I present to you...!

Wow, these have been a busy two days. Yesterday I put in about an eleven hour day, volunteering the in the classrooms (8:00 AM to 3:00 PM) and then four hours that evening just working on our voice acting. Then my aunt from Indonesia was here when I got home at 9:30ish, so of course I stayed up chatting with her. I was so glad I got home in time to see her.

Yesterday I was pleased with how well it went voicing for the girl I was working with (I mentioned her in my last post). I occasionally had trouble following the other teens' chatter, but that can be difficult even if it's in your first language. ;-) I'm pleased with how much my receptive skills have improved this year. Even though I'm not technically interpreting, it's awesome practice and gives me experience seeing the kinds of things you have to deal with in an actual classroom.

When I first entered one of the classrooms, the teacher suggested a job I could help with, but I didn't know much about that. Then she mentioned that one of the students was trying to learn to juggle for his role in the play. Now that I could help with! He had already figured out the basics and was juggling pretty well already, though, so I just gave him a few tips.

Today our voice team spent the whole day sitting in the auditorium, practicing the voice acting as the actors went through their skits. Even though the school owns about eight microphones, they somehow lost all but one of the cords. So four of us are trying to juggle a mic back and forth as we're voicing rapid dialog. That's...interesting. Especially since handling the mic creates a pretty loud rustling noise. But hey, we're making it work. Between the weird seats and all the twisting, it's been a bit hard on my back and another lady's.

Man, the Deaf actor who is advising and helping direct all the plays is being run ragged. He's scheduled to be with a class pretty much every minute of the day, all day. Poor guy has been working non-stop for a week and a half at this camp, then he gets about a day and a half of a break and another kind of camp starts up. He's a great teacher and in high demand. He was one of my favorite teachers in college last year.

Picking the different voices for the characters is fun. My favorite of my roles is in "The Emperor's New Wig." One of my roles is the "invisible wig" maker. I have a script with lines that are written in sort of half English/half ASL, so I have to translate them a little and have fun coming up with something that matches the character. "I present to you an exquisite wig, visible to only the most brilliant among you. Those who are fools see nothing!"

Another fun role, but also one of the most challenging, is a rejected princess in "The Princess and the Pea." She's French and the script has her written with an outrageous personality, so I've been attempting a French accent as I go all out with the performance. I was a bit taken-aback when the actor came out. (I hadn't gotten to see that part of the performance yet.) She is a very understated actor, so now I'm trying to tweak my voice to make it match her affect better.

Tomorrow will be similar to today. There is a dress rehearsal in the morning, a BBQ, and then the production! Despite the challenges, I've been having so much fun, and it's been a valuable learning experience.

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