Year coming to a close ...

It's unbelievable how quickly a school year can go. Two of our actors will already be graduating high school in a week's time. One of us will be completing their second year in law school. I still remember when all three first began attending rehearsals to our little group!

I was so glad for our turnout this evening. I knew three of us

were not going to be able to make it but when it was 7:15pm and I was still by myself, I thought for sure I would have to cancel. Then two showed up, then another, then another, and then two more! It's a testament to how important this sort of creative outlet is for the youth in this community, especially now that school will be coming to a close for the summer.

We have a couple of projects that we will be working towards for the summer: 1.) Preparing monologues for the Tampa Bay

Theatre Festival and so each one of our actors has one in

their toolkit for future auditons. 2.) Solidifying the "floating original" pieces we have out there so we can get them transcribed and stored away for future reference 3.) Casting, designing, and rehearsing "Ricochet," so it is ready for the Festival Performance in September 4.) Organizing and Producing our "Original Showcase Spectacular" for the month of October or September as a fundraiser and a chance for us to do our thing with "Las Mariposas."

Given the majority of the group today hadn't been around in a couple of weeks, we briefed everyone on what was taking place and then worked on some exercises so we continue getting the theatre back into our bones. I started out with general movement exercises, special body tricks, then we worked on four Image Exercises: Complimentary Activities, Complete the Image, Ball Games, and Building Character Relations.

Carlos has been bringing his younger niece along to play with us and it has been great to see her interact (in her own way) with the other actors of the group. My hope is that she, along with Carlos' other brother, will return so we can continue working with them and build up the younger generation of the group. It's good for them to have the opportunity of playing make-believe with the other actors and for the other actors to consider a new individual into the group; especially someone younger and expressing a different perspective than what we're used to.