Countdown: 4 days

 It's 8 PM on Monday, July 25th and we depart on Saturday, July 30th at 7 AM for SFO airport. I can't believe we're only 4 days away...

Rehearsals are wrapping up and our original, student-written adaptation of Frankenstein is turning out fantastic. Today's rehearsal focused on technical elements. We completed a transitions' tech rehearsal this morning to track props and set changes. Our stage manager and lighting designer, Claire Dent, titled each scene and marked the start and end times. We're doing something a little different with this production - it's almost like a physical theatre piece. Alum, Riley Snodgrass, composed all of the music for our adaptation, and we've edited Riley's compositions to run in tandem with the projections. The whole track will play like a soundtrack underneath the entire piece. But as you might imagine, we have to be diligent about timing and making sure each transition happens seamlessly. Complimenting the music and excellent organization of our stage manager, Lily Funkhauser has designed two painted spheres with fabric that will hang from pillars in the theatre to help establish mood, setting, and time of day. The costume team, made up of Lue Conley, Colin Wilson, and Lilia Chavira finished putting together looks for each character and finalizing costume designs. Lastly, the props team, led by Savannah Dey and assisted by Jhumpa Banerjee-Stevens, is nearly done with all the necessary antique books, notebooks, and hand accessories for the storytelling. Jhumpa designed and built our creature puppet who the students have fondly nicknamed "debauchery". 

All the actors are mostly off-book - we'll get there! We have dress rehearsals on Wednesday and a final dress on Thursday. 

After that, all that students need to do is pack, get a negative COVID test, and show up on time to carpool together to SFO. 

When we land in London on Sunday, July 31, we go straight into a tour to see Buckingham Palace, Parliament, and Big Ben. After that, we'll relax at our hotel for dinner and much-needed sleep. On our first full day in London, we're taking a class and a tour at the Globe Theatre, then enjoying lunch at Borough Market, followed by an afternoon of sightseeing at the Tower of London, Trafalgar Square, The National Gallery, and finishing up with a West End theatre performance at Shaftesbury Theatre seeing a new musical take on a classic Shakespeare called & Juliet. You can read about it here: https://www.andjulietthemusical.co.uk/

To sign-off, here's some pictures of our latest work in the rehearsal room: 

Rehearsals are underway!

 Inspire begins Edinburgh Festival Fringe rehearsals...

15 students and I began gathering in IC-21 (thanks Mr. Johnson for letting us use your room while the new theatre lab floor is installed in IC-23!) to rehearse our 2022 entry at the largest performing arts festival in the world - the Edinburgh Festival Fringe!

This is the first year that Fringe is back to pre-pandemic attendance and it's expected to be a fantastic year of comedy, dance, music, theatre, and variety shows. The Fringe celebrates its 75th anniversary this year. The founding principle at the heart of the Edinburgh Festival Fringe – to be an open-access arts event that welcomes anyone with a story to tell and a venue to host them – still guides the work of the Society today.

Inspire students are honored to attend the Fringe for the 2nd time and look forward to helping celebrate the Fringe Society's founding principle of being welcoming and inclusive, a principle that is reflected at the very core of what it means to be a student at Inspire School of Arts and Sciences.

Our students wanted to create an updated adaptation of Mary Shelly's Frankenstein. Told from mindscape of Victor Frankenstein - a wonderful student who believes completely that she is destined for greatness. Watch how her ability to command the heavens' great thunder, to mimic the earthquakes, and mock the invisible world with its own creations and shadows reeks havoc on her mind.

The script is written, devised, designed, performed, and produced by Inspire students. They've taken an inclusive and exciting approach to the characters. These classic characters were adapted to be truly representative of the many expressions and identities of our students. Additionally, the adaptation captures Shelly's aesthetic by telling the story from inside Victor's mind. The stage serves as the brain, the nerve center of this story, and all its characters a part of her psyche. 

Check out some of our recent shots in rehearsal: