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Rehearsals were underway and pretty much everything was finalized (except tech) with only 1 or 2 changes being made. The setting is placed, costumes were finalized, tickets sold out. We have our audience coming in Wednesday. I definitely have never experienced anything similar to this only until it actually started to seem real. Everything was complete and all we had to do it to rely on the actors (and their lines) and how the play will unfold. During this time i was backstage helping around or running around to fetch things or somewhere along the lines. I had majority of the play to watch it from backstage and gave me time to reflect on the past few weeks with working on this play. It has enhanced my skills with the loads of feedback we've gotten, and given me another new experience as a newbie director.

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As we kept blocking along the way we received loads of feedback and suggestions as mention previously. Which in fact, allows us production team (directors, stage managers, set team) to change up a lot. Be it exits or entrances, what props used, the setting of the stage and so on. Sometimes we even add more to a scene that could be smoothly incorporated.
The point is that we were revising a lot and refining bit by bit through the process and not everything at the end.

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By the first week or two, we had gone up to blocking Act 2. But not after we had feedback and blocking tweaks to make directed by Mrs.Mann. This was certainly a preliminary work with many areas left to fix.
The way the feedback was given was slightly a comparison of different stage directions and how it made the overall scene feel like. Questions like "why are you exiting" or "why are you in this scene, what is your character's objective to be here" were thrown so every scene to the audience will be considered important and clear.
Consecutively, this was done when each act is finished. Especially Act 3. We actually ran through the entire blocked play multiple times and every time we had some to fix or redirect making the scene better and clear.

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Cooperation is key to how we had to put the play together in my opinion. First we had to visually see how our blocking would work in reality (and not in our heads) by having the actors try different entrances, or ways they entrance be it portrayed by emotion or pace.
A example would be back to the cold read, when each actor were given a direction of how they should play out the scene, "cry when you say your lines."
Which majority did require some risk taking from the actors side, since it was a melodrama and everything was to be overreacted. So if we wanted to change up how the characters are played by suggesting them ideas and experimenting it. Feedback from Mrs.Mann was key even if sometimes it was directed to the actors. It allows both parties to explore different possibilities on how things can be played out. By taking account and having other students voice their suggestions has made it a unique play that our class worked together on.

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Now everyone has gotten a understanding and characters were cast,
We have already entered the Imagining and Generating stage as we were beginning to cast the actors. That is when we (Betty the stage manager and I, along with Mrs.Mann) had to cooperate and imagine who would be fit into the role while taking in account to the Cold Read activity we've done. We were exposed to questions and ideas as we had to watch every do theirs group's own version of the scenes with different alterations by Mrs.Mann like having the actors enter on stage laughing even when in the script it was a serious moment. That is generating ideas for the director and actors themselves to see how they can bring the character alive on stage. Because directors can not be he only one with ideas, "if you have a suggestion, just say it" is what we mention to our actors because it is coming from another perspective.
Also actors can get really into the scene if the blocking is something they like and really "dig it"
At this point we let our imaginations flow by having to reread the script continuously to generate ideas and occasionally replacing old ones with new ones if we saw something that could be better.

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After appointing every one of their production roles and characters, Rae (assistant director) worked together to come up with a schedule on how we are blocking (which scene to which scene) and breaking the script down into components. But of course, planned schedules don't always go as plan with unexpected events which we had to focus and work around or through it.
Whether we had people arriving late, absent, or if there was a assembly.
In fact being completely honest, we at first were a mess with the blocking even though we felt prepared. But after receiving advice from fellow classmates with more experience, we decided to block everything with our own interpretation ahead of time, examples like taking notes on paper or the script itself and working it out with the actors. Occasionally we did have to discard a idea to be replaced by a new idea we had on the spot or from a suggestion that worked a lot better with the direction the play is going.
On my script, it has ideas that weren't used written or some that were crossed out. Or even a huge portion had to be rewritten (Nellie's and Lydia's scene of being marriage rings to friendship bracelets).

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A director's job is to create the vision of the play in order for the production team and actors to cooperate. The beginning is always hard but once we all got the hang of it and have one step done, we can continue to build from it.
That is where we began, the teacher challenges us to pick a show, pitch it and continue by reading the script to grab hold of how the play may unfold which leads us to the challenge and inspiration process.
Everyone were given the same scenes that introduce the audience to some of the characters as shown below (Max, Tarantella, Nellie, Slyvia etc)