanbag myself. They got quite a kick out of watching me having to take a seat in the center. Quite a kick indeed. I also had kids work on a scene that I had my special kid, Jourdan, write. Yet another thing about Jourdan is this: I think is mother is a Jehovah's Witness (or somebody is) but anyway he is not supposed to participate in any shows. Even though he participated in the Christmas show. Go figure. So, to play it safe, I haven't put him in the Black History Show. But he still show's up to Drama Club so I have to have something for him to do while I work on the show. So I had him write a scene. It kept him busy long enough for me to work on the show without him being a complete and total disruption. Then I had the other students perform the first two lines from the scene that he had written. It seemed to go allright. They didn't love it. They didn't hate it. I finished with some good old-fashioned Simon Says. But there's always some kid who takes losing way too personally. At least there were no tears this time.