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Tonight started off with some good news: two of the women had “made a third Shakespeare session!” They were running lines at work. “We have admirers,” one of them said, and shared that a co-worker got so into their performances that she asked them to pause while she left the room, so she wouldn’t miss anything!

This evening was spent working on Act III scene i, which includes a whole bunch of people but led us ultimately to focus on Olivia and Viola.

During our first try at the scene, those two stood mostly still during their exchange, which is too lengthy to have so little movement—but that’s what rehearsal is for. Afterwards, I asked them how it had felt. “I felt stuck,” Viola replied. “My heart is aching. I didn’t know what to do!” Olivia agreed, and another woman said, “You speak the words really well. You did seem kinda bored, though… It’s a long freaking scene, too. We should make some cuts to it.” Olivia said that would be good, adding that, since we hadn’t worked an Olivia scene for awhile, she “felt boring after a few weeks.”

We spent the bulk of our time tonight working through Act IV, scene ii. In this scene, Maria’s plot against Malvolio comes to a head. Locked in a dark, windowless room, he tries in vain to get people on the outside to help—but they make fun of him instead.

I can’t imagine it comes as a surprise to this blog’s readers that this scene is a potential minefield for incarcerated people, particularly those who’ve spent time in solitary confinement, and those who’ve survived trauma similar Malvolio’s. We can’t ever assume we know what other people in the room are going through, or what they carry with them, so we have to take great care to be sensitive as we work through this scene.

Tonight’s session was one of those that, from the outside, might seem largely unproductive—but it was emblematic of this ensemble’s (and this program’s) values and priorities. This is a long post, y’all. Hang on tight.

The first (and, it turned out, only) order of business was to cast a new Orsino through an “Orsino-off.” After an ensemble member identified the best “audition cut” of 2.4 (which was EXACTLY what I would have chosen for a professional audition), we decided the order in which people would audition, and the first of three walked onto the stage with our Viola.

Tonight was my first session back after a week in California, where I spent time with The Actors’ Gang Prison Project and Marin Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare in Prison Program. (Tons of gratitude to Michigan Council for Arts and Cultural Affairs and the Anton Art Center for the mini-grant that enabled me to make the trip!) It was wonderful to see everyone, and, after our usual check-in, I spent a long time sharing what I learned from these awesome programs and answering a lot of questions.

Despite the biting cold (and the absence of our intrepid leader, Frannie) our ensemble gathered in good spirits. Check-ins were a mixed bag of goofy and serious, and included the reading of a “check-in sonnet” that Frannie had sent to appease us while she is out doing research in sunny California. Everyone in the ensemble seemed relieved that we were meeting, bad weather be damned.

After checking in and answering our traditional three questions (which we forgot to do last week!), I asked the ensemble what they wanted to do. Some kind of icebreaker? “SIX DIRECTIONS,” said a longtime member, gleefully rubbing her hands together. This Michael Chekhov exercise (a favorite of some… and not so much of others, but they humor the rest of us) is a good one for centering oneself and warming up for scene work and other exercises. Before moving our energy in each of six directions, we did some physical expansions and contractions. We followed these with a Michael Chekhov “personal atmosphere” exercise, which several ensemble members have been asking for.

We got 12 new members today! Actually, it was a bit overwhelming. It’s exciting to have so many new faces, but it’s also a reminder of how tight-knit our little ensemble had become this season. We needed them–we were dangerously close to having too few people to put on the play–but the room feels different with so many new folks in it.

Ordinarily, the holidays are a tough time for SIP–a tough time for people in prison generally. But this year, even though plenty of individual ensemble members are feeling down, the general mood of the group is up. A number of the women even checked in to say that they’re doing “generally well,” which is pretty unusual for a January check-in!

Today we had a special guest! Kyle was back after taking a hiatus from the ensemble since September. In fact (and I was a little sneaky about writing this two weeks ago, when they planned it), the women had an entire “show” planned out for him when he entered the space. The old-timers razzed him, and the new members introduced themselves–and razzed him.