Last month we had our our comedy night for our homeschool group’s high school speech class. It was so much fun! We’d been working on it for a little over three months but the performance date was a lot earlier than we’d usually have a performance in our co-op so we had to get it together pretty fast. It turned out great though!
The premise was for groups of 2-5 people to pick a piece of literature and edit it, then act it out, turning it into a performance. You had to come up with and coordinate all the actions and character stances.
I was in a group of two other girls, they were both very nice to include me in and we decided to do Winnie the Pooh. The older girl in our group, who’s a senior, brought up the idea and knows Winnie the Pooh very well, she had the book and had in mind a specific chapter that was pretty funny.
We had some hard deadlines on this project, but it worked out. We created a shared google doc with was helpful. We decided who would play who which later we changed that a bit I think. We wrote it all out, we changed around characters who would say some lines in a few spots. We took out Owl completely! It was a bit of a challenge at times to get it all to work. I spent a while, more than needed probably, editing it to all the right punctuation and stuff according to the book.
I ended up being Christopher Robin, Rabbit and part of the Narrator.
The next thing to do was working through different actions and start acting it out. We made a separate version of the script to add in all the actions.We practiced at one of the girl’s houses and her dad who’s a P.E. teacher and great at that kind of stuff watched us and gave us feedback, and her brother helped with part of it.
The three of us met several times in order to plan it all out and practice it.
Apart of the comedy night we were also doing an ending with all the kids which included some skits from The Book of Awesome. We all signed up for which skit to be in. I ended up being in the skit, “When you actually remember the name of someone you met earlier at the party”. We had an extra practice day with the class to practice our individual duos, trios and four-os as well as the ending, and we practiced that stuff a few times on our homeschool co-op days.
I was apart of an even bigger drama performance last year in our co-op, taught by the same teacher and it’s just so fun to be apart of all the high schoolers and kind of show off to everyone there. For both years my grandparents have came. This one was a little debatable on whether our grandparents who live 2 hours away should come, at least for me it was partly because we had seen them a lot in the last two months- each of us going back and forth. They decided to come but I was wondering how interesting or funny it would be. There were a few skits I had seen a bit of and thought they would be pretty funny for them to see but the fact that this was supposed to be sort of book and stuff- I wasn’t sure about it. It wouldn’t be the same as last year’s drama show.
Our group in particular was having some doubts about how funny our Winnie the Pooh was. We had performed on stage that week at a practice day with people watching as well as other times that day in front of single people. We had a few funny groups go in front of us including the group of boys that are in our friend circle that were doing a trio together. We had been enjoying sneaking in to watch theirs- it was really funny! So then it was our chance to show ours, it was their first time seeing it all, and not many people laughed, everyone was kind of down. I think one girl had been thinking about this before though too.
Our parents helped us turn the idea around with us each individually by thinking about Winnie the Pooh as a heartwarming story. The goal should be to get people to smile, not necessarily laugh. Plus, those boys were the outgoing- make you laugh kind of actors whereas us girls were more of the kind, sweet, artistic, Winnie the Pooh kind of girls. Both of the other girls are dancers so more creative and artistic than full out funny. It would have been uncomfortable and not as natural for us to have a super funny skit and have to play those roles- which I think it still was uncomfortable for those boys.
However.
From the first skit of the night, Minnie and Moo: The Case of the Missing Jelly Donut… you could tell it would be a fun night. You could tell the audience was the lively and laughing kind of audience. It was full of people’s family and grandparents which was probably why! The audience would laugh at every joke. A high schooler and her middle school brother were doing that one and the high schooler got more into it at a certain point, probably because of the audience!
I also enjoyed when I saw my Grandpa laughing at the other groups. That was fun to see.
As we went through the skits it was so fun because the audience loved it and I think it was boasting up all the actors and it was making me laugh more and getting me all pumped up!
Our skit was the first one after intermission. We were making a big deal about how we’d rather have another spot and all this it but it ended up being fine. We got our lapel mics on and waited for our time to start and on we went! We knew our lines, we had practiced a ton. The audience was great, it turned out awesome! I was glad when it was over!
The list of skits people did were…
- Minnie and Moo: The Case of the Missing Jelly Donut.
- The True Tale of the 3 Little Pigs
- The Hobbit
- The Human Fuel Pump
- Ella Enchanted
- Meanwhile Back at the Ranch
- Winnie the Pooh
- The Somewhat True Story of Robin Hood
- Moses was a Basket Case
I loved all the support from people afterward! Our friends parents said I did so good, other high schoolers were supportive. Our teacher was really nice to us. I had a good conversation of a mom in our friend group talking about how well I did, she said I looked so comfortable up there and didn’t seem nervous. She was talking about her son and how he said he was nervous for their skit but once he heard the first laugh he knew it would be fine. Everyone loved my Rabbit character! 😂 That wasn’t my favorite to play but that’s what I’m known for playing! The mom was talking about her little girls watching it- they apparently loveee Winnie the Pooh which I didn’t know and for one of them Rabbit is her favorite so when one of them saw me do Rabbit she knew right away and pointed me out.
Everyone came together in making desserts too- there was an EPIC dessert table.
My Grandparents stayed over that night and they said they were glad they came, they said it was a good treat for them or something like that.
Overall it was a great experience and I loved hanging out and growing in friendship a bit with those girls, getting the experience of all the work we did on it and getting to show it off after all our work and practice!
What’s something you liked about it (and why)? I liked how into it the audience was! That was a good treat and made the night so much fun. I liked all the support afterwards. Everyone was so nice and encouraging. I also liked watching other people’s skits! When boys act as a girl or have a high pitch voice- very funny. Everyone’s skit turned out great!
What’s something you disliked about it (and why)? Maybe if I were to improve my character stances and voice a bit more. Christopher Robin was meant to be my normal voice originally but that day I was working on voice stuff and wanted to do it a little more like a boy kid sound. I didn’t really do that in the performance. And Rabbit was hard to do in general, I could have made the stance and gotten the voice better. One of the people giving us feedback said I could put my teeth out of my mouth sometimes which I didn’t do. 😂 Maybe I should have played around with it more though.
What was your biggest takeaway or lesson? I liked seeing how these kinds of performances bring people together that wouldn’t normally talk to each other. The girls are still with the girls and the boys are still with the boys but depending on who you’re in a skit with, you are kinda naturally forced together! And people you wouldn’t normally talk to are very supportive as well! Everyone comes together and cheers each other on.
What is something you’re curious to learn more about as a result of this experience? I’m excited to be apart of next years drama performance and hopefully get some good roles in it!
My Christopher Robin:
My Rabbit:
Thanks for reading!
Lucy