Thistletop Theatre, Act 1 and 2

Our Thistletop Theatre has had two great weeks together. This group has piles of ideas and piles of energy. The production we create, I'm sure, will prove to be very interesting!

The first two weeks were spent on character development: seeing what characters we have in the group (quite a few!), and imagining what characters we could have in our play. By the end of week one, we had brainstormed an ambitious list, which included, but was not limited to:

• a turtle
• a wild pony
• a dolphin
• a unicorn
• a bunny
• a chipmunk
• a bunny-corn (bunny with unicorn horn on its head)
• insect larvae
• a pergrine falcon
• a porcupine
• a worm
• some lego characters
• a fox
• a hedgehog
• some ninja characters
• a panda

Our biggest task will be narrowing down our many ideas!

We played charades using different emotion words, and some get to know each other games. Then we went for a hike to the pond.

Several turtles were out sunning themselves on a log, so we spent a quiet minute doing a character study of a turtle. We picked spots on our own to sit quietly and watch. Then we talked about words that would describe a turtle. How could we act like turtles? What ideas does this character give us for our play?

On week two, we played some more games, then acted out the story The Sunflower Sword by Mark Sperring - a wonderful tale of a fierce dragon transformed by a sunflower-carrying young soldier.

Then we looked at nature ID mats that have local flora and fauna on them to try to narrow down our list of potential play characters. They came in handy as we explored the forest!

writing about wooly bear caterpillars in his nature journal

See you next time, dramatic friends!