Blocked

Hi friends!

It's Cab again. Here's our latest updates:

1. We finished blocking all of "Firefly"
2. We went through and marked all lighting, sound, set, etc. cues this week
3. We all went through a fairly emotional upheaval.

I knew this show would be emotional. I knew it would rock my students and really take them out of their comfort zone. I was ready for that, but I didn't know what it would feel like until this week.

When I was writing "Firefly," I was really struggling with how to end the story. I knew what had happened with Parker in real life, but I was honestly scared to put it on paper. It felt raw. But, once I had talked to a few families who had lost their kids to DIPG, I realized very quickly that it was the ONLY way to honor these families. No child has survived DIPG. They have either passed from it or they are STILL fighting with it, stable tumor or not.

But, putting it on stage, and seeing the kids work through the scene the first time. Oof. It was a lot...

A lot of times when I am blocking, my students are normally laughing, caught in their own lives. They snap to attention when I call them to stage, but for the most part, I let them do their thing in rehearsal.

This rehearsal was different. You could have heard a pin drop as I blocked the last few pages. And when we ran it, there was NO NOISE. Everyone was transfixed like it was an actual show run. Kids were crying. One of my boys had his head in his hands.

Everyone felt it. And it was the first time we had ever done it.

But, I don't hesitate. Because, as much as that scene hurts, it also calls the action. It's going to make people uncomfortable, and maybe, just maybe, that will make them think twice about this "orphaned" disease.

Love always,

-Cab