My gift to you: In to the Woods with Mama Drama

We have had a crazy week! I'm finally starting to breath and the laundry pile is beginning to recede which means me can resume our summer lessons.

Writing a lesson plan for this musical had it's challenges. There is so much wonderful material to work with and I found myself getting a bit to complex for their little minds. Although I think kids are capable of far more then we give them credit for I had to keep reminding myself to simplify and save some of those acting exercises until they could at least read better.

We started with a simple warm up. Lying on the floor we relax our bodies

Then we tighten every muscle in our body.

We did this about 4 times just to wake our bodies.

Then I played the instrumental music to Into the woods. The girls wiggled and danced around the room and when I paused the music they became statues in a museum.

I'd walk around them like I was a guest in the museum inspecting the sculptures and taking pictures of the beautiful art. After a few rounds of the free style poses I would give them a character from "Into the Woods" that they would have to turn into a statue.

Cinderella

Giant

Coppelia wanted a prop and a second chance at her giant statue

We then moved on to vocal warm-ups.

We started of with Repunzals "AHH AHH AHH" singing. I gave them different ways to sing it.

Calling for her prince

Bored

Scared

in agony

Then we worked on our pronunciation and projection Using these lines from the musical.

"Beans, beans, the special beans, I let him go, I didn't know he'd stolen my beans."

The second line used was,

"To see, to sell, to get to bring, to make, to lift, to go to the festival."

Typically at this age I would cut these lines in half but since my children have the whole show practically memorized the real exercise for them was in saying it clearly.

We then moved as the characters would across the floor

The bakers wife - chasing after the cow

Rapunzel's prince stumbling blind through the forest

The Giant

Little Red Riding Hood

The Wolf

Prince Charming searching for Cinderella

As actors I think it is important to understand a character and the decisions they make.

The girls really like the Witch in this musical she has some of the best songs and lines and in this musical she would be considered an anti-villain. What qualifies her as the villain is the poor choices she makes against the people that have wronged her and towards the daughter (Rapunzel) who she loves and really just want to protect.

We sat next to our music player and listened to her sing and then discussed the Witch. Once we were done I had them sing along with the Witch expressing the emotions they now understood.