Not just another travel blog...but it kind of is: Drama Club

Hey guys!
Now that we have the first performance of our play under our belt, I wanted to share with you a little bit about what we've been doing in drama club since I got here in March.
So, to begin, I wanted to start a drama club at UTFPR simply as a way for students to practice English creatively. For those of you that came to the first few sessions, you remember that we did a lot of role playing games, dialogues, monologues, some very silly warm-up exercises, etc.
Though this was fun, it seemed that drama club wasn't really progressing or advancing towards a specific goal. Around the time I realized this, some Dalem professors and students mentioned the possibility of working on a play. Since I'd had VERY little experience with theater prior to this year, I was open to the idea of doing a play, but envisioned it as something simple. Maybe 45 minutes, simple story, simple language, maybe we'd even perform it in front of the Letras students?! Who knows?!
At this point, I scheduled a meeting for those interested in the possibility of working on a play. What resulted was a mixed batch of students...different ages, varying levels of experience with theater, different interests, etc.
During this meeting, we discussed several different possibilities, but finally (as you can now see) we settled on Sweeney Todd: the Demon Barber of Fleet Street. Now, you may be asking yourself (and this is something I often asked myself when we made this decision) "how do you go from expecting a simple 45-minute play to choosing to work on a famous MUSICAL that has been on Broadway and was a famous film?!" The answer is: the ten wonderful students who decided to take part in this project.

From the beginning, there were many challenges. Many hours of rehearsals were spent discussing questions like "what if I can't sing? How are we going to reserve the auditorium? How will me make props? Where will we rehearse? What if they can't understand what I'm saying? What will we do about costumes?" And the list goes on and on. I think I can say that we all went through moments of doubting how exactly we were going to get all of this together. However, when I think of what made our performance possible, I go right back to the same answer as before: the ten wonderful students who decided to take part in this project.

As I mentioned earlier, I had VERY little experience in theater before this year. And, NO experience directing...anything. From the beginning, this whole project has been a collaborative effort. At some point, every single one of us played the role of director and any other role that was needed throughout this project.
Because of this collaboration and help from so many great people, we got more confident with each rehearsal. We took advantage of our time without classes during the strike and practiced many hours each week. Soon, we started seeing everything slowly coming together. Of course, some final details didn't "come together" until the last minute (as happens with any big project), but, as those of you who attended our first performance can see, we did it! And, we did it well.
Igor, Belisa, Evandro, Luiz, Jeferson, Wil, Gabriela, Rodrigo, Naire, Daniel...I'm so proud of what you've all accomplished. You've worked extremely hard and the hard work paid off. None of this would have been possible without every single one of you. I don't know how to thank you for how special you've made my time here.
Ok, enough with the sentimental stuff. Following, some pictures of our progress over the last few months: