Having a photographic record of your rehearsals and performances will be so meaningful to you and your cast, not to mention the extremely proud parents and grandparents who will want to show everyone and their dog pictures from the production! The only thing I want to warn you about is using a professional photographer. Keep in mind that any pictures a photographer takes become their “intellectual property.” Now, I’m sure there are exceptions, and contracts can be drawn up, etc., etc., etc. But to save a great many headaches, it might be nice to ask a student photographer or willing parent to do it for you. This year, the father of Petruchio and Grumio is doing our photography, and let me tell you, I know these are going to be great pictures. He took a ton of pictures last year of the kids backstage, and then of the performance, and honestly, his pictures were of equal or better quality than those of the professional photographer we had there. So I’m thankful he is willing to do all of it for us this year!

Be sure that you get a list of pictures you want taken to your photographer. This year, we are including pictures of every cast member in our playbill, so John will be taking head shots of all 24 kids, which will be condensed to 1″ or so size to fit in the playbill. He’s doing these on Monday, so I’ll have a checklist of all the kids for him to follow. Then he’s coming to the two dress rehearsals to take pictures. Of course, I want him to wander around and take lots of great candids, like he did last year, but I will also have a list of the groups I want to have pictures taken of. For example, I want a picture of Petruchio and Grumio together…Petruchio and Kate together…Hortensio and his Widow together…all of Petruchio’s servants…the Christopher Sly framework actors…Baptista with Kate and Bianca…you see what I’m getting at. Have it all typed out so that your photographer can just call names, go down the list, and get the shots you want. And stick to your guns - If you have a certain grouping of actors that you want, but the photographer says, “You know, it would look better if we did this,” listen to his/her suggestions, but be sure you are still getting all of the kids in the photographs you want. Last year I had my list typed up, but the photographer decided to switch some people around without my knowledge. Turns out that I now have no picture of one of my actors from last year in her small group shot like I wanted, all because the photographer thought he knew better.

I know that there are wonderful professional photographers out there who will listen to what you want and work with you regarding costs, usage of the photos in the future, etc. It was unfortunate that my first experience with a professional photographer was a negative one. I would just suggest that you get references from his/her previous clients, as well as a very clear contract so that there are no questions or problems in the future.

If you plan to record your play, watch out for copyright issues.  One example is music.  Using music that is not public domain, then recording your play with said music in it can lead to headaches that a school or amateur theatre company really doesn’t need.  Personally, I don’t know enough about copyright law to give much advice in this post - just be aware that you need to be careful about what you use in your production if you plan to record your performances…and especially if you are going to be selling your DVDs.  But we have all very much enjoyed having our copies from last year, and I do plan to have Shrew recorded.  I think I had about 20 people buy copies of the DVD for Much Ado, as they make great Christmas gifts for proud relatives and friends of the family.

Definitely take pictures (include rehearsals, if you can - those can be super fun to have!)…definitely record your performance(s)…these will be treasured keepsakes for years to come!  Just be smart about it - get references for your photographer and videographer, and make your expectations very clear up front - and do be sure to check into possible copyright issues.

I have always been a movie buff, from the time I was a little kid. I remember my mom taking me to see Disney’s Robin Hood at the theater (you know, the one where Robin Hood and Marian are foxes, and Prince John is a thumb-sucking lion…PJ? PJ! Oh, I like that…Hiss, put it on my luggage!). And I remember going to my first drive-in movie with my brother - Young Frankenstein.  Probably not the best movie for a 6-year-old to watch - I believe a lot of the humor was lost on me until later years!

But movies have always been important to me and played a big part in my life…especially historical epics!  Oh, my…that year that both Braveheart and Rob Roy came out?!?!  I thought I’d died and gone to historical cinema heaven! And, of course, being a huge Shakespeare/Elizabethan buff, I adore movies like Elizabeth and Shakespeare in Love.

But what on earth does this have to do with Staging Shakespeare? Well, one thing that has been very helpful, not only to my cast but also to the students in my English classes, is to teach Shakespeare’s plays utilizing good film versions of the plays. Of course, when I teach Henry V to my 8th graders, we watch the Branagh film - read one act, watch the act; read the next act, watch that act, etc. When I teach Hamlet, we watch bits of both the Gibson and the Branagh films, and when I teach Macbeth, I’ve found that I prefer the BBC version of the play with Nicol Williamson (remember him as Merlin in Excalibur?) over the Ian McKellen/Judi Dench play, although I like to show scenes from both. (Speaking of Excalibur - Here’s some trivia for you - Cherie Lunghi, who played Guenevere, also did a fabulous Beatrice in the BBC’s Much Ado About Nothing! Kind of cool that two Excalibur cast members also did some mean Shakespeare!)

So back in May and June, when the weather here was icky and we couldn’t start rehearsing outside, our cast spent a great deal of time working on the text - reading parts aloud; figuring out what various words and phrases meant; determining what their characters might be thinking and feeling at any given moment. Once we were finished, we would watch whatever scenes we had worked on that day from the BBC version of Shrew, with John Cleese as Petruchio. Talk about a HOOT! John Cleese is just a great actor anyway, but seeing him come in for his wedding to Katharina, dressed in some hideous burlap-type vest, no shirt on underneath, but an enormous yellow sunflower stuck to the vest…and a hat with the longest feathers sticking out in front of it…I could go on…I won’t…except to mention that Grumio had some weird face painted on his bare belly, under a very similar ensemble as that of Petruchio’s! The kids loved it, and they saw some really outstanding acting in the process. We also watched the Richard Burton/Elizabeth Taylor film version, which is such an enjoyable movie, especially when you consider that Burton and Taylor were married at the time they made the movie…it definitely created quite the dynamic for their performances!

Using film versions of the plays seems almost like a no-brainer, really. In this day and age of audio and visual technology, why wouldn’t a teacher or director want to use film to help their students really get into Shakespeare? The only downside I can see is that you don’t ever want your actors to feel like they have to play a part exactly like some famous actor did it. I was hesitant about showing the Branagh Much Ado last year, simply because I didn’t want anyone to feel like there was only one way to play these characters. But I also showed them the BBC version (the one with Cherie Lunghi as Beatrice) in order to demonstrate that there are definitely different ways of approaching the characters, the scenery, the costumes, the everything of putting together a stage production…as long as you don’t deviate from Shakespeare’s text!

Just a suggestion, too, concerning those BBC plays - If you look for them on Amazon or other commercial websites, you’ll probably only find them available to purchase as sets - all of the comedies, all of the histories, or even all 37 plays in one huge bundle. If you are interested in buying them individually, go to the Folger Library website - www.folger.edu - and you can purchase them through their gift shop, one at a time. I’ve slowly been building my collection this way, purchasing the ones I need for school or for whatever plays I am considering directing in the future.

And finally…a little ritual that I started last summer as our production neared completion and we were almost to Opening Night. When I start to worry about the play coming together, actors learning their lines, costumes being finished, sets being painted, but I know I’ve done everything I can do and it’s up to the kids, I pop in my copy of Shakespeare in Love.  If I have time, I’ll watch the whole film, but sometimes I’m just too tired to stay up and watch it after my children are in bed, so instead, I will skip to the scene where Will’s Romeo and Juliet is about to start.  Henslowe’s tailor, playing the Chorus, is stuttering backstage, and Will looks like he would rather slit his wrists than let the play go on.  Then the Chorus gets pushed out onto the stage, and it almost appears that he won’t be able to get the words out…but suddenly, his voice is perfect, exclaiming, “Two households, both alike in dignity, in fair Verona where we lay our scene….” I absolutely love that entire part of the movie, where they show what it might have been like the very first time R&J was on the stage…except, of course, where a gorgeous Gwyneth Paltrow saves the day! And then, when the play is over, and the audience just sits there, like they didn’t know what hit them…until finally, thunderous applause and ovations! Ah, yes…it helps me sleep better that night!

My two set designers/artists extraordinaire got our stage design planned out a few weeks ago, measured our stage space, and decided that because we have such a large area to cover, it would be easiest for them (and probably better for the group, financially) to paint our backdrops on muslin material and hang them from the roof of the stage.  So I looked on the Internet, found a theater supply place where I could order huge quantities of muslin material (10 yards x 140″ wide - Rose Brand is the name of the company), and we got the material last week.  The boys know they need to have it finished by July 20th, at the very latest, because Opening Night is July 29th (but to avoid my blood pressure shooting through the top of my head, I suggested that, perhaps, they could try for July 15th - they thought that was a good idea!).

Last year, I panicked a bit…the painting of the backdrops wasn’t progressing as quickly as I might have liked it to, so I actually ordered the large, canvas backdrop that you can see in the picture above (to the left of Hero, in her wedding dress).  But it wasn’t long enough to cover our entire backstage area, so our artists continued the painting from the backdrop on to side panels made out of foam board - they even gave me the little chapel you can see above, behind evil Don John, all in black! In the picture below, you can see the extension to the left of the backdrop, behind our Sexton, sitting at her table, taking Dogberry’s testimony.

This year, I know that my artists will get the job done.  One of them is actually acting in the play this year, and so I know he definitely does not want to be performing in front of a half-finished backdrop!  However, even if he weren’t in the play, I’ve come to trust these two young men, much as I’m learning to trust my actors - I know they will get the job done.

I’m really excited to see what they do with the design, though.  This year, rather than just a straight, flat backdrop behind the actors, they are having to be more creative because of the need for windows (the Pedant looks out of a window in Act IV, and Petruchio and Grumio also show up at Hortensio’s house in Act II - I’d like it to look somewhat like a real house, with a door for him to enter through). There is also the issue of the frame story - a troupe of traveling actors show up in front of a tavern, ready to put on a play for the Noble Lord (in our case, Lady) and the tricked tinker, Christopher Sly. So I believe the plan is to have one set of drapes, painted with the outside of a tavern, but then have those drapes pull back to reveal the set for Shrew.

Once they have it painted and hanging from the stage roof, I will take tons of pictures and post them on our website…in the meantime, you’re going to have to trust me that it is going to be AMAZING!

As I believe I’ve said before, I don’t know what I would have done last summer if it hadn’t been for the plethora of outstanding books out there on directing plays, especially those that are specifically about directing Shakespearean plays.  Ultimately, I would have been up a creek without the proverbial paddle as I would not have had a clue where to start, how to continue, nor how to finish up a production.  One of the most important aspects of any play is blocking, and prior to reading said books, the term “blocking” only had something to do with felt-making or other textile arts, in the back of my very fuzzy memory banks!

The kind of blocking that a director has to be concerned about is the movement and positioning of actors on the stage that will facilitate the performance of the play (thanks, Wikipedia, for that definition!). Sometimes, as one is watching a play, it may seem that the actors are just moving where it feels natural, or where the mood strikes them at the time. Nope…Just about everything you see on stage has already been choreographed by the director and rehearsed that way by the actors. The goal is to have it look as natural as possible - as if they are just doing it on the spur of the moment.

One thing I learned in my Shakespeare-directing books is that you don’t necessarily want to create the blocking too early in the rehearsal process. Because of the importance of your cast understanding the language so they can communicate that understanding to the audience, you want to wait until they really know what they’re saying so that they can help figure out the blocking along the way…and they can understand why you might not want a certain character to be downstage during a key moment when that character would naturally be lurking somewhere else.  The beauty of directing and acting Shakespeare is that Will was an actor, before he ever wrote any plays, and so when he did take up the quill, he knew what to have the actors say in their lines in order to ”facilitate the performance of the play” - blocking!

One book in particular that I’ve been re-reading for ideas and suggestions is Mastering Shakespeare: An Acting Class in Seven Scenes, by Scott Kaiser.  In this book, Mr. Kaiser (or Mr. Kay) teaches seven different important aspects of acting Shakespeare to a fictional class of actors.  The book is written like a play, with dialogue between the students and the teacher.  This approach makes the book an interesting read, as well as incredibly helpful to anyone preparing to act or direct Shakespeare.  The one aspect that I’m particularly interested in right now is the idea of the speech measure, or the chunk of text that communicates a single idea to the audience.  It can be as brief as “O!” or as long as “How art thou out of breath when thou hast breath/To say to me that thou art out of breath”?  This particular concept is super important for actors to be aware of as they need to make sure each speech measure is clear to the audience before continuing on to the next…and successful blocking can help the actors do just that!

Last year, I felt like one of our best scenes in Much Ado was Act III, scene 2, specifically the part where Don John is telling Claudio that Hero has been unfaithful to him.  One of the reasons this was such an effective scene was the fact that we blocked Claudio actually punching Don John when he is told that Hero is “every man’s Hero.”  But even before that very cool bit of blocking (that my actors figured out on their own…awesome!), Don John managed to convey a great deal of information to the audience through his clear speech measures.  I had people come to me afterward and say, “I totally got what he was saying with, ‘I know not that, when he knows what I know.’”  It was because our Don John didn’t rush through his words, or the ideas being conveyed, just to get the dialogue finished.  And recent rehearsals have shown that this same actor (Gremio this time around) is doing this, seemingly naturally as I haven’t mentioned this idea since our initial read-throughs.

Funny how I just realized that I keep talking about text issues - speech measures, meaning - but the post is supposed to be about blocking.  I just can’t help but talk about the text - It’s so important for understanding Shakespeare that it has to go hand in hand with anything else you do!  Otherwise you can have a ton of great blocking…and an audience who doesn’t have a clue what’s going on!  Not good!!

For some very funny theater definitions - especially the ones for “blocking” and “blocking rehearsal” - check the link below - Enjoy!

http://www.communitytheater.org/humor/dictionary.htm

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!

No, I haven’t suddenly decided to switch our production to Twelfth Night…although our cast and their families are going to see a performance of it this summer at the Idaho Repertory Theatre! We saw their Much Ado last summer, and I saw A Comedy of Errors there the summer before, and they always do a fantastic job! But as I considered the subject of this post (music), I couldn’t help but use that particular quote from another of Shakespeare’s wonderful comedies!

I have started working out the soundtrack for our play. Now, let me explain first that I’ve NEVER done this before…can you feel the tension in those words??? Last year I had a choreographer who taught the kids their Italian Renaissance court dances, and as long as she was finding music for the masked ball scene, she volunteered to go ahead and create music for the entire production. Prior to talking to her about the dancing, it hadn’t even occurred to me that we would need music in our play. Then I realized how blah it would be WITHOUT music! Can you imagine movies without music? Other theatre productions without music? Man, was I grateful to her for the suggestion and for the hard work she put into it!

This year, I’m trying it on my own (said choreographer is unavailable this summer). I have some CDs of Italian Renaissance music, and I think I can do this. I have a computer that will rip and burn music…I have blank discs…I clearly have the technology, but do I have the know-how? The gift for choosing the right music to suit the mood of each scene?

My vision for Shrew is different from last year’s Much Ado, even though they are both set in the Italian Renaissance. I’m picturing our Shrew as having more grit to it…more slapstick humor…and I want the music to reflect that. The music last year (courtesy of “Early Music Festival,” the CD pictured above) was very courtly and full of pageantry - perfect for the entrance of Don Pedro and his men and for scenes like the masked ball. But Shrew has a different feel to it - a much more rough and tumble feel that I’m hoping to enhance with the soundtrack I create.

I have a couple more CDs on order, hopefully arriving tomorrow or the next day. As I listen to them, as well as the tracks I have picked out from “Early Music Festival,” I will be reading my script yet again, trying out various pieces to see how they fit with the text and the action of the scene. Most of the music is used to introduce a scene, rather than having music actually playing throughout the scene (difficult for the actors to project over), and so it has to introduce the right mood and set the stage correctly.

This will be yet another learning experience for me, and I hope to have fun with it while also making sure that the music suits the play as a whole, the individual scenes, and the hard work the actors and actresses are putting into this production!

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!

We’ve gotten started! As soon as I got back from vacation, we dived right in and started our first week of rehearsals.  Although I was a bit jet-lagged from my trip, I think our first couple of rehearsals were successful, largely due to the energy and good humor of the great cast I get to work with!

As we read through the first two acts this week, I began reminding the kids how important it is to understand what they’re saying…that the only way to help their audience understand what’s happening in the story is by understanding the words and phrases in the lines they’re speaking.  A couple of smart-aleck teenagers said, “But isn’t that what acting is for?  We will act really well and pretend like we know what we’re saying, and then the audience will get it!”  Yeah, nice try, but we’re still getting out my copy of Shakespeare’s Words and working through some of these phrases from the 16th century!

Overall it was a good first week. My problem initially (besides the jet-lag) was that I can easily remember what the end of last summer was like - once we had blocking down and the rehearsals began to look more and more polished. I had forgotten what the early rehearsal process is like…clunky, repetitive, and even dull at times. At first I was a bit disconcerted by this - but then I began to remember what the first part of last summer was like, and what really got me excited all over again was remembering how much trouble some of my actors initially had last year with reading that “crazy Shakespearean English.” They really stumbled over words, and had a hard time remembering when to breathe, when to pause, and when NOT to stop at the end of a line (if there is no end punctuation, you keep going!). They were learning things about theatre and drama, as well as the English language, and it was quite a stretch for many of them.

What I realized as I saw our first week come together is that most of these students have become very proficient dramatists, and have become accustomed to the nuances and particulars of Shakespearean language.  I even stopped and asked them occasionally what some words or phrases mean, and almost always they were able to discuss it and figure it out (sometimes with help from Shakespeare’s Words, and other times with no help at all).

As I reviewed my directing books, I came across a passage in one of them that reminded me of how important it is to be an energetic, enthusiastic director. No matter how dull the process might be - how repetitive - how much you get tired of hearing people mispronounce “Padua” - it is still your job to be the cheerleader. Forget the jet-lag…forget anything else going on in your life…In order to make Shakespeare come alive for your kids, you have to show them that you’re having a good time. And once you build a summer of memories from your first production, believe me - You’ll have plenty of great memories to keep you going strong!

As our school year begins to wind down, I’ve started focusing more and more on our upcoming production of Shrew.  I’ve had two read-throughs - the first was of Acts I and II, and the second was of Acts III through V.  So far I’m pleased with the enthusiasm and commitment of the cast, and I’m really looking forward to starting our rehearsals on May 26th!

In planning for this production, I decided that I needed some help and advice from other parents/administrators.  So I asked some people with theater background to be my Theatre Advisory Board.  It was really helpful to have a meeting to discuss my ideas for increasing the number of performances from last year, which evenings they thought would work best for all involved, and what they thought of my idea of using two venues.

Last year we performed at a local park that has a big, open-air stage. I chose that because ever since I was in high school and got to enjoy the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise where I grew up, I’ve just felt like Shakespeare-in-the-Park was the way to go! There’s just something so peaceful and wonderful about sitting in a park, enjoying a picnic dinner, and watching Shakespeare! I also got to see Shakespeare performed outdoors when I lived in Bozeman (Henry V!!! My favorite!), so when I began planning last year’s production, I knew I wanted it to be in the park.

This year I wanted to have it in the park, but I was also shown an amazing local space that we have available.  Our town’s old high school has been turned into a beautiful arts center for the community, the 1912 Center.  It has senior activities, luncheons, concerts, art displays, and it has a really cool performance space, complete with a balcony!  The natural lighting in this building is absolutely amazing, and the dear lady that directs the place is an avid theatre enthusiast with several years’ experience working in theatre!  So I was excited to try something new, but didn’t want to give up my Shakespeare-in-the Park.  Plus it is more expensive to rent the 1912 Center than it is the park, so I knew we couldn’t afford to have all of our performances at the 1912.

So I hatched the idea of having performances at both the park and the 1912 Center.  I mean, good grief, why not try it out and see how we like it?  Sure, we may not be able to rehearse as much at the 1912 Center, but I’m sure it will all work out.  Sure, I may want to do slightly different blocking, entrances, and exits in the 1912 Center (because there are so many more options than at the park’s stage), but I’m sure it will all work out.  What’s wrong with this picture???  Okay, this is why I have a theatre board!

I was gently reminded that the student actors rely heavily on the blocking of a play to help keep them “in the moment” of the play - to remain in character - to remember their lines, even!  By switching to a different venue, especially for just one performance, I might end up causing these kids a whole bucketful of stress - They would have to remember new entrances and exits; the blocking would be slightly different because the stage area is smaller at the 1912 Center; in short, I could have created a catastrophe for those kids at the final performance.

We’re sticking with the park this year, and we’re going to have three performances (one more than last year).  If we can build up our budget, I may try to have future performances at the 1912 Center, but I will definitely have ALL of the rehearsals and performances there!  Quite often, two heads are way better than one, and I’m fortunate to have three additional brains now, helping me figure this stuff out!

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!