A Great Cast

I arrived at STC thinking “This is going to be really cool!”. I didn’t know much about  Honk! Jr., except for the fact that it was based off the Ugly Duckling. I knew that I was a duckling named Billy and that my other siblings were named Beaky, Fluff, Downy, and Flappers. But that’s about it. I didn’t know how we were going to make birds fly or swim. I didn’t know how we were going to make Ugly “ugly” or the ducklings “hatch”. But it all worked out in the end and this show has gone really fast. We are ready to perform. But as we progressed and I was so impressed with how fast we were going, I kept thinking “How come this is going so fast?”

I knew, for one thing that at our first read-through, we acted it out, getting a rough idea of what the play could look like. Now, like I said, it was just a rough idea, and was definitely nowhere close to what we are doing today. But it did give everyone some good ideas, to help speed up the blocking process. So that did make doing the scenes go faster, and I thought this was my answer. But as the rehearsals went on, and we all realized that the script was “working against us”, or making it really hard to be honest and make strong connections, which makes it harder for us as actors to really perform it professionally; I realized that it had to be more than just the way we did the read-through.

As we got closer and closer to opening night, I still didn’t have any idea of what made Honk! Jr. so different from the rest. But then, one day when our energy was pretty low, as it was early morning, and we didn’t have a lot of people, I realized that what made this show so cool, was how well our ensemble worked together. We got things done, were mostly pretty focused and all of us fit in. All in all, the cast in Honk! Jr. is a really good one. As we get closer to opening night though, we’ve got to remember everything we’ve learned, and keep in mind that no matter what happens, this has been an amazing process where we have accomplished a lot. Our cast is amazing and I think that Honk! Jr. was a good choice to wrap up the 10th season of STC with. All my fellow cast members, thank you for making this show go so smoothly, and having a great cast, and all in all, making me have such a fun time putting on my first musical.

Julia Divine