August 19

Today was our first rehearsal back on campus and it was great to be back in the rehearsal room. We talked a lot about questions we had about the world of the play and, while I didn’t have as much time to ruminate on it because I missed the last rehearsal, I was surprised by how much information wasn’t given about the case when deeply analyzing the text. The biggest question that remained for me after our conversation was about the knife that was used for the murder. Specifically, how was Juror 8 able to go to a store and buy the knife without it being a conflict of interest for the case and resulting in a mistrial (especially because the guard sees it) and how common is the knife. One interesting point that was brought up is that the knife being unique could just be a tactic by the store owner to sell more, or it could have actually been the only one if it came in a bulk box of knives from the manufacturer. I’m interested in developing what my character would think about all of the evidence surrounding the knife and his reaction to seeing the second knife brought out. I also still have my remaining question about how a foreman is selected in this court. So far, I have found that it can be volunteer based; random selection; first juror selected; or first juror alphabetically, though I am unsure which one was common in New York during this time, I’m going to continue to do research but it might be something I have to decide for myself.