How can it be over? After wishing for more time so the actors could be truly ready…after 10 weeks of heaven and hell (I believe in theatre the two typically go hand in hand)…I have to say goodbye to Shrew and this wonderful, madcap project that has consumed me for several months of my life. To be honest with you, I’m getting choked up just thinking about it!

The performances were wonderful…simply wonderful! As I sat in the audience, I wondered again how it is possible for these students to learn so much in one short summer. How on earth did Petruchio really learn over 500 lines…and not just memorize them, but learn to say them like they were truly from his own brain and heart, rather than just a cold recitation? How on earth did my Katharinas (yes, I had two as I chose an understudy for my original Kate, just in case the Kate I cast had to move with her family before the play was over - it didn’t happen, but I still gave my understudy Kate the middle performance) take on this character, all of those lines, and make “Kate” come alive from within them? Particularly when you consider that with two Kates they actually only got about 1/2 the amount of rehearsal time each? Also consider the younger, more inexperienced actors and actresses. How did my Celia (one of Petruchio’s servants) manage to come out of her shy, quiet shell and turn into a reasonably loud, obnoxious servant, yelling at Grumio and hitting him with a feather duster? And most astonishingly, how did a cast that I originally feared would never mesh together come out as a family by closing night?

In the immortal words of Geoffrey Rush’s character from Shakespeare in Love, Philip Henslowe, “It’s a mystery.” I think there is something very mysterious and miraculous about directing Shakespeare, particularly for young people. Logic would dictate that there is no way imaginable that 26 young people, ages 10-18, and a dog, could produce a full-length Shakespearean play so professionally and so well. There are any number of potentially insurmountable odds against it - the youth and immaturity of the cast; the difficulty of the language; the sheer number of lines to be memorized in aforementioned difficult language…then consider that I did outdoor theatre in the park! During rehearsals we had dead trees being taken out of the ground by a tree removal service, right next to our stage (the chainsaws really forced the actors to work on their projection!). We had wind gusts up to 15 mph right before two performances started, only to die down in time for the play to start. It even started raining briefly about 15 minutes before opening night. Seriously…there is no reason to believe that any of this should have worked out as well as it did.

But it did, and we had three nights of blissful wonderment, watching this cast perform a play that they had “tamed” and made their own. I am so proud of them all, and I hope that I managed, somehow, to let them all know that they absolutely made my millennium…just like last year! Will I ever do this insanity again? Of course…I’m already planning and working on the script for next summer’s production of…drum roll, please…Macbeth! Closing night the cast presented me with flowers, and I had the opportunity to announce to everyone that I had chosen the Scottish play for next summer’s Shakespeare in the Park. Their reaction? Cheers and applause from both cast and audience! I think I have them hooked!

By the way, if any of you are interested in purchasing a DVD of our Shrew, please e-mail me at themogut@gmail.com. They will be $20 each and will benefit continued productions by the Highland Players. I also still have a couple of copies of our Much Ado from 2007, if anyone is interested!

Posted Mon, 18 Aug 2008 08:45:27 and filed under Rehearsals, Actors, Staging Shakespeare, The Taming of the Shrew. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.