James Johnson

I thought the Wild Goose Chase dance routines were fun.  I think it’s cool how Ms. Maggie comes up with the routines.  They are good and I like them.

Brice Dean

The Li’l Buds experience was fun, and it was a quick way to learn what we had to learn.  Ms. Maggie and Ms. Jenny were great and dedicated teachers.  They are very talented choreographers that can think very quickly about what they want done.  They don’t let anyone talk when they are talking, but if you’re not talking while they are, they are very fun.  I hope this has you thinking about bringing Li’l Buds to your school, or your kid’s school.

Amelia Renner

I have really enjoyed working with Li’l Buds Theatre Company.  The people who work with us are Mr. Jeff, Ms. Maggie and Ms. Jenny.  They each have a very large sense of creativity, direction, playfulness and funniness.  My character is supposed to die in the play, but Mr. Jeff, Ms. Maggie and Ms. Jenny accepted my idea of coming out at the end in crutches and band-aids.  They direct us strictly, but at the end of the day, we all know our lines and choreography.  They laugh with us a lot, and it makes us feel a lot better.  For example, when we tell a joke, they will laugh, and they won’t yell at us.  If we stumble over a line, they will go over it with us (with care) until we get it right and feel comfortable with it.  The treat us with kindness and care, and don’t make us do anything that we don’t want to.  They are always open to ideas with lines, attitude, choreography and anything else.  I really love working with them.  And, I feel like I am a better actor!

Jalia Daniels- Halis

The whole 5th Grade has been working on the production of HONK!  It has been a blast, especially with Li’l Buds.  We have been working on choreography, singing, set design and of course acting.  The girls are doing a song by themselves called Warts and All.  And the boys are doing a song by themselves called Wild Goose Chase.  The decorations are looking good too!  People have made lots of fish and farm animals for the show.  We are starting to put everything together and it is a lot of hard work but Li’l Buds is making it come together piece by piece.  And I think with all the time and effort we have put in this play nothing should go wrong.  And of course the show wouldn’t be the same without the whole 5th Grade and of course Sofia (the ugly duckling).  The set is also going to look fabulous this week we have been decorating the stage with all of the artistic skills people in this grade have.  We want to make it look as close as possible to a real barn.  We are really excited and hope you all come out to see this great production!

Bella Shydlowski

The FXW 4th graders are working on plays! The plays were all written, acted and inspired by the 4th graders. Every day, for 30 minutes, we practice our plays. We do warm-ups becuase all actors use their voice, body, and imagination. Each play is a group with a director-one of the Li’l Buds staff members. Each day, we work on developing our characters by experimenting differrent voices, personalities, etc. We also work on stage blocking and other things. I am really enjoying being a part of the 4th Grade plays!

Max Hanlon

Li’l Bud’s is a great experience in acting plays. My play is about when it didn’t rain. We do a lot of fun things to warm up our acting skills. We also do some improv. My favorite thing about Li’l bud’s is we get to express ourselves.

Petar Milenkovich

I think Li’l Buds is great. The acting is really fun & so are our directors. They help us memorize our lines and learn how to act. I think it’s really awesome.

Siobhan McNulty

Hey Lil’ Buds,

My name is Siobhan. I am a 4th grade student at FXW. Currently my class has been working on the Tall Tale Plays which for our class is Virginia, Hide and go SEAk, and Louie Flossy Blues. I play the roll of Shannon in Virginia. Shannon is a sassy ,southern teenaged girl who comes up with the idea to create the Shenandoah Valley with a tool she recieves from the clever inventor, Dr.Pliop. I am very excited to see how it goes on the final day and am having a lot of fun in the making. Thanks!

Sincerely

Siobhan, an FXW student

Cameron Clark

Hi, my name is Cameron and I love Li’l Buds.  Li’l Buds is really fun because you can express yourself and be dramatic.  Another thing that is fun is the warm ups we have.  At school we have a play on Friday and I am an old lady.  In the play I get to do lots of fun stuff like have a southern accent and be all crumble up and things of that nature.  Li’l Buds is awesome and I think every kid should have an experience with Li’l Buds.

David Keith

Li’l Buds is the best theatre company ever.  They have great games and cool play ideas.  It is always fun dressing up and doing plays with them.  My favorite game is “bibbity bibbity bop”.  My favorite play was “How the Moon Went From Yellow to White”.  They also have awesome exercises.  My favorite exercise is “Big Face/Small Face”.

Ryan Christian

My Play is called “How the Earth Was Made” by Niko Farrell.  My play is about six characters, which are:  Shellfish, Angel, Puffer, Man, Woman and God.  In this play we all have to live on Earth together and make peace. On Earth.

Elizabeth Donnelly

My name is Elizabeth and I was a narrator in FXW’s production of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dream Coat.  I had an amazing experience working with all of my peers to put on this musical.  My favorite part about the process was blocking the different scenes because I think that it was interesting how the play was put together into different scenes.  Also, I think that another part that was enjoyable was going over the music because I like the different types of music we sang.  We had a Jamaican song (Benjamin Calypso), we had a French song (Canaan Days), and we had a lot of pop/rock music that we did.  I think that something that was difficult to do was dancing because I am not a good dancer, but Ms. Maggie and Ms. Jenny helped all of us out.  I think that the most challenging choreography we did was Go, Go, Go Joseph because it is such a fast song and the moves were a little complicated.  From my perspective, I think that the play is really good and that Li’l Buds Theatre has helped us out a lot.  I think that the play is a big success and I know that the audience is going to think so too.

“I had a lot of fun doing this play and I think it will be a big success.” –Charlie Loftus 7^th Grade

“I think that the play will be good.  I am looking forward to it.” –Joe Loftus 5^th Grade

“I am excited to see the play.  I think it will be good!” –Bella Shydlowski

The play will be on the 25^th and the 26^th of January at 7:00 pm.  It will be a fun experience for all, including the audience.

Nia McFall

Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat is going to be a hit production by the Frances Xavier Warde School. Why? Because the in-house theatre company is LI’L BUDS! If you thought that they were great you will be blown away even more after seeing this! The chorus has had the incredible pleasure of learning choreography from Li’l Buds. I myself was one of the choir members and enjoyed myself thoroughly! Even though we had three hours of practice every day for a week in a half, it was much better than sitting around with people who didn’t care how we looked on stage. Also other students had much to say about it, Marisa Fassero, 7th grader said, “I thought that this play was going to be sloppy and boring until we put it all together with the choreography, enthusiasm, and the Li’l Buds team cheering us on!” As you can see everyone is enjoying themselves. 8th Grader Christopher Spina has had nothing but a riveting experience practicing and getting ready for his last musical at FXW School. This is the great collaboration of 7th graders, 8th graders, Mrs. Covalle the music teacher, the band, and of course Li’l Buds. Joseph is a very exciting play for the school first because this is the head principal, Mary Reiling’s favorite play, and this is the 7th grader’s first school musical and the 8th grader’s last. There is a lot of pressure, but Li’l Buds has been giving us acting advice, singing advice, and a few reminders on out lines at times too! I thank Li’l Buds for their great help and services and I can’t wait for the performance!

Nicole Ludford

Hello my name is Nicole and I am one of the many cast members of Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat! It has been an amazing experience for us. In this musical I play the wife (one of the people who are married to Jacob). We have a lot of fun during the rehearsals and we have really shown our true colors. The rehearsals started out with 1 to 2 hours and now that we are towards the end we have 3 to 4 hours of rehearsals. During the rehearsals we talk about what we need to go over, warm up with circle time where we work on staying loose and our acting skills. Then we actually get to work where we block starting from the beginning and slowly getting to the end. We all can’t wait for the musical and from all the time we have been working on this musical a lot of peoples showed their personalities.

And here are some video clips and pics of these students hard at work!

VIDEOS

His Dazzling Coat of Many Colors!

Ikenna Beat-Boxing and Go-Go-Go Joe!

Those Canaan Days

PHOTOS

Rogelio Castro as Joseph

Close Every Door

Griffin Pollard as Pharaoh

The Brothers - Those Canaan Days

The Ensemble on break

Ensemble on break

The Cast!

By Emily Hawkins

Our blogger this week Emily Hawkins

These last three weeks with L’il Buds have been amazing. Somehow, between tedious warm-ups, long magic boxes (thanks, Mandy) and recess, we found enough time to create a perfect show. We spent the last week of camp fixing small errors and tying up loose ends. On Monday,  we took a short field trip to the Li’l Buds Bryn Mawr studio space to choose costumes. After hours of trying clothes on, taking them off, and laughing at funny pieces, we finally found the right wardrobe for each actor and actress. Thanks to our amazing tech crew, we were able to spend more time fine tuning our performance, instead of having to build our set pieces. Without Sofia, Ellie, and Jack, our show would not be as fantastic as it has become (and our set probably would be lopsided).  After much nit picking and long rehearsals, we have prepared a wonderful rendition of Little Shop of Horrors in only three weeks. These young stars have shown complete dedication, always giving 200% effort, and are definitely ready to perform on Friday

The Summer Ensemble 2011, being silly!

August 1st – August 5th 2011

By Teddy Sheils

Our blogger this week, Teddy Sheils

In week one we did an inner-monologue exercise.  So in week two my inner-monologue kept screaming, “we go downtown.  I get it!!!!”  Between Ms. Jenny’s merciless warm-ups, trips to the park, “Holly Hobby” lunchboxes, and gummy contests we actually got a lot of rehearsing done.  Almost all the scenes are blocked.  The actors are learning their lines.  Mr. Jeff, Jack, Ellie and Sofia are busy finding props.  Anyone have a severed hand they can lend us?  It is clear that Mr. Austin knows everything about music but needs some advice about sunscreen.  I found that out yesterday when he came in looking like a red tomato. SPF 1000 please!   Finally Ms. Maggie is helping us with vocal warm-ups and blocking.  The only thing most of us are blocking are the never ending tongue twisters out of our heads!   Such is an average but crazy week at Li’l Buds Camp.  One more week to showtime!

Teddy Video 1

Teddy Video 2

Teddy Video 3

Week of July 25-29 Summer Ensemble

Our Blogger this week, Mandy Duncan

This week at Li’l Buds Camp…We start the morning with Miss Jenny’s warm-ups—push ups, sit ups–all actors do warm-ups. Next, we do some imagination warm-ups.  Those are fun.  Today, we  played a game where we would make really silly noises and motions. It was hilarious. Then we practiced for our auditions for Little Shop of Horrors. The auditions are on Wednesday. We are all nervous and excited at the same time. We played a game where two people would go onstage and one person would try to not laugh while the other person would try to make them laugh. No one lasted very long.  Everyday at camp we go to Oz park for recess. Today we went to this big hill and rolled down it. After that we all ran around in the grass singing The Sound of Music. It was lots of fun. In the afternoon we did many more games and we also learned about really feeling the emotions of a character different from ourselves.  We worked on the many skills of acting. That’s what happens in a normal day at Li’l Buds  camp.

By: Mandy Duncan

Mandy’s Video Clip 1

Mandy’s Video Clip 2

Mandy’s Video Clip 3

Mandy’s Video Clip 4