First day of the residency down!

Holy smokes. That was the most incredibly intimidating, exhausting four hours of my life. The kids ranged from totally resistant to anything even remotely resembling writing and incredibly talented and intelligent. I don't think I've ever run a gauntlet like this in my life.

The last time I did workshops was at a performing arts camp for children of the uber-rich at UCLA. I had kids chomping at the bit to write, perform, and speak out. "Oh me? You want to know what I want to say? REALLY? Me? IN THE SPOTLIGHT? BY MYSELF? SAYING MY OWN WORDS?!??! REALLY?!"

It was kind of like that.

At Bed-Stuy, I've never been stared at so blankly before. I think the trick is being able to SHOW these kids something in about a million different ways. I think I've got about four right now. Well, 999,996 to go!

I would never have traded this experience for the world, but I must admit that, while we knew what we were going to teach, and how we were going to teach it, I was utterly unprepared for the sheer amount of energy this entire process takes. Good teachers had my respect yesterday, but they have even more of my respect now.

That's all for now. J. Woo, signing off.

Three days to show, ten days to residency...

So we've got a show for the high schoolers at the Bed-Stuy School for Public Safety and Law this coming Wednesday. This is my first show done for high school kids. Should be pretty good.

The residency is nuts. First one I've ever had. I must admit that I'm nervous. It's like you're totally vulnerable against a sea of total madness. We'll see.