What an amazing journey this has been!  I came to Costa Rica with a drama curriculum for kids and not much more knowledge of what exactly I would be doing.  But sometimes these are the most exciting adventures.  The ones where you don't exactly know what you're getting yourself into.

Just getting my program off its feet took several weeks.  I was so completely unprepared for this.  I was under the impression that if you go to a school, offering up free drama services, that administration would be happy to oblige and that was that!  Oh, no.  This is not the way the public schools work in Costa Rica.  First of all, not being a Tica and not speaking much Spanish made the process quite difficult.  Finding generous bilingual friends to accompany me to all the meetings, to talk with the directors, was a challenge, and also frustrating because I really wanted to be able to communicate with directors by myself.

The first school director I attempted to speak with was at the Cerro Plano Elementary School.  The director wouldn't even let me through the security gate.  I spoke to him through the gate and even handed him a typed up letter stating the specifics of my program.  But he was very skeptical of me and my program.  He told me that he had gringos come in before, offering free programs for his students, and then not followed through.  I assured him I was committed and that this was an awesome opportunity for his students, but after all was said and done, he said, I'll think about it and get back to you.  He never did.  So, I moved on to the next public elementary school...La Escuela Santa Elena.

Initially, I had a really positive conversation with the director of La Escuela Santa Elena.  He was very friendly, welcoming and excited about my program.  He said he would arrange for about 20 students to be in my theatre program, send home permission slips with them, and have them ready and waiting for me the following week.  That never happened.  He never followed through and was never at the school when I was looking for him.  It's interesting how in the public schools here, directors just don't show up to school...often.  Also, if teachers want to call off classes for the day, they do.  Very interesting. 

After much persistence and realizing that the director of La Escuela Santa Elena was not going to follow through with his promise, I realized I would have to do the organizing myself.  I spoke directly to the teachers and the children in each classroom, and to parents after school.  And after many more weeks, despite the skeptical stares from teachers who don't understand theatre...I had a handful of motivated girls show up for my program!

Teaching in Spanish was tough for me.  However, I had a dedicated teenager, Ileana Garcia, willing to help me.  She was able to explain things to the students in Spanish when I was at a loss for words.  Through theatre games, children's books, and much conversation about scriptwriting, the girls wrote a powerful play about poverty.   About three weeks later (we were only able to rehearse about 3 times a week, as the public schools here don't have class at least once every week...I have no idea why) we were ready for our show!

These amazing girls revealed some impressive leadership skills.  They organized the final performance, made sure the backdrops, props, and costumes were in order, made invitations inviting everyone from their parents to the school cooks, and finally...were brave enough to perform their original script in front of many people.  I helped guide them, but they really made it happen.

My next program was in a private school, the CEC.  Because everyone there speaks English, you can imagine how much easier it was for me to communicate with the administration.  I began a 9 week program with students in the high school and elementary school.

The first 3 weeks I worked with a small group of talented teenagers.  They chose themes important in their lives, like alcohol abuse, friendships, and negligent parents.  With these themes, they developed characters, wrote the dialogue and performed an impressive play.  Actually, Tricia Wagner, the drama teacher at the Friends School, invited us to perform the play for her students.  We did this more than a month after working together with few rehearsals to refresh, but the kids did an amazing job.  And more importantly, we had very meaningful conversation about the issues presented.  As a teacher, I think it's so necessary to encourage young people to speak up about problems they may be experiencing.  This has been one of my goals.  Using theatre as a tool to explore and discuss issues and opinions important in the lives of youth.  If I encounter a young person who has been told how to think, rather than be allowed to think for him/herself or a child that has been encouraged to be silent, rather than express him/herself, then I love to encourage the opposite!  Theatre is the perfect tool for this kind of exploration.  It's a safe place for young people to take risks.

The next 6 weeks at the CEC, I began two separate theatre classes.  One with the 1st -3rd graders and one with the 4th - 6th graders.  I met with each class twice a week.  The younger kids explored the idea of empathy through the book Oye, Hormiguita.  I converted this book into a bilingual play, which they later performed.  They had an amazing discussion with the audience about always considering how someone else is feeling.  They used the guiding questions, “Is it okay to step on an ant?”  “What if the ant has feelings or a family of his own?”  “How would YOU feel if you were the ant and someone big wanted to step on you?”  These were all questions the little ones explored and their critical thinking about this issue of empathy was truly inspiring.  What amazing little thinkers!

The older group wrote a play about bullying.  This was a large group of kids and a lot more challenging to manage.  However, despite the obstacles, these kids also had great ideas and reflections about bullying and all the different forms it takes in their lives.

I only wish I could return to Costa Rica to continue teaching drama to all of the amazing kids and teens I've worked with.  All kids deserve the opportunity for creative expression through the arts.  Monteverde is a lucky community to have many locals care enough about the arts to make sure they continue.  People like Luis Dario Villalobos Castro, Tricia Wagner, Alvaro Garcia, Ileana Garcia and all the amazing teachers and parents who support their kids doing theatre and are always staying involved, helping whenever they can.  I feel so lucky to have been a part of it and to have made a contribution.

~Raquelita (Outreach Educator)

The fourth Noche de Improvisacion was Thursday evening, and what a surprise...  More teens came out than ever before!  The teens who have been consistently coming are bringing friends.  Could it be that Improv Night is actually cool?!?!  I'm never quite sure what is going on inside the heads of teenagers.  Trying to relate to teenagers is not always easy, and as much as I feel that I was only a teenager yesterday, that's just sadly not true.  I want the teens to feel like improv night is a chance to express themselves, and not just another boring “acting” class.  The fact that they keep coming back...AND bringing people with them, tells me we're on the right track. :)

Tricia and I are trying to move the kids into more meaningful games, to help them produce thoughtful improv.  This is the “Bridgework” that Michael Rohd talks about in his book Hope Is Vital.  Up to this point we've been doing only a few whole group games every night, where the teens can choose how much or how little they wish to participate.  We've been doing more partner work.  This allows the teens to have a chance to practice the skill being addressed without feeling intimidated by the entire group.  However, now we're starting to introduce games where the teens have to make personal connections to big ideas.  We spoke about friendship.  The teens had two minutes with a partner to share a story about friendship from their past.  The game is called “Storytelling.”  Afterwards, we debriefed as a group about all the various “versions” of friendship that had been shared.  Friendship means something different to many people, depending on their past experiences.  What does friendship mean to YOU?  (Kindly leave your comment below).  These are the baby steps of meaninful improv that we are slowly introducing...

We had a few new teens from the public high school come to improv night, but they mostly sat and watched, not wanting to participate.  One of the teens in particular, seemed very interested and said he wants to come back next week with friends.  Gaining new teens into our group is a process.  It didn't bother me that they didn't participate.  If one has no prior experience with theatre, especially improv, it can feel much more comfortable to sit and watch the first time.  What made me VERY happy was that they stayed the entire time.  Yes, sat for two entire hours, just to watch, clearly interested and entertained by what we were doing.  Now, if they will only come back next week...
-Raquelita (Outreach Educator)

La Tiendita de Los Horrores came to an end, and I thought to myself, “NOO!  All the volunteers are leaving, the kids of Monteverde are going back to school, and nothing will ever be the same again!”

Haha.  Oh, how wrong I was.  This community is starving for more theatrical activities for the youth and even though the public schools are already in session and the private schools are about to be in session,  people are more than willing to help us continue our work.

Michelle, Sophia, Dario and I have been SUPER busy carrying on with various new projects that I’m dying to share.  Michelle’s Puppetry Workshop has been a huge success and is far from over yet.  The best part of her workshop is watching the way the kids have become independent puppet makers.  She set them up with such a strong introduction to puppetry along with many different styles and procedures of making a puppet, that all the kids were able to make their own choices and start working with little help from us, almost immediately!  Next up, a Parade of Puppets, a week from today, Saturday the 20th.  The kids will have the opportunity to show off all their hard work and the community will have a chance to see what’s been happening with FCCMT, since our big annual musical has been over...

We also had our first Noche de Improvisacion/Improv Night, Thursday night.  We had done some recruiting at the colegio público (public high school) in town, to try and get some new teens to join in the fun.  I have been anticipating this night for some time now and have been putting a lot of energy into this idea of a group of teens, trying to reach out to their community, through improvisation... speaking only in Spanish.  Another drama teacher here in Monteverde, Tricia, has reached out to me as a collaborator and I’m SO excited about the ideas she has and the ones we’ve come up with together.  She has much experience with teens and improv, and knows not only “how” to talk to teens so that they will listen, but she knows how to help them build up their confidence.

But back to the evening itself... the turn out of teens, not surprisingly, was relatively low.  However, we had a successful evening and some amazing ideas were born. In the dimly lit workshop space that we now call home, in El Centro Comercial (the mall), we gathered on our homemade, somewhat unstable, but AWESOME stage, in a circle, and proceeded to talk about our group, our intentions, and the best part, all the FUN theatre and improv games we would be creating together. 

So far, there are two teens in our group from the public high school.  They are incredibly motivated to recruit other teens from their school.   These two girls were also

in Little Shop of Horrors, so I know them already.  All I can say, is I’m SO impressed with how dedicated they already are to the group and how I was trying to walk out the door to get home to my host family in time for dinner, and they were like, “STOP.  WAIT.  WHAT time and WHAT day can you meet with us to plan our presentation for the school??”  They are serious about making this happen and that is the whole point.  This is not my group.  I’m just a facilitator.  Lisa and I spoke long ago about creating this group and how one of the main goals would be to help enable the teens to become leaders. Leaders of this group and leaders in their community.

It’s already happening.  That’s what theatre and a little bit of confidence does to people. :)

I feel so grateful to be in a community of artists.  Especially to Dario, Sophia, Michelle, and Tricia, for helping to get this off the ground and for just being there for the first night.  Tricia and I are meeting in the morning to further plan for going back to the public high school and for the second night of improv!  I’ll be back soon with updates.  Wish us luck for el segundo noche de improvisacion!  Anyone want to join us via skype?  I don’t see why not!  Haha.  Jueves.  4:30.  Be there.

-Rachel (outreach educator)

So, the time has come! We have finished our run of La Tiendita de los Horrores, and it was a complete success! Thursday was our opening night, and considering the dress rehearsal we had earlier that afternoon, we were absolutely delighted at the outcome.  I think the biggest factor was that our opening night was standing room only. It was a huge confidence boost for the kids to know that so many people in this town were supporting them and appreciating what they love to do. If there is anything I learned this summer, it is that kids and teenagers really do need to hear that their teachers, mentors, and family members support them.

The rest of our shows were equally wonderful.  Alberto, our super-step-grandfather-volunteer, managed to get us a sound system for the show, a task I had been working on for over a week. However, being an extremely respected member of this community has its perks, whereas being a 19-year-old gringa doesn’t exactly bring about the same clout. Nevertheless, we got the sound system and it helped our show immensely.  Having this sound system meant that I was on sound board for all the shows. I had never run sound before, but since we only had 3-4 inputs at any given time, it wasn’t that difficult. And that way I got to sit in the back of the audience and watch every show! Not a bad trade-off considering all the other interns had to be backstage doing set and costume changes.

Another rather exciting aspect of the shows this year was the talk-backs we had after each performance. We always had at least a few people stay after the show to have a little charla (chat) with our cast and staff, and some really great things came out of it. Throughout the rehearsal process we have been talking to the kids about the themes of the show and how they relate to their lives. One thing that kept coming up was that just like in Skid Row in Little Shop of Horrors, there’s not a lot for teenagers to do in Monteverde but sit around and do nothing. This, of course, led to talks about underage drinking and drug use among teenagers, but it also led us to discuss what these young adults want to have available to them in Monteverde.

They cast, completely unprovoked by the staff, came up with the idea of having a performing arts group where they could come on a weekly basis and be part of an acting group or a dance group just to let off some steam and do something productive with their time. The kids brought these ideas up to some of the parents and members of the community who stayed after the shows for talk-backs, and everyone was completely supportive of the idea. These kids are so amazing and they deserve every opportunity imaginable, which is why I am so excited for them to have Rachel through December to guide them in exploring acting and improv further!

-Erin (choreographer)

When Lisa was founding our organization, she fretted that the name “Far Corners Community Musical Theatre” was too wordy. While it is a bit long for a letterhead, over the years it has proven to be an extremely apt moniker. We depend heavily on the support of our community to launch our programs, and that community extends to the far corners of the globe!

The first places we turn to for support from our community are our friends and family back home. They support us emotionally as we prepare for a long journey, financially as we undertake a summer of unpaid labor, and often in surprising ways as well. Scott’s school donated extra materials from their junior school for our children’s program, and Michelle’s boyfriend went on a hike with her to conduct botanical research. From mailing us things we suddenly discover we need (there is no Wal-Mart in the cloud forest!) to answering technical questions about painting concrete, our network of supporters across the US are always available to lend a virtual hand!

My mother, back at home in Honolulu, is a bit of a pack-rat, is often able to lend or donate just the right odds and ends that we need for our production. This year, she sent me off with armloads of fake flowers (why did we have these lying around our house? Who knows!) to dress the set of our tiendita. She also contributed a cornucopia of different hand-held percussion instruments, all lovingly packed in boxes since my sister and I graduated from elementary school.  Why percussion instruments? Well, we all have to wear multiple hats on the FCCMT staff, and along with my roles as Producer, Assistant Program Director and self-appointed health and safety officer, I was deputized to play in the pit orchestra. While we were able to find eager volunteers who played more common instruments like bass guitar, flute and piano, we weren’t able to find anybody who wanted to join us who also had their own marimba and vibraslap. Since I read music and have a large collection of knick-knacks that could make noises when struck, that job fell to me.

The percussion instrument that I was really hopeful that I could bring is a beautiful two-octave chromatic xylophone that has moved with my family across a continent and which we were allowed to touch only under adult supervision, with the constant admonishment that “this is not a toy!” I doubted that my mother would seriously consider letting me take the instrument on an airplane, let alone on a four-hour bus ride up unpaved roads. And indeed, she was at first hesitant. But at long last, she relented, saying in an “it’s your funeral” tone of voice “I guess it is yours to do with what you like” – it turns out the xylophone was a gift to me on my 2nd birthday, purchased at a pawn shop for $20! I never knew this; my mom had been “keeping it safe for me” all this time. But now, 25 years later, I suppose I am finally responsible enough to look after it.

My mother will be pleased to know that, like so many things we acquire at FCCMT, we put the xylophone to good use, well beyond its originally-intended purpose. It was a key component of our children’s program, where it served as the focus of music and dancing games, and helped the children with their first foray into songwriting. It also served as an emergency keyboard replacement – we suffered frequent power outages in our venue, where we had only two outlets to power all of the instruments, lights and power tools we needed to put on the show. But when the lights went out and the electric piano was silent, the trusty xylophone allowed the children to get their pitches and keep singing! And it proved a surprisingly versatile addition to the pit orchestra; doubling for essentially every pitched percussion instrument, from chimes and orchestra bells to glockenspiel.

Really, between the xylophone, a tambourine and a triangle, I was able to play about 90% of the percussion score. There was, however, one instrument that I could not come up with a good substitution for – a mark tree. For those unfamiliar with orchestral percussion, a mark tree consists of a row of suspended chimes of increasing sizes. When played, it produces an ethereal tinkling that can sound magical, creepy, or, as one cast member put it, “like angels singing.” Since our show has a heavy component of the supernatural, the score makes frequent use of the mark tree, and I became obsessed with the desire to have one for our performances. I wouldn’t even know where to rent a mark tree in my hometown, however – how was I ever going to find one in this remote mountain village?

Luis Dario, our Seymour, co-producer and PR director to the rescue! (I told you we all wear many hats!) He told me that a local hotel (no more than 50 meters from our theatre) has a live band in their restaurant, and that they own a mark tree. I was literally extremely close to my goal – but how would I convince them to lend it? In my experience in the US, even if companies want to be philanthropic, there is a huge bureaucratic rigamarole to go through before anything proprietary can be removed – and at this point, our show was less than a week away!

The amazing support that we had already received from the Monteverde business community should have put my mind at ease. We had over two dozen local businesses support us, either financially, or through in-kind donations, and in all cases the business owners were incredibly enthusiastic about our project. In the case of the mark tree, I eventually made Lisa go and ask for me, since she has both more courage and Spanish skills than I. The gentleman at the front desk said he didn’t think it would be a problem, but he would need to ask the musician, Josué, who would be in later that evening. The next day, Josué himself personally came by our theatre to give his permission, and he walked me back to the hotel to retrieve the object of my desire. “You’re a percussionist?” he asked enthusiastically, and I hadn’t the heart (or the words in Spanish) to tell him that I would be making my percussion debut on opening night. He handed me the instrument, and asked me to please be careful, because it belonged to the hotel, not to him. His trust in a foreigner and complete stranger truly touched me. (And I tried my best to live up to my promise by constantly chasing curious teenagers away from wanting to touch it – I’m not the only one who thinks a mark tree is really cool!)

I was the odd one out in our orchestra, in that the rest of our musicians all have considerable experience at their respective instruments. We had several professional musicians who volunteered to journey from San José and play for our show! Being professional artists, however, meant that they didn’t have a lot of money, and missing a week of paid gigs and private lessons was a hardship for many. Thus, we agreed to provide meals for the musicians. For this, we had to tap into our incredible base of community support amongst the parents and families of our students. Angelina, our unofficial parent coordinator, reached out to the parents, who took turns cooking large vats of gallo pinto and arroz con pollo for our hungry volunteers. She even arranged for various families to “adopt” the musicians, inviting them into their homes three meals a day.  Even parents who didn’t really understand what musical theatre was about, and who were concerned about long rehearsals and time away from studying, pitched in and gave generously of their time and effort, and we are so grateful.

Our community of supporters extends to people we’ve never met in countries we’ve never visited, thanks to the internet. We have amassed a team of virtual volunteers to perform long-distance tasks such as translation and video editing. It’s so gratifying that people who have never had the opportunity to see one of our shows are still enthusiastic about helping to support our mission. 

The show, which is sadly over, was our most successful production to date.  We were able to reach over 600 members of the community, for our biggest audience ever. Audience members have stopped us in the street to tell us how much they enjoyed it, and friends and family back in the states have told us how professional it looks from the pictures. Our success was due to the hard work and dedication of our cast and staff, but also none of it would have been possible without the support of all the members of our ever-expanding community.

-Adrienne (Producer)

We had our first performance of “Little Shop” on Thursday night and, to paraphrase one of my dearest mentors, the show is now soup – all of the humble ingredients have been put together, simmered, congealed, and magically transformed into a whole greater than its parts.  And, as with all good soups, it only gets better with time.  Our Friday night performance was, by far, our best, and I am confident the flavors of our production will deepen with time.

As with all productions, the final push was beset with challenges, both the garden variety and the extraordinary.  Doing a large scale musical in the cloud forest, many hours from well stocked hardware stores, lumber yards and other theaters to provide assistance when needed, created some unique obstacles, but all were overcome through ingenuity and hard work.  Indeed, I’ve come to love this problem solving aspect of production.  The Spanish word for “jigsaw puzzle” is “rompecabezas” – literally broken heads – which has become my new favorite metaphor for the week before a show, not only for the obvious jigsaw angle, but because, literally, lots of heads collide, some break, temporarily, but in the end, unlike Humpty Dumpty, all is put together again for the sake of art.

Three quick portraits to give the flavor of our final push:

First off, the teenagers in our cast have been wonderful.  They are bright, talented, uncommonly patient and kind for their ages.  As I mentioned, we faced numerous unforeseen challenges due to our location and lack of easy access to resources causing countless delays, scheduling changes and tension.  The cast took it all in stride, maintained a positive attitude and boundless energy.  They have been rewarded with, in my estimation, a fine production and the thunderous applause of appreciative crowds.

Second, our core group of volunteers deserves a round of applause.  It was all hands on deck for ten days with each person stepping outside of her personal comfort zone to complete the work necessary to realize Thursday’s opening.  Whether the job was painting the stage floor on hands and knees, lugging borrowed chairs from the local church to the performance space or contacting local eateries in broken Spanish to secure meals for our visiting musicians, this group of, mostly, young people did a hell of a job.

Finally, there is Alberto Guindon, our de facto technical director.  Alberto is the step grandfather of cast member Jaden Eckel, and a fixture in the Monteverde Community.  Initially, Alberto agreed to lend a hand with constructing our stage and set, but turned out donating his entire being.  He not only drew up the plans for the stage and set, he ordered the wood, set up a shop area next to the performance space and worked tirelessly for a week doing all the tasks, large and small, necessary to realizing the physical production.  Then, as a coda to the untold physical labor, he used his considerable connections in the community to find us a much needed sound system.  At last night’s show he was – and I am not exaggerating – selling brownies at intermission with his lovely wife, Angelina.  Alberto’s contributions cannot be overstated and I only hope he has enjoyed his participation as much as we have appreciated having him.

As the theater director of “Little Shop,” I am finished.  The show now belongs to the cast and crew for it to become even better soup.  Due to other obligations, I have to pack my bags and return home on Sunday morning.  Of course, I am excited to see my wife, dog, and friends back home, but as I board the plane for San Diego I am going to be thinking about all the good people and lovely community I’m leaving behind.  From my warm, loving host family, to my friends at The Common Cup, the cast and my colleagues at Far Corners, to the pick-up truck taxi driver who waves to me every morning he passes, I’ll be thinking about them all.  Monteverde is known for its natural beauty, but it is the beauty of its people which I will always remember.

-Scott Feldsher

Hello everybody! My name is Katherine and I arrived in Monteverde to work with FCCMT a week ago. The staff here has been so accepting; I worked with Erin, Lisa, and Adrienne previously, but I was worried about coming a month later than everyone else. Luckily, these worries were unfounded, and I was able to jump right into work here. So far, I have been making props, designing the program, and putting makeup on actors.

This is my third summer working with Far Corners, and I can say that Little Shop of Horrors is the most technically complicated show we have done in Monteverde. This is the first show with have actual stage lights. There may have been a reason for that, as we had trouble with the power going out every few minutes because the lights overloaded the circuits. Fortunately, we were able to fix that problem, and now the lighting looks excellent.

The show has been going wonderfully! It is great to be back in this community working with actors and parents that I met in years previously. My host mom saw the show last night, and this morning told me how happy she was that we all come to Costa Rica to teach theatre to the youth here. Comments like these are the reason that we volunteer.

-Katherine Szocik 

Who could turn down a cute kid?  Not many people.  Michelle and I were at the Farmer’s Market bright and early on Saturday.  I was the first to arrive with Nati, one of the Ronnettes in the show.  We were like, “Hmm...where should we set up to sell our tickets?”  It must have been our lucky day because there was a STAGE set up to one side.  We decided to set up there, until someone kicked us off, which never happened...because, again...these kids are just so darn cute, especially when they are singing and dancing.

For the first hour or so, Michelle yelled in her radio announcer voice that we were selling tickets to the show, while JP, Nati, Kelly, Greika, and some random kid who wanted to help us, went around, asking people to buy a ticket.  It was pretty hilarious because every time a new person walked in and one of the kids noticed, they would motion to each other and SWARM in like a bunch of busy bees with a mission.  Not many could turn down these adorable kids.

Once Erin arrived, she had the kids on stage dancing to music.  It was FABULOUS.  These kids aren’t shy.  I really loved that the boys, Francis, JP, and Jaden were just dancing and singing their hearts out up there in front of total strangers.  I’m so proud of these kids and I’m feeling like more and more people are finding out about the show.  There were also many people who stopped by and were so disappointed that they would not be here for the show (SO many volunteers and tourists are just stopping through Monteverde).

Hopefully between now and opening night, we will have sold more tickets...these kids deserve a full house!

-Rachel Bingman (Stage Director)

The last couple of days have been absolutely insane, and I can't wait to tell you about them!  On Wednesday we had a run-through of Act II that went pretty well with a few fumbles, but I definitely left feeling confident about my choreography. 

Our show is going to be amazing. In fact, I was just talking to Heynor, the barista at our favorite coffee joint, about the show. He told me he heard really good things about it last year and that he would definitely be joining us this year. I replied with, "Yeah, I was here last year, too, and this year's show is going to be even better!"

Wednesday night was our weekly ritual of Common Cup Jam Sessions.  After our staff meeting, I walked down the hill with Vanessa, Michelle, Rachel, Alvaro, and Andrey to Common Cup. We pushed all the tables in the cafe together and jammed out for about two hours. We've gotten to know Heynor and Ken, the owner, really well these past couple of months, so getting to jam with them and play great music is a really fun experience. After expending all of our energy singing and playing various instruments, we needed food. Luckily, there was one restaurant open in town at 10 PM on a Wednesday night - Natcha's Pizza!  (Which is actually no longer called Natcha's, but its name is not prominently displayed anywhere on the building, so we continue to refer to it as Natcha's.)  We bought a ton of pizza and ate it outside before parting ways to get some rest.

On Thursday we had a run-through of Act I, and I was overjoyed.  We had spent a lot of the day working different sections of dances in the first act, and the effort really paid off. The kids did an amazing job.  I couldn't keep from smiling during "Skid Row"!  Everyone had so much positive energy and was totally invested in his or her character. This show is really starting to come to life. I can't wait till the production stops being our baby and goes into the hands of the kids. That's when the real magic always happens. For Oliver! I don't think that happened till opening night. This year with Little Shop of Horrors, however, I think that moment is going to come very soon. I'm waiting in anticipation. We'll see how our full show run-through goes this afternoon!

As for Thursday night, as far as I'm concerned, it still hasn't ended and it is 9:08 AM on Friday morning.  After our staff meeting  we all went separate ways for dinner and then Vanessa, Michelle, and I along with some of our randomly acquired volunteers (Katie, Paul, Rachel, Emily) and cast member Antonio made our way back to the venue to keep working on plant puppet construction. Vanessa and I (mostly I...) sewed the trunk of the plant, which is about 6 feet tall, together by hand, stabilized the leaves we cut out of the fabric with wire, painted highlights on the leaves, and painted veins over all the leaves and the entire trunk of the plant. It's essentially finished with the exception of maybe another hour's worth of painting.

Meanwhile, the rest of the group worked on the fourth and final plant. They constructed the skeleton of the top of the pod out of bamboo that Fiona's dad brought in by tying Boy Scout knots around each joint with the strongest string you've ever seen. Once that was finished, they took all the leaves and twigs that we stripped from the bamboo reeds and wove them into the skeleton so that the full shape could be realized. In the smaller puppets, Michelle used cotton batting to make the pod look nice and soft and fleshy, but since there's probably not enough batting in the town of Monteverde to cover this giant pod, we decided to be resourceful and environmentally friendly by using every part of the bamboo tree. It's basically like the Native Americans using every part of the buffalo.

At around 5:30 AM we decided to call it quits. By then the only survivors were Michelle, Vanessa, Katie, Paul, and myself. So, obviously, we decided to walk up the steep hill to Cerro Plano to the best view in town to watch the sunrise. Then the sun rose behind us and we missed it because there was a mountain in the way. And clouds. Welcome to the Cloud Forest. Either way it was a gorgeous view and after some of the clouds rolled along we could see the gulf.

In Spanish there is a phrase that people commonly use to describe something they really like: "me encanta." Literally, this translates to "it enchants me." Well, literally speaking, me encanta Monteverde.

-Erin Lafferty (Choreographer)

Hey y'all!

Much like Mushnik's Skid Row Florists in Act I, Scene III of Little Shop of Horrors, we are currently Closed for Renovation! Our beautifully empty and large downstairs space is in the process of being transformed into a functioning theater as we speak. There is a crew of workers painting the walls and floors (hopefully removing any concrete dust!), mounting piping on the ceiling to create a light plot, and lining the walls with sheets of Styrofoam to deaden the horrible echo in our cavernous space. This means that hopefully by Tuesday Manolo and Alberto, two parent volunteers who are building our set for us, will be able to get into the space and start construction. Shortly thereafter, Alvaro should be able to get in and start painting the set with a small crew to transform the space into Skid Row and Mushniks' shop. So much will be happening in the next week to make this show a reality, and I cannot wait to see the results. It's times like these, however, that make me wish I had more of a background in technical theater. I want to be more useful in these very practical and essential areas of theater, especially with a non-profit such as FCCMT, but I lack that specific skill set. But hey, I can hang lights and roll marley like you wouldn't believe!

As of today, the show opens in 11 days. Every time I say this I have a slight heart attack, but yesterday Dario reminded me of something very true and comforting - all of my choreography is taught and most of it has been cleaned! I think last year with Oliver! we had such a big cast and so many production numbers that I was more concerned about actually getting the show finished and on its feet, but this year since we have a smaller cast and the dancing is more divided among the different characters, I have the luxury of being concerned about the execution of the choreography. It also helps that we generally have an older cast this year. The kids are able to pay more attention to detail and physicalize more complicated movements. I have also enjoyed this creative process as a choreographer more than last year because of the above reasons as well as the fact that I have a greater knowledge of the dance styles of this era than I did of those of Oliver!

Enough about the show--today the majority of the staff had a great bonding day! We got up this morning and met up to go down to Don Juan Coffee Tour, Dario's uncle's company that he works for. His family owns a local coffee plantation and Dario works as a tour guide there. Last year he took Katherine and me on an informal tour with just the three of us, but today he took Vanessa, Michelle, Scott, Fabian, Sophia, Scott, and I along with four other tourists we didn't know on a real tour. It was so much fun! It's always interesting seeing your friends in different roles. I had never met Tour Guide Dario before. He's quite witty, charming, and unexpectedly knowledgeable about the coffee industry. The tour lasted about an hour and a half and then we spent about an hour hanging out at the cafe there drinking coffee and eating arroz con leche. After the tour, all of us except Dario (he had to keep working) went out to lunch and had some staff bonding time. It's really nice to take the day off and spend it with your co-workers in a more relaxed environment. Overall today has been a great day, and we still have a Cabaret rehearsal in our futures to put the cherry on top!


-Erin Lafferty (Choreographer)