Adventures in Dramaturgy: Rehearsals - Special Effects

Just because the Blackfriars Playhouse is a theatre which embraces Shakespeare's staging conditions doesn't mean that we don't use technology in our shows; it means that we use technology that would have been available to Shakespeare and his company, and in many cases, those techniques can produce dazzling effects. Watching the 2013 Actors' Renaissance Season troupe rehearse Julius Caesar allowed me to see the wonderful resourcefulness and creativity that goes into creating a spectacle on the Blackfriars Playhouse stage.

Dan Kennedy and Rene Thornton Jr.;
photo by Jay McClure

I talked in my last blog post about the traffic patterns backstage, and those patterns are particularly important during the storm scene in Julius Caesar -- which actually crosses over parts of four scenes, from 1.3 through 2.3. Even when only two or three characters appear on-stage, every actor in the troupe has something to do, either creating special effects or preparing to enter -- or, very often, one and then the other, in rapid succession. It puts me in mind of a swimming swan: the surface image may be polished and serene, but underneath the water, there's an energetic whorl of action. Conversations during the storm creation process then depended largely on who could be where when and for how long. Alli Glenzer, for example, is creating a visual effect using the Rose Window, which is a bit of a hike from the stage, and so she had to figure out how much of the storm she could create that effect for in order to leave her enough time to make her entrance in 2.1. Who could take over the thunder sheets so that Ben Curns could get downstairs for his entrance in 2.2? How long should the ocean drum keep going before it becomes distracting? Is this "thunder and lightning" cue long, short, or medium? The troupe had to negotiate all of these considerations to form a coherent scene.

Many of the special effects also demonstrate the benefit of a repertory troupe. While putting the storm together, I heard John Harrell say, "Remember what we discovered last year, about the bass on the piano?" He set to work re-creating that sound, and Friday night, I heard another audience member commenting on it as part of the soundscape. Other influences came from recent productions both in Ren Seasons and Summer and Fall Seasons, from The Tempest, from Dido, Queen of Carthage, from The Roman Actor. Conversely, for the battle noises in Act Five and the flourishes throughout, the troupe consciously chose not to use the same effects they have been using in the past. For four years now, the Ren Season has featured the three Henry VI plays and Richard III, and those plays have used similar soundscapes, creating a coherent thread throughout the tetralogy: identifiable trumpet calls for coming and going, the clashing of swords backstage accompanied by shouts to create the alarums. For Julius Caesar, the troop decided to use different musical cues for flourishes and to keep up a military stomping backstage during the battle scenes. The effect is striking, invoking the lock-step precision of the vast Roman legions without ever needing to see more than a few soldiers on-stage. The march took a lot of practice, though, and as Alli Glenzer pointed out, several scenes' worth of stomping gave her character Strato a perfectly good reason to be falling asleep while Brutus is trying to find someone to assist his suicide. When the soldiers in 5.5 enter tired, the off-stage needs of the show have informed their on-stage performance in an unexpected way.

Ronald Peet, Chris Johnston, and Grant Davis; photo by Jay McClure

Almost all Shakespeare plays call for more sound cues than I think most of us are aware of when we just read the play, and it isn't just for the "big" moments like storms or battles. All of those stage directions for flourish, sennet, tucket, alarum just sort of fade into the background. As I sat watching our troupe walk through the cue-to-cue Julius Caesar on the Thursday afternoon of their three-day rehearsal process, I became consciously aware of just how much has to go on back-stage to make the story on-stage make sense. In order for Cassius to say "the clock hath strucken three," someone has to be upstairs striking a chime. Before Brutus can tell Lucius to see who's at the gate, someone has to knock. Almost every scene has some such requirement, and at the ASC, none of those noises are electronically-generated or automated. Music forms part of the soundscape of the play as well, both during the pre-show and interlude and within the play itself. Julius Caesar opens with "Clap Your Hands" by The Reverend Peyton's Big Damn Band, a wonderful piece which calls for clapping, stomping, and cheering from the audience, setting the mood perfectly for the jubilant chaos of the first scene. As Lucius in 4.2, Ronald Peet plays Aimee Mann's "Wise Up" as a "sleepy tune," and the lyrics ("It's not what you thought when you first began it," for example) perfectly suit Brutus's increasingly difficult situation.

Not all of the special effects in Julius Caesar are auditory in nature or occur from off-stage. While in many plays, you can get away with leaving blood out of murders and battles, in this play, the text calls too much attention to the viscera. At least in Caesar's assassination, the audience needs to see the red run. While some productions in recent decades have chosen to stylize the blood, using cloth or ribbons, our actors opted for liquid. It makes sense with the text, since Shakespeare makes so much of the ability of blood to transfer visibly from Caesar's corpse onto various hands and daggers. In order for those "purpled hands" to "reek and smoke," in order for Antony to shake all those "bloodied fingers," the audience needs to see what a mess an assassination makes. Our Caesar, Ben Curns, worked with Costume Manager Erin West to create a trick shirt -- identical to the white dress shirt he wears throughout the rest of the role, but in which he can conceal six blood packets, one for each conspirator. In Shakespeare's day, these blood packets might have been actual bladders filled with pig's blood procured from the local butcher's shop. Today, we use a laundry-friendly syrupy solution.

Chris Johnston, Sarah Fallon, Ben Curns, Grant Davis,
and John Harrell; photo by Jay McClure

The effect when all six blood packets pop is delightfully gruesome, but getting all six to pop took some practice. It adds an additional level of difficulty to the combat of that scene -- already tricky, given the number of people involved. Each of the actors not only has to be exquisitely precise about how they place their hands and daggers, but they have to find a way to squeeze, smack, twist, or otherwise puncture the blood packets, and they only have a brief second or two in which to do so. The picture at left shows what happened during the first attempt, when several of the cast members had trouble. By Saturday night, however, they had it -- all of the packets popped to great effect, allowing Ben to clutch at his supposedly spilling guts, then touch René Thornton (playing Brutus), leaving a visible streak on his face. The conspirators had plenty of blood to bathe their hands in, and the scarlet sheen glinted off of their daggers. It makes their exit a more striking image, and I realized, from a practical standpoint, why Shakespeare might specify that they exit "waving [their] red weapons o'er [their] heads" -- it keeps them from touching any doors or curtains before they have a chance to wash up. Caesar lay bleeding on the stage for several minutes more, and when Antony and a servant dragged him off at the end, a vivid smear trailed behind him.

These special effects under the creative constraints of Shakespeare's staging conditions illustrate clearly the blend of practicality and theatricality that dictates production at the ASC all year, and which drives shows during the Ren Season in particular. The actors are looking for simple answers to their problems, yes, but without sacrificing impact to the audience. Sitting in the rehearsal room during the building of the storm, I could feel the actors' excitement building over the discoveries they were making and the solutions they were building. There was a current of satisfaction as it came together, with several of the actors commenting on how very "cool" the effects were. This is part of why we, in ASC Education, encourage teachers to explore the value in Shakespeare's technology. Sometimes the challenge of working as Shakespeare's company would have yields results that are all the more impressive and more satisfying.

Adventures in Dramaturgy: Rehearsals - Taking Shape

Julius Caesar is now up on its feet, and as dramaturg, I bore witness to the orchestrated frenzy that put an entire show together in three days of rehearsal. For any readers unfamiliar with the ASC's Actors' Renaissance Season, it is the time of year when we employ some of Shakespeare's rehearsal conditions in addition to the staging conditions that we embrace year-round. Our actors direct themselves, determine their own schedules, plan their own music for the preshow and interlude, pull their costumes from our stock -- and do it all in a fraction of the rehearsal time as the shows in our Summer and Fall Seasons. Since we began the accelerated start-up and short rehearsal time for the first show of the Ren Season in 2009, that first show has typically been a popular comedy that our actors are familiar with and can put up quickly (A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, The Comedy of Errors, and Much Ado about Nothing). This year, the actors take a crack at Julius Caesar in the first slot, a show which was last performed by the 2006-2007 touring troupe, and which has not been part of a Summer and Fall Season since the opening of the Playhouse in 2002. This choice thus provided a few extra challenges for the troupe: a historical tragedy, complete with multiple fights, suicides, and an assassination involving a minimum of seven participants, and a show that the ASC has not put on since 2007.

Alli Glenzer, Dan Kennedy, and Ben Curns; photo by Jay McClure

Time is at a premium, particularly for the first show of the season. The troupe had eight hours Tuesday, eight hours Wednesday, and four hours Thursday before their first dress rehearsal, followed by another four hours to tweak and clean up on Friday before the first Pay-What-You-Will preview Friday night -- and after opening weekend, there's no respite, as they held their first read-through of The Country Wife Sunday evening. Scheduling becomes hugely important. For this show, one actor (René Thornton, playing Brutus) volunteered to take charge of plotting things out -- and then made adjustments based on what the rest of the troupe thought necessary. As a sample, here's the schedule for the first day of rehearsal:

10-10:45 - Morning Meeting
10:45-12 - violence - suicides, Caesar kill, Cinna the Poet, Act 5 skirmishes
12-12:30 - 1.1
12:30-1 - 1.2 A and C
1-2 - 1.2 B and D (stage) - music (Tyson)
2-3 - lunch break
3-3:30 - 2.1 C and D (stage) - 1.3 A and C (Tyson)
3:30-4:15 - 2.1 A and B
4:15-5 - 2.2 A (stage) - 4.2 B (Tyson)- 2.4 (lobby)
5-5:15 - 2.2 B
5:20-7 - 3.1 A-D

So that was the first half of the play, shot through in eight hours. The morning meeting was longer on the first day than any other, simply because it was the beginning of the season. The entire production team -- including Artistic Director Jim Warren, Associate Artistic Director Jay McClure, Costume Shop Manager Erin West, Properties Manager Chris Moneymaker, and dramaturg yours truly -- had some notes to give to start things out. They also started throwing together a music list on the whiteboard, knowing that music rehearsals during the Ren Season can often be catch-as-catch-can, and that the earlier they had some ideas to start on, the more prepared they could get by Friday.

This schedule also points to what the issues of largest and most pressing concern often are: the most complex scenes, with the most bodies on stage and with more elaborate blocking needs. Anything involving combat takes additional time to choreograph so that it will be both safe and entertaining. Ben Curns took responsibility for fights for this show and had already blocked some things out in his head, but they still needed to set aside a lot of time for the actors involved to learn the movements -- and for adjustments to occur.

Sarah Fallon, Ben Curns, Rene Thornton Jr.; photo by Jay McClure

As I watched the rehearsals, the phrase I heard over and over again was: "That's a shape." The actors would invoke this phrase when they had gotten to the end of a scene with something workable, usually in regards to the blocking. The scene wasn't finished, it wasn't perfect, but it had a shape -- a general outline, an idea of who needed to be where when. Hearing that phrase over and over again got me thinking about the ways in which shape and place matter, both on-stage and off-, during the Ren Season.

Often, more time goes into rehearsing entrances and exits than into the meat of the scene itself. (This only works, of course, because ASC actors are already well-trained in textual matters, and it's part of the reason all members of ARS troupes are veterans of the Blackfriars Playhouse). Julius Caesar features a lot of group entrances and a lot of scenes with between 6 and 12 bodies on stage. Looking at that schedule for the first day shows that: 1.1 only has four characters on stage, but the audience is involved as well, one actor had to change into a costume from the pre-show, another had to get downstairs after playing music, and the actors had to negotiate props on top of it. 1.2 involves a ceremonial entrance and exit Caesar and his train, off-stage shouting, a flurried re-entry of all the characters who just went off, and their final exit. It also involves a long conversation between Brutus and Cassius, but, while René and Sarah Fallon worked that on their own, the most stage rehearsal time went to choreographing those group entrances and exits. 2.1 involves all of the conspirators coming to Brutus's house -- another mass entrance, with specific costume and prop needs -- as does 2.2, and 3.1 is the largest scene in the play, with the most characters entering simultaneously, several exits and re-entrances, and, of course, the assassination of Caesar. (1.3 through 2.3 also involve a storm, but more on that in another blog post). And that's just Day One -- the second half of the play features the famous plebeian mob and a whole lot of combat.

It takes a lot of work and communication to make all of that run smoothly -- and actors won't always nail it on the first try. Some of those entrances they re-worked Friday afternoon, after the dress rehearsal, and some they tweaked along the way. The flow on-stage isn't the only problem, after all, and some issues only became apparent during the dress. Grant Davis and Ronald Peet, for example, realized that they needed more time after their exit in 1.1, so on Friday afternoon, they worked with Alli Glenzer and Dan Kennedy to figure out a way to hustle them off-stage faster, giving them more time to change. Other problems are architectural in nature, examples of the space itself influencing the work. Greg Phelps, as Antony in 3.2, only has about two lines to get from the balcony down to the stage, and he has to be there in time for the plebs to notice him and crowd around him. The plebeians had to test out a few different ways of delivering their lines in a way that gave Greg enough time to get down the stairs. Altogether, they probably spent more time on 3.2 than on any other scene in the play. The timing of the plebeians' responses and movements has to be so precise in order to work the way they were hoping for, and as a further complication, many of the lines sound so similar or provide repeated cues. "Wow. That's a lot of 'will's," Greg observed in the middle of one sequence where he heard the word "will" from the plebs eight times, correctly cuing him only twice out of the eight. Finding the right rhythm for the scene took quite a bit of time, effort, and reiteration, but the resulting shape drives the audience along an exhilarating path.

Greg Phelps, Tracie Thomason, Abbi Hawk, and Grant Davis;
photo by Jay McClure

Blocking is a concern off-stage as well. Traffic patterns backstage can be as complex as those on-stage. Especially during Act 5, which involves a lot of rapid entrances and exits, skirmishes, and dragging dead bodies off-stage, I heard the actors discussing who could be in the discovery space or not at which times. But beyond that, the space in the rest of the theatre matters as well. As anyone who has ever taken a Playhouse Tour knows, the actors and production team arrange props and costumes methodically backstage. Chris Moneymaker had to remember to move the ARS props-gathering table away from the area of Tyson inhabited by the Tempt Me Further tour until they head back out on the road, to avoid any collisions or mix-ups.  I heard John Harrell refer to the "band corner" -- a section of the downstairs area set aside during this time for instruments and music rehearsals. All of these little considerations build together into the background flow of the play, the moving pieces that the audience never sees but which are absolutely critical to a smooth performance.

Throughout the rehearsal process, what struck me most was the blend of communication and organization that makes the Ren Season run. These actors work well together and share a common language, making them a well-oiled machine -- even though this precise troupe has never worked together before. Sarah and Dan are returning after seasons away from the ASC, and Ronald, Grant, Abbi Hawk, and Tracie Thomason were all here in 2012 but are new to the Ren Season. The ASC embraces the ensemble nature of theatre and performs in repertory year-round, but the Ren Season brings all of the necessary components into sharper focus. The result is a season unlike any other, full of its own special (and sometimes frenetic) energy.

How did I get here?

Do you ever take a look around you, and ask yourself: “Now, how did I get here?” I found myself doing that a lot during the last week of October. The question wasn’t the kind of thing that wakes you in the middle of the night in a cold sweat (though in the weeks leading up to October 25, there were plenty of those). Rather, it was a query of wonder. As I stood in the Blackfriars Playhouse October 25-30, I felt as though I had super-glued rose-colored glasses to the bridge of my nose and couldn't shake that amazing feeling that comes when one is surrounded (at home, no less) by dear friends (new and old), excellent conversation, amazing scholarship, and the joy of the work of two years coming to fruition in a beautiful way.

Ah, the Blackfriars Conference 2011.

My parents have a difficult time understanding me when I say “I won’t be really available for a few weeks, the conference is coming up.” What, exactly, could be keeping me so busy? To be fair, when we were separated by only 90 miles, as opposed to the 1300+ that divide us now, my life was pretty hectic. In my occupation as a high school Theatre teacher, teaching five classes daily, producing six shows a year, with set-building, costume construction, tech rehearsals, I was never as consumed as I am when Conference time rolls around in the odd-numbered year. It’s different, a different kind of busy – an all-consuming, all-anticipating, all-energizing, and yes, all-exhausting kind of feeling that builds for 24 months and culminates in a week of shared excitement, with faces both new and familiar. And the joy of overhearing as the answer to “How did you get here?” not “Bus, train, car,” but “I heard about it from...” or the even more gratifying “I come every time, wouldn’t miss it.”

My first conference was at its third incarnation in 2005, when I was in my first year in the Masters Program at MBC. Two months into the program, and I found myself in the same room with the authors of my textbooks and all of the articles I was looking up in Shakespeare Quarterly.

Why, hi there, Russ MacDonald (*RUSS MACDONALD?!?!?*). Oh, you’re from Texas, too? How nice to meet you!

Well, hello Tiffany Stern (*TIFFANY STERN!!!!*) I love that skirt.

And over there is Stephen Booth, George Walton Williams, Roz Knutson, Leslie Thomson, Alan Dessen. And some friends no longer with us, Bernice Kliman, Arnie Preussner, and Barbara Palmer, whose absence we have felt with sorrow since our last parting.

I knew, in that moment at my first Early Arrivers’ party, that this place was special. What other grad program gives its students the opportunity to network on their home turf? In this case, the turf of the Blackfriars playhouse, always a space of generosity and intimacy and, for one week in October on odd-numbered years, a space of enviable scholarship and flourishing ideas. How was I lucky enough to get here?

My previous conference experiences were all in my undergrad discipline, Theatre Arts. Those conferences featured more workshops than papers, more seminars than presentations, more off-the-cuff speaking than formal delivery. It was a shock to my system to see people reading from a lectern on the stage. But then, the ASC actors arrived. Their contributions linked the two worlds as no other glue or bridge could. They are proof that seeing is the quickest path to believing, whether one needs to be shown a character or helped to understand a presenter’s thesis. In the years since my first conference, it has been my privilege to work with those talented actors to improve interactions between presenters and their actors, to improve communication, to improve the general affect of the conference. We’ve come a long way, and though I know we still have some way to go toward a perfect system, the coming-together of actors and scholars in the way the Blackfriars Conference encourages makes me exclaim: how did I get here and how long can I stay?

In 2007, 2009, and again in 2011, the Conference gave me the opportunity to work along side my mentor, and, I am glad to say, my friend, Ralph Alan Cohen. When I took over from Sarah Pharis (aka Sarah #1) in 2007, I had big shoes to fill. Sarah’s organizational structure -- her daily work flow chart is still the basis for everything that happens behind the scenes -- made it possible for me to step in and to help Ralph to achieve his goals: good papers, good friends, good food, good times. It’s not as easy as it sounds. This year, I began to think of it as akin to planning a 6 day party for 250 of my dearest friends. Each hour of each of the 16 hour days just needs to be scheduled with events, food, drink, and plays. I’d just need to contact each of the 100+ presenters, the 50 grad students, the 15 actors, the 5 caterers, and the 5 venues to give them individual instructions for each minute of that time, get the invites and the publicity out, and then make sure everyone feels pampered and loved while they are here. Not so hard. It’s not, really.

Not this year, anyway. For the first time since my 2005 conference (when I was merely a volunteer), I had a full team in place and on board so early with planning and strategizing, that I actually got to watch my friends, both presenters and actors, in every session, and I watched the rest of my friends in the audience enjoying every minute.

How did I get here? Well, for that, I have loads of people to thank. Ralph, for trusting, the ASC actors and artistic staff for being so generous and sharing their talents in the highlight event of each day, Cass, Ben, Christina, Asae, Kim, Anne, bear wrangler Brian, Clara, Paul (Menzer and Rycik), the entire admin staff at ASC, the wonderful box office staff, the artistic staff and actors for making each session and evening performance memorable, the MBC students who exceeded their colleagues at past conferences in both volunteering and contribution of scholarship. They made it look (and feel) easy, and I am tremendously grateful.

Some highlights for me at the 2011 conference included:
• The delicious food at the early arrivers' party.
• Stephen Booth’s paper on Shakespeare and Audiences.
• Go Dog Go, as devised and performed by Chris Johnston, John Harrell, Jeremy West, Dan Kennedy, Greg Phelps, Miriam Donald, and James Keegan.
• Hearing about the new Indoor Theatre in London from Neil Constable (Heck, meeting Neil Constable).
• Bill Gelber’s ‘ A “Ha” in Shakespeare....”
• Ben Curns sleeping onstage (as directed) in Casey Caldwell’s paper (and then using lightening quick reflexes not to knock over the 100 champagne glasses set behind the curtain as he exited).
• Chris Barrett.
• Joe Ricke and Jemma Levy in a morning session to rival all others.
• George T. Wright and James Keegan’s mutual admiration discussion.
• Finding out “Why are there no blowjob jokes in Shakespeare” from Matt Kozusko.
• Beth Burns and the Hidden Room.
• Stuart Hall’s participation, thanks to Brett Sullivan Santry.
• Natasha Solomon and Dan Burrows acting in Bob Hornback’s Renaissance Clowns paper.
• Seeing our Conference Attendees see John Harrell’s Hamlet.
• Our late night shows (wow).
• William Proctor William’s experiment.
• Seeing ASC actors at every paper session (even the EARLY ones).
• Watching worlds come together in Scott Kaiser’s keynote.
• The bear(s).
• Talking teaching.
• Tiff.
• Colloquies.
• Insights on our space in session X.
• The Banquet.
• Doreen Bechtol in everything she did, but especially Lady M as played by Sarah Siddons (pregnant).
• Hamlet Conversation.


And so, a little over a month past the last day of the conference, I have a little time to reflect. A little time to look around at the people I work with, the place I work for, and thank heavens that, however it came to be, I landed here.

What will you remember?

Blackfriars Conference 2011 - Hamlet Conversations

Christina Sayer Grey here for the last presentation of the 2011 Blackfriars Conference. It's been a lot of fun to live-blog for you all this week. Enjoy!

Ralph announces that this panel was suggested by Rene Thornton, Jr.

Moderator: Matt Davies

Hamlets: Khris Lewin (2005 at the Blackfriars), Benjamin Curns (2007 at the Blackfriars, Actors' Renaissance Season, Q1), James Ricks (2001 at the Blackfriars), John Harrell (2011 at the Blackfriars), and Thadd McQuade (1995 with SSE, also played Hamlet in the German MFA project)

Matt says that the purpose of this panel is to talk about what it means to play Hamlet here versus playing him elsewhere. This panel will be in the format of an extended talkback.

Contest: Best Collective Noun for a Group of Hamlets (the best one I've heard, A Sulk of Hamlets)

Q: Why do you think that Hamlet chose you?
T.M.: I think that's a question for the directors.
J.H.: I think I'm a Polonius, but I never saw Hamlet on my path. It was always something for other actors to do, so I never paid much attention to it. I never thought I would play it and I never thought I wanted to. The Hamlet you see now is what I, personally, see the play to be from a very virginal perspective.
B.C.: It was my 2nd Renaissance Season. I had had really terrific parts in the first season, but I wasn't carrying any of the plays. When I heard they were planning to do the Q1, but I didn't know what that meant. I just asked to have my mind floated along in the pool of names, just to consider me. My understanding of Hamlet is that its unique in that the lead character has a scene with every other member of the company.
M.D.: Hamlet is interesting because Hamlet is the only character who really knows what's going through the whole play.
K.L.: First gig out of college. I was 21 and I was the understudy for Hamlet. I remember sitting at the first rehearsal, and the guy playing Hamlet seemed too old to play Hamlet to me. That's when I felt that Hamlet chose me. And then when I finally played him for real, at 33, that miraculously felt like the perfect age.
J.R.: That sense of being chosen - "why is this happening to me?" and using that. You get to have a relationship with everyone else onstage with you.

Q: Why is this role considered the testing ground for actors? What is with the prestige? Does it deserve its reputation?
B.C.: Of course it does. It demands of the actor a lot of different things. You have to build relationships with every other in the play and, in this space, build a relationship with the audience. And, you're in 90% of the play. That, in a way, makes it easier. You don't have time backstage to get nervous.
J.H.: Shakespeare as a cultural figure seems to get lucky sometimes, but the thing about Hamlet as a great part makes me, as an actor, way more self-conscious about performance than I've been in any other part. And that's a big factor in the part, too. The role and the actor ramify in that part. It doubles the experience.

Q: Which is the character that you, as your Hamlet, most connected with?
J.H.: Horatio, which surprised me.
K.L.: It's amazing - I really felt a special connection with all of the characters at different times.
B.C.: For me, it was the ghost, hands down. Shakespeare writes this amazing scene - "I know you have a million lines before and after this scene, but in this moment "'list.'" The ghost gives the best pieces of advice to the actor playing the role in this speech. The ghost has so much to say, and Hamlet is required, in that moment, to listen.
J.R.: The ghost, as well. We really played with tenderness in that scene. The audience, though, was the relationship I paid the most attention to. I tried to befriend them as much as I could.
T.M.: It's much more for me about the actors playing the roles than a particular character on paper. Horatio, though, is an enormous challenge. What is he doing there except to act as a witness and a fellow audience member. The room can alter it quite a bit, of course.

Q: Hamlet's Theatricality - for Hamlet the audience becomes a major character that he has to deal with. How much did the audience become a mirror for you, playing at the Blackfriars?
B.C.: It made the role way easier. If I had to do it in the dark, I'd find the role much more challenging. "To be or not to be" - the inclusivity of the pronouns.
J.R.: I found it liberating and very comforting. We miss a huge opportunity when we put up that 4th wall. To that extent, the role becomes the actor.

Q: Hamlet can, in some ways, be an isolating part, but in this space, he's never alone in a very obvious way.
J.H.: I'll buy that.

K.L.: To the other Hamlets, how did you use the house for soliloquizing? Stagecraft-wise?
J.H.: I started by doing the "too, too solid flesh" speech in the DSR corner. That first speech is nerve-wracking and that acted like a security blanket almost.
K.L.: From center stage, that first speech made me feel like an insect under a microscope.
B.C.: That speech is a place where you feel like you're being judged as an actor as well as the character.

Q: How have Original Practices affect your develop of the role? What was the relationship of O.P. to your Hamlets?
B.C.: OP version of special effects. How can we use "magic doors" and sound cues for the ghost? Ostensibly, the scene calls for five people, but it's really an all-call for the supernatural elements.
K.L.: I did Hamlet two years later in a traditional theatre, we had lights and fog, etc. Was there a precedent for using mist?
Lauren Shell (from the gallery): Yes.
J.H.: I like how this kind of space...the advice to the players - making this really advice to Hamlet from himself. It made for a very interesting little puzzle when relating to the role and this space.

Q: Hamlet wasn't a Blackfriars play, it was a Globe play. Hamlet ribs the groundlings and some scholars have said that it make him an elitist. Are there groundlings in this space?
J.H.: You are being ruthlessly upstaged by the players. There are always people who are WAY more interested in the dumbshow than in anything Hamlet says.
T.M.: In this space, the groundlings are above in the gallery. It's very tangible, that split and it's very exciting. Different communities/audiences on different levels.

Q: In this space, does Hamlet then throw the "groundling" lines up rather than down?
J.H.: I always pick the one person on the stools who isn't paying attention because there is one, inevitably.

Q: A show of hands for who has or is about to play Hamlet - What's the experience watching someone play Hamlet in this space?
A (Justin): It seems like such a wonderfully intimate venue. It's enclosed and you can feel like the audience is always so close.
Q: And you did your Hamlet in a graveyard?
A (Justin): We started in a 19th-century opera house and I felt it was harder to reach the audience in that space than it was outdoors.
A (Daniel): This space is quite similar to the Winedale space. It's surrounded by audience on three sides. You can touch/get in the face of someone in the front row. It allows you to connect very personally with the audience members, convince them that they're the person about who you're talking.
A (Bob): Outside in central Texas. It's very hot. The challenge of the role is less about the lines than just the physical exercise involved in performing the role. At Winedale, audiences are constantly fanning themselves and shifting around. It makes it impossible for the actor to stay still the whole time. Added to the manicness of the character.

Q: In "all occasions," there is a passage - "will and strength and means..." 26 consecutive monosyllabic words, begins and ends with a caesura. So, basically - pause, 26 monosyllables, pause. Have you thought about what that's all about?
J.H.: The leaden ratio - that speech happens at the moment the audience most palpably wants Hamlet to shut up. And, you are out there saying something that doesn't make a whole lot of sense.
Q: Act - motive, intention, and performance. If you apply that concept to what Hamlet is saying -
J.H.: If he just changed to the past-tense "If I HAD cause and will..." it would make so much more sense.
T.M.: I think that the thing is what Mamet called the 'Kitten monologue' - someone grinding the play to a halt with a jarring, nostalgic moment. It's like a play-sized caesura. It's a different flavor for Hamlet. He can misrepresent himself to himself, self- deception. I think it's an interesting moment that, if you're looking for fluidity, continuity, and rationality, it's clear why it gets cut, but it can be a moment where Hamlet and Fortinbras can suss out the differences in their characters.
K.L.: I didn't do it here, but I did it elsewhere. And it's interesting - it's the last big speech, it's the only one not at the castle. And it's the turning point after which he acts - he deals with R&G, he gets involved with pirates, he gets his revenge. He becomes this sort of action hero-y character offstage.
J.H.: And, I found it incredibly easy to memorize.

Q: Offstage - why do you think Hamlet goes to Ophelia's closet and what it he trying to do there?
J.H. [laughs]: What are they generally trying to do there?
B.C.: If you believe that he goes there directly after the ghost scene, he goes there to tell the person he trusts the most, but when he gets there, he remembers he's sworn to secrecy and so stands there in silence. He hopes to find a support system, but can't.
K.L.: It's one of those near misses. Like, if only that servant could read and didn't have to ask Romeo...
J.R.: Jim had us rehearse that scene to get a reference point.

Q. In this particular theatre, we're willing to join you on an imaginative journey, do you think it matters how old Hamlet is?
J.R.: Modern audiences certainly relate to college Hamlet and his buddy Horatio. I think it assists their understanding.
K.L.: It is such a wonderful role, and I want to see all kinds of different Hamlets. I want to see Hamlets of all kinds.

Q (Maxim): If you could give yourself advice as you were playing Hamlet, what advice would you give?
B.C.: Ask for help. In a season with no director, I was really fortunate to have Rene as Horatio and he set aside time to sit with me as I worked the soliloquys. Rather than feeling like you have to carry the show, take in as much information and feedback as possible.
J.R.: I would tell myself...give myself permission to fail. I came in with a lot of preconceived notions and couldn't allow myself to let them go.
M.D.: It brings up the thought - is this the sort of role you should really play twice?
J.H.: I wish I could have been able to relax about it.

Q: Is it difficult, as Hamlet, to be directed? Since it's such a dominating part?
T.M.: Not at all. I think I would have been a lot more at sea if I hadn't had Ralph as the director. The director can be a very useful pressure to create a clear form. Otherwise, the part could just spill everywhere.
J.H.: The best directors at least give you the illusion of ownership. I feel that I can answer for everything I'm doing on the stage.
J.R.: I felt that Jim was an ally and really helped in fleshing out each of those relationships, one by one.
B.C.: It's great to be asked a lot of questions. As to ownership, the answer is yours. A good director won't tell you the answer but encourage you to ask the question.

Q (Paul Menzer): To Ben, could you talk about doing the Q1, a Hamlet that is familiar and so different.
B.C.: I always thought that "there's the point" would get a giggle because it's jarring. But, the Q1 feels like the difference between an action film to an arthouse film.
K.L.: It's just so exciting to have that feeling.
T.M.: The German translation version is structured differently even from Q1, but there are still recognizable bits. And those were the moments where the audience could get onboard with something familiar before something strange and jarring happened. Hamlet is in our cultural consciousness and there are a lot of people who may not know the play well enough to be jarred greatly by the differences.

Q (Casey Caldwell): On the subject of Folio and Q1, what is it like working with a play that has different, somewhat competing versions?
B.C.: Simply, I ignored all the other versions.
K.L.: I had a fifty email exchange with the director that was like a bargain - bartering lines. I did miss some stuff that wasn't there, but how long do you want to make the evening? Every line can help you as an actor.
J.H.: We worked from the Oxford and Jim had done the cut. And, usually I'm a bargainer, but in this case, I just went with it. I only asked for one line back. And then, trying to learn the Q1 sequence was very confusing. I had learned Hamlet's path one way and that was Hamlet. So, learning that different version of the character was cool.

Q (Rene): Is there a part of Hamlet that you don't like?
J.H.: Osric. I don't understand why he's there and I don't think I ever will.

Q (Tom Berger): When you offer a conflated version of Hamlet, that doesn't exist. It's a 19th century play.
J.H.: It's really a 21st-century play. We've taken these pieces and played with them more.
T.M.: But, it only matters if you're trying to authorize it in some way. In the playing of it, does it really matter?
K.L.: It adds to the mystery of what is this Hamlet.

Collective nouns: A Procrastination, A Prevarication, A Bedlam

Notes from the Hathway Brown residency

I spent the past week in Shaker Heights, OH, working with Kelley McKinnon and Chad Bradford (both formerly of the ASC touring troupe). This expedition was the first ASC educational residency, where we send a team out on location to work with students on text exploration, Shakespeare's staging conditions, rehearsal observation and coaching, and a plethora of other ASC mission-driven programming that we can develop for the specific school or pull from our existing publications. It's sort of the inverse of our Little Academes, where college professors bring their classes to us in Staunton for a custom-designed week of lectures, workshops, and play-going. The residency gives us the extra benefit of being able to reach many more students from the same school than could feasibly travel to Staunton for an extended stay. Molly Cornwell, the theater teacher at Hathaway Brown School and director of their plays, brought us in to work with everyone from 7th-graders up to college-bound seniors.

In Hathaway Brown's fabulous black box theatre, we met with drama and English classes to introduce ASC rehearsal practices and methods of learning through performance. The acting classes did some in-depth monologue work with Kelley and Chad, bringing the nuances of Shakespeare's language to the forefront. Several of those students are also in Cornwell's production of Macbeth, currently in rehearsals, and so they worked on monologues or important staging moments from the play. Improv classes played word games and worked with cue scripts, while English classes examined issues of masculinity, asides and audience contact, and the challenges and opportunities of playing darkness. The 7th grade intro to drama class explored the many vocal and physical choices an actor can make -- and also learned how to die dramatically as Juliet. Watching a 12-year-old perform Juliet's death so passionately that she actually creeps herself out is one of the more amusing things I've gotten to do lately.

We also got to work with the full cast of Macbeth, with Kelley and Chad serving as rehearsal coaches each afternoon. They encouraged the students to make big choices. Everything, they pointed out, is a choice -- or at least, it should be. If you're not making a choice, you're throwing a line away. They also helped the actors interrogate Shakespeare's language to find all of the delivery clues he provides. Hathaway Brown is educating some incredibly talented young women -- during the week, I saw wonderful transformations as the students really dug in to the text. The witches discovered disparate identities that still worked in unison, Lady Macbeth built ways to present herself both as a powerful instigator and as a fearful madwoman, Macbeth explained his soul-shaking quandaries to the audience, and the entire cast navigated the challenges of group scenes like the revelation of Duncan's death or the banquet featuring Banquo's ghost. Other activities during the week included practicing safe stage combat, looking for embedded stage directions, and learning how to share focus on the stage.

I was so impressed by the young ladies at Hathaway Brown. Not only were they bright, active, and engaged, willing to experiment with Shakespeare's text and to try new things, but they also all seemed so kind and generous, both with us and with each other. I loved that, when I asked the 7th-graders to explore different ways of delivering the first line of Macbeth -- "When shall we three meet again?" -- I got 18 completely different responses from each of the 18 girls, each one fully committed to her choice and excited to show it off to the rest of the class. That sort of effervescent enthusiasm was prevalent in the whole school. Everyone there really seemed to be enjoying the learning process -- which is, of course, exactly what we hope for. Molly Cornwell has done a great job building her drama program, and I'm so glad the English teachers are working with her to bring new ways of looking at Shakespeare to their students.

We finished off the week with an assembly, opening with some snippets from Macbeth that the cast had worked on during the week. The Porter took on the challenge of presenting a monologue she'd only learned two days earlier, and she did an incredible job, strolling nonchalantly through the audience, mocking her classmates, and setting the tone for the rest of the hour. Then Macbeth and Lady Macbeth presented Act One, scene seven, the famous "If it were done, when 'tis done" speech and following conversation. They demonstrated wonderful focus and intensity, and I can only imagine that their classmates will be excited to see the final, finished product. Kelley and Chad performed the Macbeth-Young Siward fight, and then we demonstrated some of the workshops, in brief, that we'd done during the week with classes. Kelley had two volunteers find the delivery clues in a scene between Katharine and Petruchio, using the alliteration as a physical direction, and used cue scripts to find the moments where Romeo asks Juliet for a kiss. Chad led a group of students in a Shakespearean insult contest, and then Kelley unleashed total delightful mayhem by demanding that the faculty come up to give it a try. We ended the week on just the right note, leaving the students with the idea that Shakespeare is exciting, energetic, and an overall good time.

After one last group photo with the cast of Macbeth, it was, sadly, time to head home. Photos from the week are up on the ASC Facebook page, and I hope I'll have video to share with you all soon. Kelley, Chad, and I had an absolutely wonderful time, and I can't wait till the next educational residency.

Echoes and Ghosts

I had the good fortune last week to be able to watch a dress rehearsal for Henry V, which opens on the 16th. It got me thinking about the performance echoes that resonate in that building. I don't mean the actual quality of the sound (although our wooden space is quite nice for that as well) -- I mean the almost metaphysical residue of past performances, the ghosts floating along, superimposed over the present.

With our company, the echoes are always present in some form. It's impossible not to encounter them, especially when you see all of the sixteen plays we present each year. The cast performs in ensemble and in repertory, the same actors in different plays not just in the same season, but often returning year-to-year. When you've seen them take on dozens of roles, there are always some funny quips or interesting comparisons to draw. Watching Henry V, however, there were two moments that struck me particularly hard. They seem to echo a bit louder than they might otherwise, thanks to the Rise and Fall of Kings series that the ASC has been producing for the past few years. The characters in Henry V exist not in isolation, but stretching back, into the Henry IVs, which we've produced in our Fall Seasons since 2008, and forward, into the Henry VIs, which have been part of our Actors' Renaissance Seasons since 2009. This, I think, is the real benefit to doing the history cycles the way we've done them: the connections weave in and out of each other, creating a richer and more complex theatrical experience than seeing any one of those plays in isolation would be.

The first moment which pulled at those threads for me was almost at the very beginning of the play, in Henry's first scene, when he enters and takes unquestioned command of his surroundings. His nobles fall in ranks behind him, and he sits in the throne with full and unwavering ownership of it. Gregory Jon Phelps plays Henry for us in this production, and this scene reminded me, immediately and strikingly, of watching him play Henry VI earlier this year, in Henry VI, Part 3 during our Actors' Renaissance Season. The visual made for a striking contradiction: bold, assured, confident Henry V versus weak, uncertain, yielding Henry VI. Henry VI never seemed comfortable in his throne, never quite gave off that aura that he knew, in his marrow, that it was his. Henry V has no doubt. Even when he contemplates what it means to be a king, what burdens that means he has to bear, he doesn't question what he is. There's a grounded certainty to Henry V that his successor lacks. With Phelps playing both of those roles in the same year, they both, in a way, exist on stage at the same time. Trailing along beside Henry V is the faint shadow of his yet-unborn, but already-seen, son.

The other moment which I thought striking was Fluellen, played by James Keegan, in the following exchange:

FLUELLEN
I speak but in the figures and comparisons of it: as
Alexander killed his friend Cleitus, being in his
ales and his cups; so also Harry Monmouth, being in
his right wits and his good judgments, turned away
the fat knight with the great belly-doublet: he
was full of jests, and gipes, and knaveries, and
mocks; I have forgot his name.

GOWER
Sir John Falstaff.

FLUELLEN
That is he.

There's something both sad and a little alarming there -- because, of course, Keegan played Falstaff for us the past two years, in Henry IV, Part 1 and Part 2, and in The Merry Wives of Windsor. The line "I have forgot his name" would be meaningful from any actor, at least for anyone who's seen the Henry IV plays -- because who could forget a character John Falstaff? But to have that line come from the mouth of the actor who played Falstaff, who laid down his stuffed doublet in the epilogue, saying, "This is not the man," it's somehow that much more poignant. It helps, too, that Gower is played by Allison Glenzer, who also plays Mistress Quickly (and has done in the earlier shows in this history cycle as well). The moment of vague remembrance here, towards the end of the play, recalls the earlier scene when Quickly, Pistol, Nim, Bardolph, and the Boy mourn Falstaff, weeping and laughing and telling tales. Falstaff's ghost hovers more prominently than does Henry VI's, because Shakespeare wrote the awareness of his death into the play -- but Keegan as Fluellen augments that memento mori tremendously.

These intangible connections between shows are part of why I always hope that students will come to see us not just for one play, but over and over again -- I think if they can watch the ghosts, as I do, and see the same actors doing something completely different, they'll realize more fully how the magic of theatre lies not solely in the text, flat on the page, but in those words given life by the relationship created by an actor's skill and an audience's attention.

Preview: The Playhouse Insider - Summer 2011

Summer at the American Shakespeare Center is an exciting time, with two troupes in rehearsal, preparing three seasons’ worth of new shows. The Summer issue of The Playhouse Insider will offer readers an exclusive look at the making of the eight plays that comprise these seasons. The issue will be on sale in the Box Office or by mail order in a few weeks, but for now, I thought I would give our blog readers a special preview of what will be in the issue.

In this issue, our Artists section features two directors and two actors. First, Nick Hutchison shares his experiences directing The Importance of Being Earnest for the ASC back in 2004. Producing Oscar Wilde's 1895 play presents different challenges in an early modern space like the Blackfriars Playhouse, and not all of them stem from Wilde's expectation of lights and dropped curtains. The text also asks different things of actors and directors: "Where Shakespeare has unfathomable depths, Oscar is all surface, and rejoices in the fact. Start to try and analyse the text as you would in Shakespeare, and it doesn’t work, but when you luxuriate in its brittle elegance, its superficial brilliance, it comes alive, clearly and hilariously." Hutchison confesses that he was initially skeptical of Earnest's playability on the Blackfriars stage, but that he ultimately found that "the play doesn’t just survive the transfer to the Blackfriars but rejoices in it."

Our second director's piece comes from our own Ralph Alan Cohen, who will be directing Henry V for the Fall season. Cohen explains his admiration for the play he describes as "an odd work." He sees Henry V as Shakespeare's first experiment with deconstruction and as his "great essay on the power of an audience." After all, the Chorus explicitly instructs the audience on what they will have to do with their imaginations to "Piece out our imperfections with your thoughts." Cohen sees this play as Shakespeare saying to his viewers: "Here are some Lego pieces – a bunch of well-written speeches and a few great, stand-alone scenes. Make a play, Audience, have some fun."

Rounding out the Artists' section, touring troupe actors Rick Blunt and Denice Burbach share their experiences of life out on the road. They discuss issues both professional and personal, from the challenges and opportunities for discovery presented by having to adapt to new spaces to the sense of community they build in towns across the country, from the reality of living out of a single suitcase to the great adventure of traveling the United States. The Almost Blasphemy Tour takes off for the first leg of their run in September, returning to the Playhouse for the holiday season in December. Summing up their experiences on tour, both Rick and Denice express that the process is an ongoing one, a continual process of learning and of change. Rick says that he continually strives to discover "how to get better, how to be better," while Denice states, "It's unlike any job you will ever have in your life. I forget sometimes how unique a path we've chosen." For ongoing details on where the tour is headed, friend us on Facebook or check out "ASC on Tour" on our website.

Since the ASC focuses so strongly on research and education, we ask leading minds in the field to share their thoughts on our upcoming plays in our Scholars section. Roslyn Knutson, Professor of English, Emerita, at the University of Arkansas and President of the Marlowe Society. Knutson shares what makes Tamburlaine so fascinating for her, from the visually striking stage moments to the challenge of a modern actor who must "negotiate with [Edward] Alleyn's ghost" in performing this larger-than-life role. Tamburlaine is Knutson's hero, she says, because "his exceptionalism is not just the testosterone of Marlowe's mighty line. It is also the charisma of the over-achiever."

Our second scholar is our own Christina Sayer Grey, who examines the storytelling patterns in Shakespeare's Romances, two of which the ASC will have in production this year (The Tempest, opening June 24th, and The Winter's Tale in the Almost Blasphemy tour). As Grey explicates, the thread that links the Romances is "a shared concern with the stories of lapses in historicized time - the space between something being lost and its being found, the time between Before and After." While The Tempest and Cymbeline dramatize only the gap itself, Pericles provides a triptych of Before, During, and After, and The Winter's Tale shows a diptych of Before and After. Grey examines how these different structures bend the typical expectations of Comedy and Tragedy, creating the nebulous generic classification of the Romances.

Finally, our Audiences section in this issue focuses on our student audiences. Two teachers, Kerry Kisa of Cape Henry Collegiate School in Virginia Beach, VA, and Linda Nicholson of Highland Springs High School in Henrico, VA discuss how bringing students to see shows at the Blackfriars Playhouse and using the ASC methods of teaching through performance has enriched their learning experience. Kisa describes how her students last year explored the staging of Othello, arguing over the intricacies of bed placement and actor blocking. "As I stood watching my students quarrel over the scene, I couldn’t help but think, 'I've got them.'" Nicholson talks about the "Blackfriars Fever" that has taken over her school, where students scramble to be the first to sign up for field trips to the Playhouse. "One young lady told me she went the first time as a means of missing classes, but after the show, she wanted to hide in the bathroom and live in the playhouse." While we're pretty sure the Playhouse staff would have some strong opinions about that, we love the enthusiasm! Both Kisa and Nicholson share their students' opinions about an active exploration of Shakespeare in their own words, and it's wonderful to see how much they're enjoying what they once dismissed as boring or irrelevant. If you're a teacher who would like to bring your students to the Blackfriars Playhouse, read up about our matinees or contact Group Sales Manager Ben Ratkowski.

Putting this issue together has me excited for what's coming up at the Playhouse over the next few months, and I hope it will imbue all of you with the same eager anticipation. I'll be sure to let everyone know when the issue goes on sale -- look for the announcement early in July.

Imprimis: Links and Tidbits - 3 June 2011

This week: debates about the value of a degree, and some insights into acting.

• There's been quite a bit of hullabaloo in the news cycles recently about the value not just of a college education, but of the economic advantage given by one degree over another. Turns out that majors like engineering, math, and computer science earn 50% more than the humanities. (Cass says: Raise your hand if this comes as a major shock to you). The idea of "gainful employment" may soon be affecting how much college students pay for courses -- or how much they're allowed to receive in loans. (Choose a low-earning major? Like, say, English or education? Sorry; we're cutting you off).
  
• The humanities, however, aren't taking this lying down. One clever article assumes Shakespeare's voice for its rebuttal. Another op-ed states, "No matter how much they earn or don't earn, no one can ever take from them their poetry, literature, music or art. Many, probably most, never lose their love of Shakespeare, Mozart, Cezanne or whatever the source of their youthful passions." Cass says: And for my part, I'd rather have the job satisfaction I have right now than be making twice as much in a job that made me miserable.
• And, for what it's worth, President Obama's new education plan includes strategies for teacher retention.
  
• The Osher Lifelong Learning Institute at UC Santa Cruz reports exploding popularity for its adult-learning programs. The ASC encourages lifelong learning through programs at the Playhouse and by hosting excursions for the Road Scholars program.
• British actress Eve Best, currently on stage at the Globe in Much Ado About Nothing, talks about performing Shakespeare, including this tidbit on cross-gender casting: "There’s something really interesting about crossing genders because you’re no longer caught in the sexual politics of your part... I think with some roles like Lady Macbeth and Isabella [in Measure for Measure] as an actress one is always trying to exonerate the character slightly. When you cross genders you don’t have to worry about that stuff – it’s unbelievably liberating."
• ABC News has a lovely piece on the art of acting, as voiced by 81-year-old actor Christopher Plummer, which includes thoughts on how his approach to acting Shakespeare has changed over time.

Imprimis: Links and Tidbits, 4 February 2011

This week brought us scholarship through Twitter, a new podcast from the ASC, enlightening research on Shakespeare's world, and the ongoing debate about the humanities in education.

• I had a blast during #AskShakespeare Day. This idea, cooked up by the Shakespeare Birthplace Trust, brought scholars from all over the world together to answer questions about Shakespeare posed on Twitter. It was so wonderful to see how many people out there cared enough to ask questions about Shakespeare, and I got to trade ideas with some great scholars. We did see the authorship question pop up a few times, and plenty of people wanted to ask scholars and practitioners what our favorite plays and characters are, but we also encountered a range of other questions, some with concrete answers, but many that invited speculation: What race was Othello, really? Why do people talk about Hamlet having an Oedipus complex? Did Shakespeare pursue his own publication? What's the most gruesome scene in an early modern play? (Votes went to the heart-on-a-knife in 'Tis Pity She's a Whore and the head-bashing in Tamburlaine -- both of which you'll be able to see at the Blackfriars next year!). What's the most underrated of Shakespeare's plays? How would the plays have been different if women had been allowed on the stage? The whole experiment was so entertaining and a real intellectual rush. I think we should do it once a month. Of course, I'm happy to answer questions any day of the year -- just ping @ASC_Cass.
  
• The first Actor-Scholar Council podcast is up and waiting for you to listen to it. Greg Phelps, Tyler Moss, Sarah Fallon, John Harrell, Chris Johnston, and Jeremiah Davis joined a panel of scholars to discuss The Comedy of Errors. We'll be recording the Council session on Look About You next week.
• If you're within easy traveling distance of Staunton, be sure to see Shannon Schultz's directing project, an all-male version of Romeo and Juliet, on February 7th and 8th. The Staunton Newsleader interviewed Shannon about the project. (Please note that the Newsleader article has the performance time wrong: the show will start at 8pm both nights).
• "Hellraising Antics of Shakespearean Actors Revealed": The London Telegraph has posted an interesting article on what recent research has revealed about the theatrical world in which Shakespeare lived. Kidnappings, riots, thefts, vandalism, all brought to light courtesy of the new Early Modern London Theatres database.
• If you still haven't read James Shapiro's Contested Will, here's another review praising it as "an entertaining reappraisal of Shakespeare's enduring fascination and a conspiracy story worthy of play by the great man himself."
• Dale Salwak of Citrus College, CA, shares his approach to getting his students to love Shakespeare. Cass says: I agree with a lot of what he has to say -- that students say they hate Shakespeare because they really hate the way it's been taught, that you don't need to waste time teaching the plot, that it's okay for art to make demands of the audience -- but I still think he's missing some key elements. His approach remains very page-based, with the augmentation of audio recordings. There's so much to be gained by teaching the plays as plays and making the students take on the responsibilities and decision-making of actors.
  
• And, because no edition of Imprimis would be complete without some links discussing the value of the humanities in education: How Liberals Killed the Liberal Arts, and The Humanities in America: An Endangered Species?
  

Imprimis will be on hiatus next Friday, as I will be at the Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies Conference in Phoenix, along with Sarah and intern Liz, so you'll get a double-issue on February 18th. Sarah and I will be Tweeting from the conference as well, and I'll be posting about it when we get back.

Actor-Scholar Council, 28 January 2011

This week we are focusing on the Actor-Scholar Council -- Since 2007, ASC actors have met with scholars to discuss the unique experiment of the Actors' Renaissance Season. The mission of the Council is to provide participants with the opportunity for discovery related to the process of mounting plays and performing them at the Blackfriars Playhouse, to provide participants with the opportunity to explore their overlapping areas of expertise in order to garner avenues for para-professional friendship, and to create a record of conversation for future study. Tune in to our podcasts to hear our other meetings for yourself. I've compiled these notes, with the help of Christina and interns Natalie and David, to bring you a comprehensive summary of last week's discussion.

On January 28th, the Actor-Scholar Council met to discuss The Malcontent. The actors present were Ben Curns (Malevole), Patrick Midgley (Ferneze and Guerrino), Alli Glenzer (Maquerelle), Miriam Donald (Bianca and Maria), John Harrell (Mendoza), and Jeremy West (Pietro). The scholars present, drawn from the MBC MLit/MFA program, were Asae Dean, David Santangelo, Rachel Ratkowski, and Johnathan Haas. Paul Menzer, head of the Master's program, was this session's moderator.

The session began by questioning what the appropriate collective noun for a group of actors is. Suggestions included "an affectation," "an arrogance," or "a conceit" of actors. Paul then prefaced the conversation by considering the unique theatrical style of the Actors' Renaissance Season, which exists "in stark contrast" to the rest of the artistic year. He suggested that the easiest place to begin might be with the "prosthetic personality" of the ARS -- meaning the tendency, more than in the other shows of the year, to use wigs and exaggerated makeup as character signifiers. As examples from The Malcontent, Paul mentioned Ben and Jeremiah Davis in wigs, Alli's bawd makeup, Paul Jannise's wig and makeup combo making him look "like a powdered doughnut," and John "in a moustache that I think can only be described as icky." Paul asked, "Is that deliberate? Has it evolved?" and wondered if the reliance on external augmentations might be a product of the compressed rehearsal period, as a shortcut to character.

Ben spoke first, about his choice to use an auburn curly wig (the same as he has used in and in Cymbeline and in The Revenger's Tragedy), primarily because the wig is easily removeable and reattachable for reveals. Alli commented that, for characters for whom the choices were not related to disguise, the over-the-top costumes and makeup indicated "something about the world in the play breaking down, no longer living up to something... Ever since we lost the Duke, we've been a society that care about the wrong things." She also noted that, for her character, the makeup is written into the text, as the artifice of the bawd was a common theme in Jacobean dramas. As for the troubling moustache, John admitted that he was "flummoxed by the character" for a while, that he "couldn't figure out what Mendoza's deal was." The moustache became a way, not only to differentiate John-as-Mendoza from John-as-gallant seen at the beginning of the play, but also to signify Mendoza as someone "trying for style but not quite 'hip' with style."

Paul pressed further on the question of to what degree the creation of theatrical style is a conscious decision versus an organic growth. John commented on the freedom of being "not answerable to someone who may not match with you aesthetically." The tendency to go towards stock-character-based interpretations, he says, isn't necessarily a bad thing, especially because plays of this period "were written before the concept of stock characters came under fire." He explained it more as a use of semiotics to convey ideas to the audience. Jeremy stated that the company discussed thematically the frivolousness of the society, and then, when they pulled costumes, they gravitated towards the opulent look of Restoration and French pre-Revolution era costumes. This contributed to what Paul called a "creeping coherence of design" that still retained "a provocative incoherency." Miriam noted that while Patrick's costume as Ferneze, leather pants and sunglasses, comes from a different world, it still fits in, somehow, to the overall play. In response, Patrick said that his costume makes it apparent that Ferneze is "an outsider, lascivious, like I'm a charade." This incoherence, in Jeremy's words, "bleeds into the acting style," because the nature of the ARS, with actors learning from cue scripts and then putting the pieces together in rehearsal, creates "less necessity for acting style cohesion." He notes that his character, Duke Pietro, is "kind of in the wrong play" theatrically, as a melancholic figure, which gives him the freedom to embrace a different acting style.

Conversation turned next to the masque at the end of the play. Asae asked how those stylistic choices worked with the masque, which had, in the Jacobean period, its own distinctive set of conventions. John's answer was to go for something incongruous to the rest of the play, something "inescapably a different world." Ben stated that the masque is yet another layer added to the levels of artifice in the play: "Marston seems to be saying that your job as a thinking human needs to be to see what's underneath. This play seems to say, rather than slaughter everybody in your way, the harder job is to get them to fix themselves."

Consideration of the masque segued into a question posed by one of the ASC's followers on Facebook, Clifford Garstang, who wondered how the actors deal with the requirements of such a complex scene without a director. John stated his belief that it's "a misnomer to say 'undirected,' they're self-directed." The actors are open to input from each other, but "also totally comfortable ignoring each other." Particularly for the complex scenes, though, it's helpful to know that someone is keeping an eye on business. For the masque in particular, Alli noted, they "all knew it needed to happen," particularly since dialogue occurs during the masque, adding another degree of challenge. As Alli was not primarily involved in the masque, had studied the pavane, and had music to choose from, she took charge of that scene. The repeatable nature of the pavane made it easy to learn and to plug into the scene, and the movement of the dance, allowing different couples to come to the forefront at different times, made it a good choice for highlighting dialogue. During the ARS, as Ben noted, the actors tend to choose "crazy stuff" when dance is called for, such as the swing dancing in Romeo and Juliet or the hip-hop in The Changeling. With that in mind, "the craziest thing we could do is a period pavane."

The pavane choice generated a lot of conversation. John noted that a prevalent idea exists that "that style of dance is lame," which Jeremy thought is because it gets associated with boredom and which Paul thought grew out of the use of pavane-style dances in theatre and film as "a short hand for a kind of restriction." The reality, however, the actors discovered to be quite different. "Dancing it is a lot sexier than you would think it is," Miriam said. "There's a lot more warmth than I had anticipated." Ben stated that "the grace of the dance is deceptive to what is happening." The actors also thought there's a lot to be said for the stage picture that the pavane creates, with eight people on a stage as intimate as the Blackfriars's.

Paul next brought up the "gestural vocabulary" of the ARS. John responded that he thinks it's more of a different "floor pattern vocabulary" which he seeks to "really deliberately destroy." He used the example of the "quincunx" (think of the five on a die) which is easy to "flop" into. Ben talked about how thinking about these stage pictures makes him consider the difference between lays written for the Blackfriars as opposed to plays written for other spaces. Plays like The Malcontent, Paul noted, feel more like chamber-pieces, "at home in the Blackfriars." On the other hand, Look About You, which the actors are currently rehearsing, in Ben's opinion "probably had a much bigger space, probably had pillars to hide behind."

Paul commented on The Malcontent as a play that "excites an audience expectation that's not satisfied... which is blood." MFA student Glenn Schudel, who assisted John in cutting the script, commented that the play is "not what it promises to be," and Asae questioned the difficulty created when the play holds out so long on providing important characters. Mendoza only appears at the end of the first act, and Maria, much-discussed but little-seen, comes in much later on. When Asae asked how the actors gave presence to those parts when the characters were so absent, Ben replied that it had been a problem, and that they had revisited Maria's first scene after the preview performance. "I guess the answer is we're not done," Miriam added, speaking to the ability in the ARS to respond to what's not working and fix troublesome bits over the course of the season.

Wrapping up the discussion, Paul asked what audiences should be looking for in Look About You. John suggested that the discussion on style might be even more relevant after Look About You goes up, as it relies even more heavily on typed characters and overexaggerations. Jeremy suggested that audiences look for the incongruities. "I knew nothing about this play coming into it," he said, but working through the play has given him the idea that the anonymous play may have been a collaboration between two or more authors.

The next Actor-Scholar Council, focusing on Look About You, will be recorded for podcast on February 11th, featuring John Harrell (Skink), Chris Johnston (Redcap), Miriam Donald (Lady Marian), Jeremiah Davis (Prince John), and Paul Jannise (Henry II and Block).

The Playhouse Insider

I'm in the process of finalizing the premiere edition of The Playhouse Insider, the magazine that the ASC is producing, and I thought I'd take the opportunity to tell the Internet something about it. It looks fantastic, and I pretty much can't wait to get it out into the universe for public consumption. I'm so excited about this project and the opportunities it's going to have to grow in coming years.

We'll be putting this publication out twice a year, in December to preview the Actors' Renaissance Season, and in June to preview the Summer and Fall Seasons. Our goal for this magazine is to provide the readers with a look into different experiences of early modern theatre at the Blackfriars Playhouse. We've solicited articles from ASC actors and artists, from renowned scholars, and from members of the ASC community, and as a result this first issue has so much quality material. Whether you've been coming to ARS shows since they began in 2005, will be joining us for the first time in 2011, or are just interested from the far-ranging Internet, there will be so much in this magazine for you to enjoy.

Our artists' contributions include a brief history of the ARS. I'm really glad we got this into print, because up until now, there hasn't actually been any codified explanation of just how the ARS came to be. Now we'll have it all set out for our own institutional records, and the information will also be available to any scholars or patrons who are interested in how experiment. If you're unfamiliar with the Actors' Renaissance Season, the basic concept is this: after years of adhering to Shakespeare's Staging Conditions, the ASC wanted to push further and experiment with Shakespeare's Rehearsal Conditions, putting on plays the way the King's Men and other companies in the 16th- and 17th-centuries would have: without a director, working from cue scripts, making costume and prop and music decisions on their own, and setting their own rehearsal schedules. I think the ARS shows have so much energy and spirit -- they're just electrifying to watch -- and it all comes out of the drive and ingenuity of the actors.

Those actors contributed to our artistic-focused articles. One is an in-depth conversation with veteran actor John Harrell, who has not only been an actor in every ARS so far, but who also has a hand in cutting the scripts for the season. Harrell talks about his process cutting scripts, the fun in working with unusual texts, and what he's looking forward to tackling as an actor in the 2011 ARS. We also have veteran actors Rene Thornton, Ben Curns, and Chris Johnston sharing some of their favorite moments from Ren Seasons past. In both of these interviews, the articles make it so easy to see the actors' enthusiasm for the ARS. They really seem to delight in the ownership of the plays that this season gives them, and they revel in the freedom to let their creativity take over.

We're also excited and privileged to have some great articles from our scholastic community. Carole Levin, the Willa Cather Professor of History and Director of Medieval and Renaissance Studies at the University of Nebraska, contributed an article on the anonymous play Look About You, which meshes high history, low comedy, and lots of disguises. The play takes place during the reign of Henry II and features a young Robin Hood. Levin's article examines the play in relationship to the rest of the Robin Hood saga and to other plays of the early modern period set during the reigns of the early Plantagenets. Carole gave me something great to think about in viewing this play as a sort of prequel to Shakespeare's King John, which I'll definitely be giving thought to in my continuing exploration of how early modern plays reflect the English sense of national identity. Continuing on the history theme, Glenn Schudel, an MFA candidate at the MBC program for Shakespeare in Performance and a dramaturgical intern for the ASC, provides us with a look at the "unlikely heroes" of Henry VI, Part 3: Margaret and Richard. Schudel considers their treatment within the play and the historical maligning of their characters in his examination of these two marginalized figures. His writing is witty and elegant, making for an article that is both informative and fun to read. The last scholastic contribution is my own, which I mentioned back in October, looking at Adriana (from The Comedy of Errors) and the tradition of Shakespeare's wives. Though The Comedy of Errors, an early play, has its share of flaws and, plot-wise, is definitely among the least original of Shakespeare's plays, you can see in it, and particularly in Adriana, the seeds that will continue to grow through the rest of his career. All three of these articles demonstrate the kind of educational insight that we prize here at the ASC, offering readers a glimpse into the intellectual intrigues surrounding these quirky plays.

For the last division of the magazine, we have the contributions from audience members and observers. Director of Education Sarah Enloe shares her experience working with A Trick to Catch the Old One with our No Kidding Shakespeare Camp for adults. The camp participants did a read-around of the play back in the summer, and Sarah talks about the insights gleaned from working through an unfamiliar text. We also have a great piece for anyone interested in the behind-the-scenes workings of the ARS, written by Rhonda Knight, Professor of English at Coker College, who spent the 2010 Ren Season observing rehearsals. She got to watch the construction of the plays in action, and her article is like a mini-documentary of the process. Finally, Cheryl and Mark Keeler, two of our regular patrons, explain why it is their family loves the ARS season so much. Their piece expresses the effervescent joy that I know so many of our audience members feel when watching Ren Season shows.

All in all, I'm ridiculously pleased with how attractive the magazine has turned out. The layout is accessible and inviting, and the pictures really capture the frenetic energy and wild creativity of the Ren Season. My favorite picture, from one of my favorite almost-leapt-out-of-my-seat-with-excitement moment from the 2010 ARS, is on page 21 -- but I don't want to ruin the surprise by telling you all what it is.

I'll be posting again early next week, when the magazine will be available in the Playhouse box office and free-of-charge online. I'm so looking forward to putting this out so I can hear what everyone else thinks about it.

Shakespeare's Staging Conditions with Rick Blunt

Our recently featured Rick Blunt led a workshop in Shakespeare's staging conditions for 50 Bath County High School students, and I thought it might be fun to drop in and take a look at the ways our actors help further the educational mission of the American Shakespeare Center.

Blunt begins by asking the students to list some of the ways the ASC uses Shakespeare's original staging conditions to present his plays. Blunt combines the answers of leaving the lights on and thrust staging into our overall theme of audience inclusion. That's how we try to make Shakespeare's plays accessible, but what are the barriers to this access?

Blunt's next exercise involves saying "Shakespeare" and asking the students to think of a word. "Old," "smart," "Stratford," "plays," and "poetry" are popular choices, and Blunt seizes on this description of old and introduces the idea of Shakespeare's modernity. One of the students in the group points out the years of Shakespeare's life, to which Blunt responds that to us the texts are old, but Shakespeare was writing for, what was for him, modern times. The plays of Shakespeare are meant to be living things performed on the stage.

But how do we make the plays come alive? Blunts classroom is configured in a U-shape, which simulates the Blackfriars' thrust-stage; he then performs a monologue from his role as Rafe in Knight in the Burning Pestle using an imaginary Susan on the stage. To illustrate how Shakespeare's staging conditions are different, Blunt then performs the same monologue as he does in the performance, identifying a young lady in audience as Susan: this always gets a laugh in the show, and it gets a bigger one in this group. When Blunt asks them why it's funny, the universally offered answer is that it was because of the audience reaction. Asked who they were looking at, the students respond that they were watching their classmate. Blunt explains how this makes for a different performance every time.

Of course, audience inclusion is only one aspect of Shakespeare's staging conditions, another key element is the lack of large sets and lighting effects to create the world of the play. Blunt has a student volunteer perform the first two lines of Romeo and Juliet's prologue ("Two households, both alike in dignity / In fair Verona, where we lay our scene), and then asks the students where they are. As a chorus, the students in the workshop respond that they are in "Verona." Blunt explains this is only one way that Shakespeare uses language to indicate how to perform his plays.

Blunt asks for another volunteer, and introduces him as "a friar who trembles, sighs, and weeps" (Romeo and Juliet 5.3). Blunt asks the student volunteer how he thinks he should be acting if he (Blunt) introduces him as "a friar who trembles, sighs, and weeps." They perform the entrance again, and the student volunteer suits his entrance to the Blunt's lines, and Blunt then offers an explanation of embedded stage directions.

Of course, embedded stage directions require a further understanding of the way in which the directions are both given and received. Blunt illustrates the point by choreographing the opening street fight of Romeo and Juliet and comparing the effects of Benvolio telling them to "part, fools" and the Prince calling them "rebellious subjects." Benvolio is ignored, but the prince is obeyed; and thus Blunt introduces the way that Shakespeare can use the status of the speaker to direct the action of the scene. Blunt goes on to demonstrate how actors can reinforce the status of Shakespeare's characters by having his student-volunteer-cast turn and kneel to the prince as he enters. He describes this as the ASC's way of using actors to put other actors in the proverbial-spotlight.

Speaking of lighting: how does one play darkness when we leave the lights on? Blunt introduces the balcony scene as a challenge to ASC actors because the scene is dark. It takes place at night, after all. Blunt has another student volunteer recreate their own personal experience of darkness by asking them to demonstrate what happens when they wake up in the middle of the night to get a snack. The student volunteer tries to "feel" his way through the space to the door and walks carefully. He also uses a cell phone to help him see the floor. Blunt explains that actors can create the darkness by the way they move, and Shakespeare can help them by giving them a prop, or using language to describe the environment.

Blunt ties these elements together for the students in the balcony scene. Having two more volunteers perform the roles of Juliet and Romeo, Blunt shows them how Juliet can begin by talking to the audience, but needs to use the darkness of the environment to not see Romeo, who (in the current production) hides among the audience. Romeo's questions are directed to the audience, which involves them in the conversation. Both of the lovers are talking to the audience, but neither one knows that the other is talking to the audience. "[Shakespeare] makes you a confidant in this relationship," says Blunt, excited "it's unbelievable!"

Shakespeare's language is sometimes perceived to be an obstacle, but Blunt reminds his students that 98% of Shakespeare's vocabulary is modern. The words may be unfamiliar, but you know what "be-screened" means without having to look it up. He also points out the heightened nature of Shakespeare's language: "if you're Romeo, and you just got caught creepin' in some girls yard, and she asks you what you're doing here, you better come up with something good." The average Renaissance-Londoner didn't ask for a glass of water by making classical allusions, but Shakespeare's characters use heightened language to talk about their heightened circumstances. This language directs the circumstances of the actors.

Blunt also touches on the cross-gendered casting that we use at the ASC, and describes some of the ways that Shakespeare made us of the convention of an all male acting company. He uses more student volunteers to illustrate the idea of a boy actor playing a female character who dresses as a boy and then pretends to be a woman in As You Like It. Shakespeare didn't write his plays under the presumption that, in 400 years, they would be able to get it right and use female actors to play female roles, he wrote his plays specifically to take advantage of the conventions of the time, which is why it is essential that we cross-gender cast our plays.

"This guy Shakespeare was a smart man," Blunt concludes.

Perhaps the most impressive thing about the ever ebullient Blunt's workshop was the way he engaged the students, especially the ones who were shy or trying to remain uninvolved. Participation is not an option in Rick Blunt's workshop, and while not every student got a chance to perform, the number of volunteers increased every time he asked for them. Getting our audiences to want to engage Shakespeare on his own terms is one of our core principles, and Blunt's success with this group is a testament to that mission.