Jumping Mouse- The performances

The last rehearsal before Jumping Mouse started its performances, I was pretty worried. One of our actors had to miss rehearsal because he was sick with strep throat, and the energy suffered because of it.

Once we started performing, the show really came together. I knew that once we had an audience in front of us, the energy and the pace of the show would pick up and improve. The actors were so much more alive onstage, and the play seemed to move a lot quicker. We had four performances, two in the EDH studio theatre and two in elementary schools. The performances in EDH seemed to me to be less engaging than the ones in front of the children. I think this was caused by several factors; the first being that the performances in the schools came after the ones in the studio, and the actors were more comfortable with performing by that point. The performances in the studio were the first time the actors had to actually deal with audience participation rather than Zach Apony and I pretending to be children. Also, there were far fewer actual children in the audience at Hampshire than originally expected. Adult audiences are always somewhat lukewarm in their response to audience interaction, because they are so much more self conscious than children. The first day there were only two or three children in the audience, so when Sassy would ask the audience a question, the response was often a big "YES" rather than the more varied and creative responses the kids came up with in subsequent performances.

Also, the environment of the Studio Theatre was, in retrospect, rather stifling. Because neither Zach nor I know anything about lighting design, we had to depend on the lights already in the theatre. Without lights or a set, the only element of spectacle in the Studio were the masks.

However, the performances in the schools were completely different from the performances in the studio. Since most of our rehearsals took place in a classroom in FPH, returning to that environment for the Monday performance really reinvigorated the show. There was no room for a backstage area in the classroom, so we created one out of bookshelves, blankets, and a whiteboard. The actors peeped out from behind the screen, in character, as mice, as the kids came in. There were so many children in that audience, and all of them were so excited to have a play happening in their own classroom. They were so much more interactive with the actors, coming up with really adorable responses to the questions asked by the actors. ("What are you creatures?" "We're red blood cells!") Also, after the performances, the kids were very interested in the mask making process and asked very good questions as to how the show was created.

The last performance was at the Dunphy School gymnasium at Williamsburg. We had a much bigger performance space, and a backstage created by a rolling blackboard and a sheet suspended between two poles. There were probably around 60 kids, ranging in age from 1st to 3rd Grade. The kids were a little rowdy, but that just meant the actors had to amp up their energy, which made the performance all the better. After all the play was over, the kids all lined up to touch the masks. One little boy came up to me afterwards and asked, "Do you think I could do this?"
"What, do theatre? Create a play?"
"Yeah, do you think I could do it?"
"Absolutely." I responded, and the little boy gave me a huge grin and a hug. That was one of the most amazing moment I had during Jumping Mouse. I love the feeling of introducing children to this thing that makes me so overwhelmingly happy. I was so glad to be able to bring this play to schools, because the show really felt the way it was supposed to when it was in front of an audience of children.