Despite its title, if you are someone who dislikes Shakespeare (and, by the way, shame on you), you most likely still won’t enjoy the new production of Paul Rudnick’s I Hate Hamlet. In fact, you sort of have to love the play to appreciate its storyline. The set-up is simple, an actor who hates Hamlet (because it’s an impossible part to live up to) finds himself playing the role. To make matters worse, he’s not doing a very good job. Add to that some personal crises, and you have the smorgasbord of suffering we expect from comic protagonists. The solution comes when the actor is haunted by the ghost of John Barrymore. I’m sure you can probably guess how it ends.

The inclusion of Barrymore is a novel twist, because there are tons of twentieth-century actors who have put their imprint upon the role of the melancholy Dane. When you think about it, who hasn’t tried their hand at the part? Therein is the inside joke of I Hate Hamlet: in a way, its protagonist is right. The role, even more than the play itself, is like some hideous family heirloom: nobody wants it, but you can’t avoid it. More than that, there is the sense of proving yourself in the attempt, regardless of the outcome. It’s sort of a theatrical form of hazing: sometimes misguided, sometimes, dangerous, sometimes disastrous, but in the end it brings out a sense of pride in you for having done it.

Before I begin my post, I’d like to thank Karen’s Whimsy (http://karenswhimsy.com/taming-of-the-shrew.shtm) for the great public domain pictures she has provided on her website. If you’re looking for pictures from Shakespeare’s plays, or just about anything else for that matter, check her website! It’s a treat to browse!

As my cast members were told this past week, we only have seven weeks left until opening night of Shrew. I think this may have come as a bit of a shock to all involved, including myself! Having spent 3-1/2 months last summer on Much Ado, only spending a grand total of about 10 weeks on Shrew seems a bit…INSANE!!  Particularly when I’ve been feeling as if things were progressing rather slowly, I think I may have hit “panic mode” a bit too soon - which, for me, translates into sleepless nights worrying that the actors won’t get their lines memorized in time!

Then we had our first “real-stage” rehearsal yesterday.  The weather finally turned nice enough for us to be outside on the stage that we will use for our performances, and I have to tell you that there is real truth in the idea of “getting Shakespeare off the page and onto the stage!”  The actors were more animated, more excited, and definitely ready to be out of my classroom at the school!

And how, pray tell, did this first stage-rehearsal go?  Well, it’s still rusty, of course.  The actors are still staring at the scripts, even when other actors are giving their lines, which is something I need to really start addressing.  It’s important that they be engaged in what other people are saying on stage from the very beginning of the rehearsal period - it helps them stay in character anytime they’re on the stage, and also helps them be in the habit of looking interested in what the other actors are talking about (which gets more and more difficult, the more they hear the play over and over and over again!)!  As our Katharina began her long monologue at the end of Act V, several of my actors sank to the ground, heaved exaggerated sighs, and proceeded to look as if they were going to take a nap during her speech!  Wrong!  I told all of them that they need to begin considering how important this speech is to all of the characters on stage…to Baptista, who is hearing that her daughter’s troubled ways are mended; to Bianca, who is being lectured and upstaged at her own wedding feast; even to the servants on stage who have suffered at the wrath and hands of Katharina in the past!  And especially Petruchio, who may be bold and blustering, but who (I believe) is secretly touched by his wife’s newfound dedication to him.  At any rate, all of my actors have to start considering this so that they don’t look like zombies while Katharina is giving that beast of a monologue!

If you would like to see how part of our rehearsal went, check out the short clip I posted on You Tube - I hope you enjoy it!

There are times, even in the most serious of life’s events, that one wishes desperately that one had a blooper reel. A running tape of all of the insane accidents, funny mistakes, and crazy antics of life…or, in the case of an acting troupe, a remembrance on film of just how bizarre and hilarious rehearsals can end up being!

How I wish I had a blooper reel from last summer! What would be on it, you ask, if I had had a camera magically rolling at every ridiculous moment? Hmmm…at one point, if you were watching said blooper reel from Much Ado rehearsals of 2007, you would see a group of excited teenage boys, pulling their shoes off as they ran across the park to a tree where a big wasps’ nest had just been spotted. Then you would see shoes flying through the air at the nest, angry wasps coming out of the nest, and the same teenage boys running around saying, “That was AWESOME!” (Miraculously, no one was injured in the filming of this…oh, yeah, there was no filming…drat!)

You would also hear line after line after line from Monty Python and the Holy Grail being quoted, usually after I made the mistake of saying how much I would like more shrubberies on the set (”a nice one…not too expensive!”).  And probably not funny to me at the time, but would be funny later on a blooper reel, was when I dumped out a prop pitcher, full of what I thought was water onto our stage…only to discover that someone had poured root beer into the pitcher so that the actors could have a little treat during rehearsal.  I’m sure the look on my face was classic…just ask the students that got chewed out for it!

What made me think of a blooper reel was yesterday’s rehearsal of a couple of scenes in Act IV of Shrew. We were working on scene 3, where Katharina is begging Grumio to give her just a little something to eat, and Grumio is teasing Katharina and doing exactly what Petruchio would want him to do. Our Grumio asked if he could sit on the dining table, like the actor in the BBC version that we’ve been watching does, and I said sure. Our Katharina asked if she could then push Grumio off the table, so of course, I said yes! So Grumio is up there, giving Katharina a bad time, and when she gives her line - “Go, get thee gone, thou false deluding slave…” - she shoves him off the table, he rolls and lands with a huge thud, and then Katharina can’t stop laughing…and neither could I!  Between Katharina, Baptista (who also couldn’t stop giggling) and the director, the rest of the rehearsal was pretty much just one big laugh-riot!

As I mentioned in my last post, I was beginning to wonder why these rehearsals were feeling so stale…so blah…and I was worrying that this wasn’t going to have the magic that last summer had. I asked a couple of my actors how I could improve the rehearsals, and they reminded me how much better it got once we started blocking and moving around on the stage, even if the lines weren’t down yet. I think they’re right - I think I spent too much time, trying to make us do book work at the table, when the magic that happens in a production happens on the stage. It’s the blooper-reel moments that bring these plays to life, and give the actors energy and enthusiasm to work with as they begin to understand their characters. Even though the book work has to be done for them to understand the text, it should be interspersed with moments on a stage, any stage (even if it’s just the parking lot outside of the school), moving around and getting to know themselves and the characters/actors they will be interacting with.

So, let the blooper-reel moments happen…get your actors off the page and onto a stage…try to keep them away from wasps’ nests, and do explain the importance of only having water on the stage (root beer + hot summer weather = more wasps building nests!!!!!)…Help them understand the text, but also help them understand how much fun this whole, crazy adventure in theatre can be!

The title of this post may seem a bit strange…I mean, good grief!  After everything I’ve written thus far as to the importance of sticking to the text, why would I even entertain the possibility that the text might be less than critical to the staging of Shakespeare?

This topic occurred to me as I began packing for our upcoming vacation to Hawaii (courtesy of my very kind mother-in-law - Everyone should be blessed with a mother-in-law like her!). I considered all of the physical necessities for myself, my husband, and my two young kids. I made my list and checked it several times. But then I thought about the most important item any bookworm must consider when preparing for long flights and time sitting around on a beach drinking pina coladas…What book(s) will I bring?!?

This is critical - this could make or break a great vacation!  So I decided on The Code of the Woosters, by P.G. Wodehouse, which I’m finishing up for teaching my British Literature class.  A hilarious read, it will keep me chuckling on the plane!  I also chose Master of Verona, which I have already read once, but want to read again as there is so much detail to the story, I want to really get my head around the plot and the characters.

However, because rehearsals for our Shrew production start when I get back from Hawaii, I know I also need to take my script and my Arden copy of the play so that I can be 110% ready to work with my cast next week.  I know I’ve said it before, but it’s really important for a director to choose a play that he/she likes…A LOT!  You will be reading, reading, and re-reading that script over and over again before opening night even gets close, so it really needs to be a play that you will enjoy that much!  Choosing Shrew was a good thing for me as I love reading it over and over - I notice new things with every read, just like I did with Much Ado last summer.

So, why is it important that a director be that familiar with the script?  Isn’t it good enough to know the plot, the characters, and the basic storyline?  Although I’ve never directed a non-Shakespearean play, I would suspect that regardless of the play you’re directing, the answer to that question is a resounding, “NO!”  First of all, when you’re dealing with Shakespeare, you have to start with the text…all of the clues to acting Shakespeare are in the words he wrote.  It’s really a miraculous thing - once you set kids to figuring out what all of the words mean - the classical allusions and the 16th-century hunting, clothing, and culinary terms, just to name a few - they start to figure out where their character is coming from and what he or she is feeling and thinking. Even starting with the meaning of a character’s name can be very helpful to the students. For last year’s production, I was able to find a list of what some of the Much Ado characters’ names mean. Two of the most telling were the meanings of Borachio and Claudio. Borachio, partying friend of Don John, means “drunkard,” and Claudio, whose personal hang-ups cause all sorts of misery for his bride-to-be, means “crippled.” In Shrew, Bianca means “white,” which is important to the story as it is Bianca who appears to be pure and perfect to all of her suitors - it is only later that we discover that she might not be the submissive little angel Lucentio thought he was getting!

Knowing your play…sticking to the best possible edition you can find (I HIGHLY recommend the Arden editions, as well as checking with a First Folio facsimile for punctuation and capitalization questions)…helping your cast learn what the words, phrases, and idioms mean…all of this will help you create an amazing production that your audience can understand. Remember that if your actors don’t know what they’re saying - if they’re only memorizing words and phrases that are meaningless to them - there is no way your audience will have a clue as to what’s going on.  That would be a shame not only for your audience, but also for your cast.  Help them stage a successful, fun Shakespearean play - help them understand the words - help them stick to the text!

Do you think you’re up for A Night in Elsinore? With murders, potential incest, suicides and some poisonous sword fighting, it might not be the getaway it sounds like. A Night in Elsinore is a new production that, what else, parodies Shakespeare. The object of its ribbing is none other than Hamlet. More than any other of The Bard’s plays, Hamlet has taken its share of ribbing. Some plays have one-off jokes about mommy issues or troubled monarchies. Other plays devote their entirety to rethinking the classic story from a comic point of view.

In a way, it makes sense. A comic rip-off of King John probably wouldn’t be as successful due to the dearth of productions of the play. Still, are there things about Hamlet that make it ripe for roasting other than its fame? Making fun of tragedies dates as far back as Ancient Greece, when playwrights would present three tragedies followed by a short comic piece that often made fun of the works that preceded it. I know if I watched a day’s worth of Greek tragedies, I’d need a few chuckles.

Hamlet is no more or less grave than some of the other tragedies, it is just further suffused into pop culture. A riff on King John would be a riff on King John. A riff on Hamlet is a riff not just on the play, but also on its integration into pop culture. In a way, we’re not laughing at Hamlet, we’re laughing at ourselves laughing at Hamlet.

Don’t you just love this picture?  One of our cast members drew this amazing picture to be on the back of our cast/crew t-shirts this year!  I went to him and our set designer and I said, “Okay, here’s what I want for our t-shirts this year - I want a shrew (you know, the animal shrew) in a beautiful Elizabethan dress, holding some kind of weaponry, looking like she’s doing the taming!”  Their response - “A mouse in a dress?”  Yup, that’s what I want!  And this is what I got!  I can hardly wait to get our t-shirts made!

Craig asked me a great question after my last post - “Why Shrew?”  He mentioned the fact that it’s about the public submission of a woman (how, exactly, is that entertaining?), and he was wondering why I chose this play, and also how my teenage cast was reacting to the storyline.  I really appreciate his question because it’s always good as a director to question things - interpretations, visions, the text of the play to some extent - This should never be a “set in stone” experience (well, at least until dress rehearsals, maybe!!!)!

So, why Shrew?  I chose this play primarily because it’s a fun play…Anyone who has seen the Burton/Taylor 1967 film would agree, I think!  There is a ton of physical humor involved, and if you consider who’s doing the smacking around, it’s not Petruchio beating Katharina into submission - it’s Katharina breaking a lute over Hortensio’s head; Katharina smacking her sister, Bianca; Katharina hitting Petruchio; Katharina hitting Grumio…Katharina has some serious anger issues to overcome in this story.  Katharina is a young woman who is almost like the ugly step-sister (even though she is quite beautiful).  She is not her father’s favorite - that title goes to Bianca, Katharina’s younger sister.  Any time a parent plays favorites there is going to be resentment, and it is clear that Katharina is very resentful.  Because of this resentment, she is acting out against everyone - Baptista, Bianca, all of her sister’s suitors, and especially Petruchio when he comes a’ callin’!  She has not learned how to deal with her hurt and her anger, and so she has become horribly shrewish.

Petruchio’s methods of “taming” his new wife have been criticized over and over again, particularly in the 20th century with the feminist movement.  He speaks of Katharina like she’s his ”falcon” (4.1), denying her food in order to make her completely dependent upon him.  He plans to keep her up all night, hungry and exhausted, so that she will be more submissive.  I realize that from a modern standpoint this sounds perfectly horrible!  It doesn’t really sound all that funny to talk about causing physical discomfort like this to one’s new bride, or to anyone for that matter.  But it’s important to consider that Shakespeare was not writing this play during the 20th century - he was writing the way a man in the 16th century would write.  I wouldn’t honestly expect anything different.  A recent discussion in the eNotes Book Club concerned this very thing. Should an author write accurately and be true to what his characters would say, or should he candy-coat it and make it nice and palatable for all people to read?  I don’t believe for a minute that Shakespeare was some horrible mysoginist - I think he was writing for his time.  What else could we expect?

So why does Petruchio determine that it is worth his time to “tame” Katharina?  He could have found a much more willing, just as wealthy bride, given a bit more time.  I believe he truly fell in love with her.  The Burton/Taylor film depicts Petruchio as more concerned about his “20,000 crowns” than for the welfare of Katharina, as she runs across a roof to escape from him, almost falling to her death.  But that was something Zeffirelli threw in to make it funnier - that is NOT in Shakespeare’s text.  I was struck by something that Petruchio says in Act 5, scene 2, when my afterschool reading group went through the play this past semester.  At the wedding feast for Lucentio and Bianca, Katharina is demonstrating for Petruchio’s sake that her ways are mended - that she is no longer the unhappy, violent woman she once was.  After witnessing her submissiveness to her husband, Lucentio says, disbelievingly, “Here is a wonder, if you talk of a wonder.”  Hortensio agrees, saying, “And so it is.  I wonder what it bodes.”  Petruchio’s reply touched my heart:

“Marry, peace it bodes, and love, and quiet life,
An awful rule, and right supremacy,
And, to be short, what not that’s sweet and happy.”

That’s all he wanted with Katharina - peace, love and a quiet life, and all that is sweet and happy.  (”Awful” in the third line, by the way, means “profoundly respectful or reverential,” according to Schmidt’s on-line lexicon - http://www.perseus.tufts.edu/cgi-bin/ptext?doc=Perseus%3Atext%3A1999.03.0068%3Aentry%3D%23424.  Petruchio wanted respect, as we all do, I believe. And yes, he wanted “right supremacy” - to be the head of his house - as any 16th-century man would have wanted.)  I think this touched me because of what I was like during the first few years of marriage to my saint of a husband.  Because some of my students read this blog, I won’t go into specifics, but trust me, I had Katharina matched in the “shrew” department.  It was my husband’s peace and love and desire for a kind, quiet life, that finally helped me see that there is a better way of dealing with frustrations.  Petruchio just went about it as a 16th-century man would.

By the way, my teenagers seem to really be drawn to the sibling rivalry between Bianca and Katharina.  What kid hasn’t, at one time or another, felt honestly like their parents loved, admired, liked, whatever, their sibling(s) better than themselves?  Many adults still believe that!  The cast seems to really enjoy the fact that Bianca ends up possibly not as submissive and obedient as her father always believed her to be, and they love it when Baptista gives Petruchio “Another dowry, to another daughter,/For she is changed, as she had never been.” (5.2)  They see that Katharina did need to change her attitude and her actions, but then once she does, her parent is thrilled to death with her and sees the good in Katharina that before wasn’t evident.

I hope this helps everyone see a different side of this wonderful play. It helps to stick solely to the text, rather than worry about what other people say about it. I have found, too, that reading one of his plays multiple times (I think I’ve read Shrew now about seven times, plus seen three different stage and film versions) really helps a 21st-century person wrap their heads around the language and all of the nuances of what Shakespeare was saying. Give it a try - It’s worth the ride!

A Pittsburgh production of Cymbeline has taken a unique take on the play. In the review, the writer notes the many difficulties presented by the play. First, there are shifts in tone throughout the play. Some characters try to have other characters killed, which sounds serious enough, but it is all taken rather lightly. Then, we have the plot (or plots, I should say). Cymbeline is notoriously convoluted in its use of mistaken identities, cross-dressing, feigned deaths and humbled rulers. Equally notorious is the conclusion of the play, which features virtually the entire cast unraveling all of the knots created in the previous two hours. Cymbeline, in short, has all the makings of a hot mess.

This new production seems to acknowledge that potential and, as a result, has taken a highly comic approach to the play. As the reviewer noted, the production plays Cymbeline as a kind of parody of Shakespeare. Does this approach really work? Since I have a particular fondness for this eclectic play, I am tempted to take umbrage. Still, staging the play as a kind of comic melodrama sounds like a lot of fun. What’s more, it got me thinking about the potential for applying this approach to Shakespeare’s writing as a whole.

Cymbeline certainly isn’t the only of The Bard’s plays that takes ridiculous leaps of logic, nor is it the only one to feature complex plotting. In a way, even his tragedies, as beloved as they are, could easily be made ridiculous if played for laughs. A magical potion that makes someone appear dead even though they aren’t really dead? If someone wrote that today, we’d call him a hack. Since it’s Shakespeare, we call it brilliant.

Ah, the joys of reading a script for the fourth or fifth time and realizing that you haven’t cast one (or more) of the parts!  Sigh…But it does make for a fun story!

I went through the script for The Taming of the Shrew with a fine-tooth comb…I swear I did!  I think what happens for me, however, is that I work so hard on the first half of the script - comparing various versions of the play for punctuation and spelling, even checking the First Folio on occasion to make sure I am sticking to the text the way Shakespeare intended it (as much as I can - I know it’s not possible all the time, but I do try) - but then my brain starts to shut down by the second half of the play.  It’s really an odd scenario - Even if I take a break, then go back to the second half another time, it’s like I still don’t focus as intently on the second half as I do the first half.  But all that aside, here is what happened -

I fixed all the punctuation, changed names of characters (if necessary) to suit their updated gender, double and triple checked everything in the frame story as well as the play-within-a-play; sent the scripts to the printer; picked them up (they look wonderful!); handed them out to the students.  There was much rejoicing and I was pleased with a job well-done…until I read through the script at home one evening and discovered that I hadn’t filled the part of the Officer who is called in to arrest Vincentio or the part of the Tapster at the end of the frame story.

I know what happened with the Tapster.  You see, the Tapster is the tavern-owner at the end of the frame story who finds Christopher Sly, passed out again on the tavern floor.  He wakes him up, then hears about this strange “dream” of Sly’s, in which he is a noble, wealthy lord.  The Tapster offers to walk Sly home, as a sort of bodyguard against Sly’s wife, who is bound to be upset by her husband having stayed out all night.  Sly assures the Tapster that he now knows precisely how to tame a shrew, so there are no worries!  My initial thought concerning this role was that the Hostess, who is present at the beginning of the Induction, could have those lines to finish the play.  But after re-reading the Tapster’s lines, it occurred to me that it just didn’t sound “right” - it didn’t seem proper - for the Hostess to be the one escorting Sly back home to prevent Sly’s wife from being mad at him…Seems like that would have angered the woman even more!  So I was able to switch some people around a bit and the role of the Tapster was filled.

But as I was reading through the script, I realized that there is a non-speaking role, an Officer, who comes in during Act 5 because the Pedant (disguised as Vincentio) and Tranio are calling for a policeman to come arrest the real Vincentio!  Good grief, I utilized all of the people who auditioned, and even had a few people with more than one role…where was I going to find someone new to be the Officer?  As I was sitting at my desk, considering the possibilities, I happened to look up at one of my students, poor unfortunate soul, who just happened to be in the room at the time this conundrum hit home with me.  I said, “Hey, ______, would you do me a favor?”  Very hesitantly, he replied, “I guess.”  The boy’s not dumb - he’s gotten used to the fact that my “favors” are usually a bit more involved than simply getting me something from the office.  I said, “I know you hate to be on stage, but what if you had a super small role with no lines?”  Very hesitantly, he said, “Uh…hmmm….” and probably more noises along those lines.  I promised him that there would be next to no acting at all involved - all he would have to do is come on stage when the officer is called for, look like he’s ready to arrest Vincentio, then make a quiet exit after the confusion is settled.  Very hesitantly, he said, “Ummm…okay.”  Honestly, I didn’t expect him to say yes, but I am SOOOO grateful that he did!  He did make noises along the lines of, “You really owe me now, Mrs. Bogut!”, but I suspect he’s actually pleased to have been drafted into the production.

So I believe my cast is officially finalized…24 actors in 27 roles…and I don’t think I want to re-read my script again for quite awhile!

You’ll have to bear with me this week…My daughter just turned 11, and so my focus is, of course, on her!  But in thinking about this blog and my daughter, it occurred to me that I had a few things to say about children and Shakespeare.

Scott wrote a recent post - http://www.enotes.com/blogs/shakespeare/2008-03/kinder-bard-en/ - which discussed an article about exposing children to Shakespeare at the age of 4.  I agree completely with this premise.  Why not get kids interested in these wonderful stories while they’re still young enough to love fairy tales?  Why can’t they understand The Tempest if they can understand “Rapunzel”?  And language experts say that the younger a child, the easier it is for them to learn a new language.  Now, far be it from me to say that Shakespeare is another language!!  But I know it presents difficulties to some people when they are first trying to handle the Elizabethan poetry, and so if it works better for little kids whose brains still have all those wonderful firing synapses, then why not go for it?

I started the Shakespeare Festival at our school because I figured out that getting Shakespeare “off the page and onto the stage” is critical to students’ enjoyment and understanding of these plays.  People scoff when I say that I added Hamlet to our 7th grade reading list.  Of course it’s a bit of a stretch, but it’s nothing they can’t handle, particularly when we get up and starting reading aloud and acting out the story.  Last semester I worked with a group of students who ranged in age from 5 to 15 on a scene from The Tempest.  This exercise that I did came from a great book called Teaching Shakespeare, by Rex Gibson.  In it he suggested using Ariel’s story of the shipwreck and dividing lines amongst all of the kids, except Prospero, who is a single actor/reader.  So I took one of my older girls and gave her Prospero’s lines, and then divided Ariel’s lines among the rest of the kids.  The lines were divided, too, so they were manageable for younger kids.  Our littlest boy had a line with four words, and then we just worked on up to more and longer lines for the oldest kids.  They had so much fun with this - We even added sound effects so that there were ocean/surf crashing noises in the background while Ariel is telling his story, as well as thunder bolts at “Jove’s lighting, the precursors O’th’ dreadful thunderclaps”!  This was a great experience that led several of the kids to ask me, “When can we do more of this?”  In addition, they really wanted to know the entire story of The Tempest, which gave me the opportunity to do more teaching and sharing of Shakespeare.

Another great way to get younger kids involved in the plays is by having them be extras.  Our Much Ado last summer included the masked ball scene in Act II, complete with a choreographed 16th century Italian court dance!  It was SO neat to see these actors (yes, even the teenage boys!) get into this and want to learn these dance steps to bring even more dimension and life to our production.  Altogether we had 20 dancers - five groups of four dancers each - and the majority of them were extras - younger kids without lines in the play but who really wanted to be involved in the production in some capacity.  My daughter was one of these, as well as the Noble Lady who sings at Hero’s tomb in Act V (yes, I just had to mention my cute kid again!)!

So what exactly is the point to this post, other than to talk about my adorable birthday girl?  I want to encourage all teachers out there - elementary and secondary, public and private schools, and homeschoolers - to not be afraid to tackle the Bard and bring him to life with whatever group of kids you get to teach.  It never ceases to amaze me how much kids can do when they’re encouraged and loved through the process!

Before we left for spring break, I told our new cast that they would need to plan on meeting with our costume designer for fittings on Tuesday the 18th during recess (known as “the break” at our school).  “Break?  But that’s our only break?!?!  What about volleyball?!?  What about our hard-earned social time!?!”  After much sighing and gnashing of teeth, I agreed to bring donuts and hot chocolate.  The gnashing stopped immediately.  They know how to play me like a fiddle!

Costumes…What the heck should anyone do about costumes these days?  When you go to see a “Shakespearean” play, you really don’t know what to expect, unless it gives you a hint in the advertising.  It might look Elizabethan…it might not.  It might be historical…it might not.  It might be both - I saw Romeo and Juliet in Ashland last October and their designer did a clever thing to highlight the generation gap between the old fogeys and the young, hip characters.  The older generation wore traditional Elizabethan costumes, and the younger people looked like modern-day, Catholic high-school students.  To be honest, I’m not sure if I would have understood the point of the very different costume styles had I not read about it in the playbill, but that could just be me - perhaps other playgoers figured it out immediately.

When I think about costumes for my productions of these plays, I don’t consider things like, “How can I get this message across?” or “How can we do something that’s never been done before?”  I’m sure a lot of that comes from the fact that I’m not doing professional theater with professional actors - we’re a brand new school theatre troupe, trying to figure things out in our second year.  But even if I were suddenly sucked into the world of professional theater, I’m not sure if I would think of those issues.  I’m not sure if I would wonder if I could somehow make Petruchio a more sympathetic character by setting Shrew in the 1960s and having him wear bell-bottoms.  Would I consider the fact that a 1950s beehive hairdo on Katharina could potentially make her too shrewish for what I’m trying to get across to the audience?  Probably not.

For me, costumes have always been one of the best things about movies and theater.  Costumes can transport a person back in time (something I’ve always wanted to do, particularly after seeing Somewhere in Time as a very impressionable 7th grader!), and I absolutely adore period pieces with elaborate historical costumes - as long as they’re somewhat accurate (What was that horrendous King Arthur flick with Sean Connery, Richard Gere and Julia Ormond?  Oh my…the costumes…oh my, oh my, oh my…where’s the ibuprofen???)!  Good costumes are like the icing on the cake of a historical film or theater experience, and so when I think of costumes for our plays, I automatically think, “Hmmm…it’s set in Italy, so let’s make it Italian!”

Fortunately, my costume designer (an amazing 17-year-old young woman who I hope will be studying costume design at our local university when she graduates) is in agreement with me about “the look” we want for Shrew.  And funny enough, when asked last year what they wanted to do about costumes, the cast said, “We want it to look like Shakespeare.”  Translation = They wanted it to look like it was set in Shakespeare’s times, rather than a modern setting.  They wanted it to look Italian once they found out that Much Ado is set in Italy.  And God bless ‘em, they want to keep Shrew looking Italian because they know we have no budget for all new stuff this summer!

By the way, the second picture above, taken during the masked ball scene of Much Ado, is of my actors who played Margaret and Claudio last year…and who won the roles of Katharina and Petruchio last week for Shrew!  It was this scene that sold me on their “look” for these roles, as well as the fact that I know I can count on both of them to work as hard as they can to make it a great production.  “Petruchio,” by the way, is the young man who said it would be okay to NOT be Petruchio this year, for the sake of letting a senior have the part.  I had no choice, however - His audition was the strongest, and so he will be playing Petruchio and the senior (whose audition was good, don’t get me wrong!) will make a hilarious Tranio!  I can hardly wait…I know this is going to be an amazing summer!

Oh, yeah…costumes…I do jump around with my thoughts, don’t I?  Ultimately, costumes are up to the director and the costume designer who need to work together - the costume designer can’t create the director’s “vision” if the director can’t communicate his/her vision to the designer.  It can be as simple as, “I need to have this modern because I have a $2.00 budget - Let’s visit Goodwill tomorrow!” to as elaborate as, “I’m picturing the antebellum Old South!”  I also believe the director needs to get input from his/her cast.  He might be pleasantly surprised to discover that everyone is on the same page and yes, let’s set Macbeth in a modern high school!  Perhaps the cast has unrealistic expectations, or no clue that the entire production has a $50 budget.  Whatever is decided, fellow directors, keep your cast and crew in the loop - get their input - listen to their ideas - and make the best decisions you can for everyone involved.