by Spencer Duncan, dramaturg
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Top row (L to R): Logan Ruesch, Danny Brown, Michael Comp, Sierra Docken, Haley Flanders, and Dennis the puppet baby. Bottom row (L to R): Britney Miles Smith, Arianna Krenk, Lauren Wilkins, Kate Coombs, and Teresa Dayley Love. Photo courtesy of Britney Miles Smith.[/caption]
At its home base of BYU, Water Sings Blue has brought many smiles to many people's faces. It's been privileged to have Kate Coombs join the audience. And it has enjoyed good reviews from Utah Theatre Bloggers. (Of course, if you'd like to see Water Sings Blue at the Margetts Theatre, you have until tomorrow, Saturday, 10 October, to get tickets.)
But there is much more ahead.
This last week, our Water Sings Blue cast began their tour! For the next three months, our cast will perform for thousands of children in Utah, Salt Lake, and Summit counties with a goal "to introduce theatre to children at an early age through performances and workshops, helping them to start a lifelong love of fine arts." At last count, the BYU Young Company performed for 23,000 children a year!
With each performance, the actors will get to hold an educational workshop with classes. Teachers will also receive, beforehand, supplementary educational packets with core curriculum tie-ins to the show.
It's a very exciting adventure, and we'll clue you in on actor responses at the end of it.
Until then, it's 'bon voyage!'
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Is there really an “edge” to everything“? For centuries, scientists, scholars, and even simple farmers have wondered about space - and how to see, up close, what is so far away.
Ever since the beginning of the rehearsal process, director Kris Peterson really wanted the cast to get their hands in the dirt. Like the events of the musical, the earth has a power to connect us to each other, and she recognized that. One way that Charlotte and I thought to do this was to provide a small number of seeds to each cast member and invite them to grow their own plants over the summer. This was also a way to encourage the cast members to stay mentally connected to the show even when they were physically distant from the rehearsal space.