Sho mo nai!

Honban 本番

Last night was our last rehearsal for the musical before the first performance this saturday. This year there are three short plays performed by the JETs in the various areas rather than one large play. The JETs from the city and the area north are doing a version of Goldilocks, the JETs from the west are doing Little Red Riding Hood, and we from the south are finishing off the production with Cinderella. The north are the only group that don't have someone from last year's musical participating; theirs looks to be much different from the others. The west seem to have their act together and it should work out fine. Ours promises to be the best of the three in my humble opinion, perhaps because half of our crew took part in the last musical. I myself have only a couple tiny roles and very few lines as I can't make it to the last performance I'll be chillin with my sister in Osaka that weekend.

The plays are all in English, but we try to keep it to junior high level if we can because most of our audience is Japanese. Only a couple hundred people come to each show.

The different plays will be tied together by Claire, one of the JETs who works in the prefectural office etc, and who can speak great Japanese. She will act the part of an elementary school teacher telling stories to here class (read: the audience). Each play this year also has elements of audience participation.

I have everything I need for my king costume and my horse costume, but I have yet to make my mouse nose (got the ears though). I am the mouse who turns into a horse, you see. The pumpkin transformation is made possible through the participation of a beach umbrella and some shiny fabric.


*Honban means something like "The real thing" with the implication of "performance night"

posted by Fletcher @ 4:20 p.m.