My Experience With Honk so Far

When I discovered this show actually existed, I was a bit skeptical at first. A show about singing animals? This could be a disaster. I auditioned anyway because I knew my director would look at the show differently and hopefully not make it into a bunch of kids playing cute little animals.

I was right, my director turned it into something different then I had feared it might have been. The choreography is great, the music is great, the blocking is great, everything that we have worked on so far has been great. I expected some things to not go right the first run through because it’s our first run through. The songs are my favorite part of the show. The script is okay but I really like the songs. We have done a lot of Disney musicals recently and this show is a nice change of pace. I can truly discover my character and this show entirely new because I hadn’t heard of it before. I can tell by the work that we have put into this show this far that the finished product will be fantastic.

My role in this show is the Turkey. I have made many discoveries about my character as the show has progressed. The Turkey is the teacher at the school in the duckyard. He teaches the ducks all sorts of things like quacking and bad manners. He isn’t the greatest role model as he completely leaves the children to fend for themselves while he listens in on a conversation about french bread. He also is deathly afraid of Thanksgiving. Assuming birds don’t really know the human calendar too well, Thanksgiving could happen at any given moment. Since I’m the only Turkey in the duckyard, I’m kind of doomed. I can use these thoughts to my advantage to keep the tension in my character. Something else about my character is that in one of my scenes, I teach the ducklings. I can use this scene as a way to explore my relationships with other characters. I can also use this as a way to explore more things about how my character thinks and acts. Being the Turkey has also given me the opportunity to work with some people that I normally don’t work with often.

I was very excited to start working on this show and I have learned many things about theater and about my fellow castmates. I have even discovered some things that I can do in a theater setting. My improvisational skills aren’t that great and because of this show they are starting to get better. It has been an honor to work on this show and I have had a lot of fun working on it!

(As the Emperor, Mulan 2015)

Ryan Hinderaker