The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe- Week Seven: 'The Spell Begins to Break.'

As we move closer and closer to the Christmas show; it has come time again to start introducing costumes into the mix. Slowly at first...well that was the plan, but then we decided to just jump in. Week seven with the Chameleons this morning proved very colourful as we continued to work on our play and reveal some of the wonderful costumes that will be featuring.

Our team learned all about the game 'Traffic Lights' last week and, after many requests, finally had a go at it with the whole group. Good fun it was too, and got everyone moving around and warmed up. Meanwhile, the game also provided a good bit of fun for the cast while certain members went to get into costume for the rehearsal.

This week, Edmund and the White Witch came across some Narnians having a party. It is here that the Queen finds out about Aslan's return. One of the main focuses for the cast this week was reactions, reacting to different things across the scenes we worked on. In this particular scene we looked at the reactions the Narnians would have upon meeting the White Witch and how we could show this on stage.

Elsewhere, the Pevensie siblings meet Father Christmas. Again we talked about how they might react to seeing this particular character. How would seeing Father Christmas make them feel? These feelings are likely similar for their characters, and so the Chameleons can use this in the show. This scene is also an important one for the children and the beavers, as it acts as the first step on their path to eventually confronting the White Witch. Some lovely acting between our beaver family too who, although they don't say much in this scene, did a tremendous job of reacting to events and keeping us entertained.

Birthday time again. I can barely keep up this term; but there was cake and merriment to celebrate the respective 7th and 8th birthdays of three Chameleons across both last week and this one coming. While it is completely removed from drama it is nice to get the group celebrating these things together- it supports development of the social skills we try and impart through our work and is a nice time for them to all bond with one another (over cake-the cake is important).

We then returned to the beginning of the show and began a run through of all the work we have so far. The story this term is so vast that simply creating everything and practicing at the end is a mammoth size task. Instead what we did was practice the material that we have, as well as the transitions and costume changes between them, so that on the day of the show everyone feels confident in what they are doing.

And thus another week comes to an end. The cast are working tremendously hard to bring all the elements of the show together and it is looking great! No time for rest though! Next week we will conclude our run through and stage our first fight scene of the show; as Peter, Susan and Lucy come face to face with Maugrim and the Secret Police. Until next time!