Audiciones!

Hello everyone!


We have had some really busy days already, and it's only the first week!

We've begun the extremely difficult and frustrating process of recruitment. We really want more of the kids at the public high school to come participate in our program. In years past, most of our participants have been students at the CEC or MFS, the two private bilingual schools in Monteverde. That is really due to the fact that about 5 or 6 years ago, Lisa taught music at the CEC, so her musicals and programs were organized through the school. However, now that she has her own independent organization and has more Spanish-speaking volunteers, she and the rest of the staff really wants to include kids from every school possible. It's a great way for them to make new friends and to foster a community of performing artists in Monteverde - something that I am clearly very passionate about! Unfortunately, many of the kids at the colegio (the public high school) see Far Corners as a gringo organization only for the bilingual students of the private schools. And they just really don't know what to think of musical theater. Last year we were lucky enough to get maybe 6 or 8 to show up to auditions, but our retention rate throughout the summer was very low; only Andrey stayed on through the entire run of the show. He's helping us a bit with recruitment, but unfortunately he thinks it's a bit of a moot point with his classmates. In his words, "todos los estudiantes en el colegio son brutos." I'll let y'all look that one up. :) It's good practice.

Sometimes we forget that the Tico lifestyle is very different from the one we've become accustomed to in the States where we are given specific times for appointments or auditions, we show up on time, we do exactly as we're told, and we appreciate the structure and organization. That just simply is not what kids are used to here! Not to say that one is better than the other, but the process does require some compromising on both sides. Needless to say, auditions are an interesting process here. Luckily our director, Scott, has not yet arrived. He is a self-proclaimed Nazi of punctuality and shamer of latecomers. The audition process would probably be very frustrating for him. However, on our first day we got about 8 kids. 3 of them were new to our program which is so exciting! We really love that the word is getting out about us and what we do. We'll see how may show up today and throughout next week!

I had a little meeting with the man at the Ministry of Agriculture (anyone else think of Harry Potter?) this morning to discuss advertising at the Farmers' Market tomorrow morning. He was more than happy to oblige. This may not sound like a huge deal, but believe me it's an amazing venue for publicity! Practically the entire town goes to the Farmers' Market every Saturday morning. Unfortunately for me, that means I have to be at the colegio at 6 AM tomorrow. We'll see how that goes.

Keep following!

Love,
Erin