A Curious Case of Casting

 Blog # 5 The Great Shakespeare Mystery

There is one intriguing moment in the original Henry IV part two, often cut from modern productions (replaced in ours by a brilliant directorial choice), when a dancer came out after and spoke an epilogue, advertising how the Fat Knight will appear again in the next play of the cycle, Henry V.  Falstaff was immediately and immensely popular, with Henry IV the most reprinted play in Shakespeare’s lifetime.  They even say Queen Elizabeth wanted to see her new favorite, Falstaff, in love, so Shakespeare paused writing part two (between scenes 2,1 and 2,2 to be exact) and penned (in two weeks) The Merry Wives of Windsor.  To bank on this popularity and to guarantee audience for the coming soon Henry V, Shakespeare had the dancer say: “If you be not too much cloyed with fat meat our humble author will continue the story, with Sir John in it.”  But Falstaff does not appear in Henry V.  So, what happened?  This is a great mystery echoing down through both History and Literature*.* It has baffled me for years, yet the answer may be hidden in plain sight.  So while I have you enticed with that Hitchcockian hook, let me first veer off onto a not so tantalizing tangent. 

Many actors have superstitions, and I admit two: Before my first entrance of a play, standing backstage, I find and touch a piece of wood, to feel something real (the all-wooden Adams Theater is ideal for such an idiosyncrasy).  My second little behavior is; whenever I’m walking through the door to go in to audition for a comic role, I secretly make a strewing motion (you know, strewing, as in rushes or chicken feed.)  I’m emulating King Aeetes, from the classic movie Jason and the Argonauts: the iconic scene where he strews Gorgon’s teeth on the ground and skeleton warriors rise up one by one to do battle (shout out Ray Harryhausen).  My surreptitious strewing is not to invoke skeletons in the casting room, but rather to summon Skeltons…as in Red Skelton, and other comedy giants: Phil Silvers, Milton Berle, the Marx Brothers, Abbott and Costello, Jerry Lewis, Stan Laurel, Dom Deluise, Bert Lahr, WC Fields.  I beckon my personal titans too; Oliver Hardy, Zero Mostel and Jackie Gleason (I hungrily scrutinized these master comics on our old black-and-white TV set, proving you don’t need X-Box to waste your youth, and if you’ve never heard of them look them up, you’re in for a treat!)  When doing my audition I entreat this panoply of funny spirits to inhabit my id. The poor director is unwittingly outnumbered, and has to cast me. The inspiration these comedians give me is what floats my thorough preparation, and I can’t help but credit them in my high average of auditioning success.  As Neil Simon understood about casting; “Directors don’t choose actors…actors choose themselves.”

Red Skelton

Not Red Skelton

Charles Laughton’s Bottom

Bert Lahr

All this got me thinking.  Why didn’t any of these comic colossi, my idols, play Falstaff?  Falstaff is the character man’s ultimate role, it’s his Lear…and Bottom from Midsummer Night’s Dream is his Hamlet.  Charles Laughton’s Bottom, the legend goes, took 15 minutes to comically die in the play within the play, Pyramus and Thisby.  When I showed my Bottom in Pittsburgh, I chewed the clock (and scenery) myself, making my Pyramus’ suicide a pastiche of all the Shakespearean deaths (everything from falling on a sword to malmsey butt drowning, asp to the breast and poison in the ear).  They talk of my Bottom still in Steel Town.

Sorry; here’s yet another tangential anecdote, yet one appearing in print for the very first time anywhere, ever!  An older cast-mate in that same Pittsburgh Midsummer told me that as a young actor he toured in Dream with Bert Lahr famously doing Bottom.  They say Bert was the most worried man in the world.  Not only did he want a laugh on every line but with a financial share in the show he was sure he was being ripped off by management.  So my castmate told me that every night during the big opening procession of Theseus and Hippolyta, Bert would sneak out onstage, hiding in the dark behind a big sheer curtain in his pre-costume underwear, and with a little hand-held clicker would count the audience to make sure the numbers added up.  It seems Bert Lahr sweated both Bottom’s lines and the bottom line!

Zero Mostel

Orson Welles as Fallstaff

WC Fields

Jackie Gleason

Bert Lahr was one of the few ‘Hollywood’ actors with the courage to foray into Shakespeare. Jimmy Cagney, Al Pacino, Olivia de Havilland did; with of course the giant, Orson Welles, the only one to play Falstaff.  Some great American stage actors have played Sir John; Kevin Kline, Henry Woronicz, Pat Carrol, Stacy Keach, but where was Zero Mostel’s Falstaff?  Or WC Fields’?  Or The Great One Jackie Gleason’s?  Gleason had all the elements in his characters; pathos, humor, dreaming.  When you think of Fiction’s three great windmill tilters, are they not the Thin Knight, the Fat Knight, and the Fat Bus Driver?  Jackie Gleason as Falstaff?  How sweet it would have been. Why didn’t any of our great clowns play Falstaff?  

Ralph Richardson

They say the definitive English Falstaff was Ralph Richardson’s of 1945.  That production also had Laurence Olivier play Hotspur in part one, and Shallow in part two.  What a show that must have been to see!  Viewing that production is what launched noted American scholar Harold Bloom on his lifelong love affair with Falstaff.  Theatre is unique in that we hold performances in our memory…“lifetime moments” we can bring out and remember (with advantages) again and again.   But remembering the original Henry IV is impossible, making The Great Shakespeare Mystery more mysterious.   

And I’m not talking about that other mystery; “Who wrote Shakespeare?”  That’s no mystery.  Sorry Oxfordians, Baconians, Marlovians and Mark Twainians; Shakespeare the Stratfordian wrote Shakespeare!  The real mystery is:  Who originally played Falstaff, back in Shakespeare’s day?  And why did Falstaff not appear in Henry V?   It is difficult, to say the least, trying to piece together events that occurred at a time when happenings were poorly chronicled, diary keeping was rarely done and contemporaneous records have mostly crumbled to dust. Try remembering what happened to you four months ago, much less four centuries ago. So since I’m no Holmes or Spillane, Marple or Monk I will lay out evidence and facts from the Crime of the Scene and let you decide.  

A big fat clue has already been dropped:  Part two’s epilogue was spoken by a dancer.  Wait, what?  A dancer?  This isn’t 42nd Street, there are no dancers in Henry IV part two.  Ah, but there was a famous dancer in Shakespeare’s company.  And he turns out to be our prime suspect.  Will Kemp was a famous actor, comic and dancer, and one of the original members of the Lord Chamberlain’s men, along with Richard Burbage and William Shakespeare.  Kemp was the most famous clown of the day, famous for his Morris Dancing, bawdy jigs and comic roles.  A known jest monger long before working with Shakespeare, Will plied his merry craft all over England and the continent, even playing for crowned heads at Elsinore Castle in Denmark.  He was very strong willed, they say, and always insisted he make his own personality central to his roles.  Audiences came to expect Kemp routines and bits, perfected over the years.  He’d use ad-libs, making faces, double-entendres, malapropisms and talking to himself as different people.  Shakespeare would often write roles based on his company of actors and you can see clear traces of Kemp’s routines in the many roles supposedly played by him:  Bottom, Peter, Cade, Costard, Launcelot Gobbo, Grumio, Dromio, Dogberry and Clown in Titus.  Will Kemp even had a pet dog he used in his act, now immortalized as Launce’s canine sidekick, Crab.  If Shakespeare’s company had a star it was Will Kemp. And many, many scholars think it was Will Kemp who played Falstaff.

But in 1599 something happened!  As the Lord Chamberlain’s men were ending their performances at the Curtain Theatre, where Henry IV played, Will Kemp abruptly sold his share in the company and left. Not only that, Kemp then pulled off one of the great publicity stunts of all times.  Eschewing performing in the newly built Globe Theatre, he claimed “I have danced out of the World!” and danced his famous Morris Dance, continuously, all the way to Norwich, 110 miles away.  He grabbed even more notoriety when he published his exploits as The Nine Days Wonder.  And all this happened just before Henry V premiered.  Was this the reason Falstaff didn’t appear?  Did the actor playing Sir Jack leave Shakespeare in the lurch? 

But here’s the rub!  There seemed to be bad blood; for Shakespeare makes fun of The Nine Days Wonder in As You Like It, which is thought to be the first play performed at the Globe (with Jaques renowned “All the world’s a stage” having double meaning).  And Kemp in Nine Days Wonder belittled Shakespeare as “My noble Shakerags.”  Even Hamlet appears to voice Shakespeare’s opinion of Kemp in his advice to the players: “And let those that play your clowns speak no more than is set down for them; for there be of them that will themselves laugh, to set on some quantity of barren spectators to laugh too; though, in the meantime, some necessary question of the play be then to be considered: that’s villainous, and shows a most pitiful ambition in the fool that uses it.”

So the question stands:  Did Shakespeare’s biggest star and most famous clown play Falstaff?  Or does the contrary question seem more valid: Would Shakespeare entrust his arguably greatest character to a mugging, adlibbing clown he lost patience with?

Hard facts are few, but the few we have are mostly on the Kemp-was-Falstaff side.  In one of the very few diaries of the time, Philip Henslowe describes lending Will Kemp money to buy ‘Giant Hose’.  Giant Hose could be taken to mean padded stockings, to simulate Falstaff’s heft. There is also evidence a very early Will Kemp used padding, called bombasting, for one of his pre-Shakespeare comical characters.  Did he break out the old fat suit for Falstaff?  One of Kemp’s other early routines, from his own ballad Singing Simkin, has a character hiding in a chest, from a jealous spouse.  Did Shakespeare lift Kemp’s old bit for The Merry Wives of Windsor?  In some of the small individual versions of each play, called Quartos, careless printers would sometimes list the actor rather than the character’s name; for example one Romeo & Juliet quarto says ‘enter Will Kempe’ instead of ‘enter the clowne’ (Peter).  A 1600 quarto of Twelfth Night lists the names ‘Will Kemp and Richard Cowley’ instead of ‘Dogberry and Verges’.  And (dramatic music) one Henry IV part two manuscript says ‘Enter Will’ a few lines before Falstaff starts singing “When Arthur First in Court…”  Also in Henry IV Falstaff does have one fleeting reference to being able to out-caper anyone; caper meaning dance.  And that part two epilogue dancer threatens to dance his way out of any hard opinions the audience may have. Was that dancer Kemp?  Does all this point to Kemp as Falstaff?

The “not Kemp” side has few facts, as negatives rarely do, but there are some interesting persuasions.  It is widely agreed that Shakespeare wrote for his actors, creating tragic roles for Burbage his brilliant leading man, clown roles for Kemp, and even after Kemp left and was replaced, the clown roles turn into witty, singing fool roles, to match the persona of Robert Armin who played Touchstone, Autolychus, Feste, Gravedigger and the Fool from Lear.  I have a perspective that most all scholars don’t have.  I’ve played Falstaff a lot and I’ve also played many of the Kemp roles and even some Armin roles; Falstaff just feels different. He is no clown.  Kemp characters mangled words, misspoke and were almost always a naïve persona, the willing objects of jokes and tricks.  Kemp even calls his own style ‘blunt mirth’ in his Nine Days Wonder.  Falstaff is unrivalled in mastery of language and wit. With an intelligence matching Hamlet’s, Falstaff is certainly one of Shakespeare’s greatest creations.  Would the progression of Shakespeare’s Kemp-inspired roles lead up to naively put-upon Bottom and Gobbo, veer off to the colossally complicated Falstaff, and then back to the simple malaprop-prone Dogberry, Kemp’s last role for the company?  It’s just a feeling, but I have played these characters, and I get such a strong sense of Kemp, yet I do not feel him in Falstaff. There is some (vague) evidence as well, that suggest John Lowin and Thomas Pope, actors in the company, played Falstaff as various points. These scholars may know a lot, but proper casting is something I live with every day of my career.  Is Falstaff too grand a role for a clown? 

This leads to another question: If Kemp didn’t play Falstaff in Henry IV who did he play?  There do not seem to be any Will Kemp roles in part one or part two.  And who was that dancer in the epilogue?  Well, it was the tradition to have jigs and dances after every play; even Julius Caesar, so as Groucho says ‘sometimes a dancer is just a dancer’, but if it was Kemp speaking the epilogue, what was his role in the play?  Well, from my experience in all the Falstaff plays, there is one character who has multiple Kemp qualities: using the wrong words, carrying on both sides of conversations, a put upon persona, a commoner touch and a ton of busybody energy.  And that character is: (dramatic pause) Mistress Quickly!   You laugh, and so did I a bit, that is until I read that while women in Shakespeare’s plays were often played by young boys, it was not always the case.  Sometimes they were played by the older actors…and one of Kemp’s earliest creations, from before his Shakespeare days, was the role of a gossipy, talkative female street seller.  And when that one manuscript is misprinted with “Enter Will” a few lines before Falstaff sings, who is it that enters at that exact moment?  (Perry Mason music) Mistress Quickly.

Whether Kemp played Falstaff or not, I truly don’t believe his leaving the company was the reason Falstaff didn’t appear in Henry V.  Plays are funny things, and for the playwright sometimes the play will help write itself.  And the Henry V that poured out of his brain told Shakespeare: “Falstaff can’t be in this play!”  His free spirit, his love of life, his humanity and anti-authority is what Hal had to leave behind.  And those of you lucky enough to see Henry V next year at the festival will find out what happens to Plump Jack: (Spoiler! It has to do, much like King Lear, with a broken heart).  Regardless of who played him, Falstaff simply cannot appear, and will not appear in next year’s Henry V …and for me, someone who revels in the glories of playing Falstaff, that’s show biz…

Up next:  Blog #6: A heartfelt farewell

Fall Food Drive at the Festival

Help Families in Need During the Fall Food Drive at the Utah Shakespeare Festival

Cedar City, UT – The Utah Shakespeare Festival is once again collecting food for the less fortunate in our community. The 12th annual Fall Food Drive will be September 11 to October 31, with a goal to exceed last year’s donation of 3,467 pounds of food to the Iron County Care and Share.

Local residents can participate by donating six items of nonperishable food per individual on the day of the performance directly to the Festival and receive a half-price ticket to any Tuesday through Thursday performance, including previews on September 24 and 25. This offer is also valid to Charley*’s Aunt* on September 11, 12 and 19. Food donation barrels will be located in the Randall L. Jones Theatre lobby next to the ticket window.

“The support of our community is so critical to the success of the Utah Shakespeare Festival Fall Food Drive,” said Executive Director R. Scott Phillips. “Since 2003 the Festival has provided a forum where generous and caring playgoers can see great theatre and support those less fortunate through our annual fall food drive.  And over the years, our guests have demonstrated time and time again their generosity and support of those in need by supplying food as part of a ticket purchase.”

Residents of Iron, Washington, Kane, Garfield, Sevier, Piute, and Beaver counties in Utah are eligible for the discount, as well as patrons from Lincoln County, Nevada. All residents should bring proof of residency and six nonperishable food items for each discounted ticket they wish to purchase. This offer is good Tuesday through Thursday on the day of the performance only. There is a limit of four discounted tickets per resident I.D.

Along with the food drive, Festival actors, musicians and company members will be hosting a special, one-night only benefit concert with all proceeds being donated to the Iron County Care and Share. Singing for Supper will take place on September 1 at 11 p.m. at Off the Cuff Comedy Club located at 913 S Main Street in Cedar City. The suggested donation is $10 with all proceeds going to the Iron County Care and Share.

Featured performers will be Natasha Harris, Larry Bull and Melinda Pfundstein, as well as many other Festival members. The event will also include a bake sale that patrons can enjoy during the event as well as a bin for patrons to donate canned goods, toiletries, feminine products, or linens.  The Festival hopes to raise awareness, food and monetary donations for our community members in need this fall.

Tickets for the Festival’s 2015 season, which will run until October 31, are now on sale. The fall season includes The Two Gentlemen of Verona and Dracula as well as Charley*’s Aunt*.For more information and tickets visit www.bard.org or call 1-800-PLAYTIX.

The Iron County Care and Share was founded in 1984 by a group of local churches of different denominations to address the issue of hunger in our community. Working with partners in the community, neighboring counties, and in the state, the Iron County Care and Share is able to help homeless and low-income individuals and families work toward self-sufficiency. The Iron County Care and Share is located at 900 North 222 West Cedar City, Utah.

NAPP Playwright James McLindon

NAPP Playwright James McLindon

This week, we feature the third play in our New American Playwrights Project. Closure, written by James McLindon, is about family reconciliation. As Brian lies dying, he is desperate to reconcile with his two estranged children, who are in their 20s. His only hope is the somewhat askew, sweet, and profane Virgin Mary, who appears to him in a Percocet haze dispensing advice about children, salvation, and Hieronymus Bosch.  Closure is a drama with comedy about the endgame of a dysfunctional life and a broken family trying desperately to mend itself before its last chance is gone forever.

We chatted with James to learn more.

He currently lives in Western Massachusetts and is originally from upstate New York. During his senior year of college, he and a friend started writing sketch comedy. After graduation, they moved to Chicago with goal of having a play produced within a year. They succeeded and their play was nominated for the Jefferson Citation for New Plays. He then decided to attend law school to specialize in civil rights law. Right now, he’s splitting his time between playwriting and practicing law.

This play, Closure, had a previous incarnation as a humorous play called Salvation. It featured a dying bank-robber and his n’er-do-well son. James told us he had to get that version out of his system before he could tackle this more serious version: an intimate look at family and how hard it is to come to terms with someone who is dying when you still have issues.

This play has been through several staged readings. His goal for this week is to fine tune the precise balance between the family members, as well as the balance between the drama and humor.

This will be his first trip to Cedar City. He’s looking forward to the process as well as seeing as many of our plays as he can fit in.

You can see Closure Friday, August 21, Saturday, August 22 and Friday, August 28 at 10am in the Auditorium Theatre on the SUU campus. It is directed by Drew Shirley and will feature actors from the Festival company. Tickets are $10, available online at www.bard.org or at the door (be sure to get there by 9:45). Information about NAPP can be found at http://www.bard.org/napp/.

Company Spotlight: Samantha Ma and Devery North

Samantha Ma, Actor

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
This will be my first summer working at the Festival, but I did attend shows at the Festival as a student every summer during high school!

Where’s your home base?
I’m originally from Las Vegas, Nevada, but I currently call Boston home.

What’s your education/training background?
I’m going to be a senior at The Boston Conservatory where I am studying Musical Theatre with an Emphasis in Acting.

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
My mother enrolled me in ballet, tap and piano lessons when I was younger in an attempt to bring me out of my shell and to keep my skills well-rounded. I was terribly shy, was very much a tomboy, and mostly had my nose stuck in books, but when I was a freshman in high school, I auditioned for the school musical and was cast as Veruca Salt in “Willy Wonka.” It was after this experience that my interest was piqued and I became more and more drawn to the stage and performing. As a current student in Boston, I get to see so many different types of theatre, dance and musical performances and I am constantly inspired by the wildly talented people I have the good fortune of watching and working beside.  Seeing how the theater world is changing every day pushes me to want to help make a change and make a difference. And to be perfectly honest, I do it because it makes me so incredibly happy.

How will you spend your time off while here?
I want to attempt to go hiking as much as possible! I have also been trying my hand at convincing as many people as I can to go horseback riding with me because I used to ride all the time, but haven’t been in the saddle since high school. Also, as embarrassing as it sounds, I’m trying to take some time to binge watch/catch up on tv shows and movies and books that I don’t have time to enjoy during the school year.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
The festival experience means tradition and family to me. I’ve been coming to the festival since I was a freshman in high school and it was my first, real exposure to Shakespeare while I was growing up. It was a tradition for me to come to the festival every summer in August with my high school theater class and it was and still is the best escape from the world for a few days and it gives me the freedom to just dive into a fictional world. I’ve grown so close to so many people in the company and being at the festival is like having a second family that will hopefully last a lifetime!

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
If I could be a superhero I would love the ability to talk to animals! If you ask my cast mates, I’m seriously drawn to animals…especially the stray cats that often roam around the local Cedar City parking lots. I love animals and would love to know what they’re thinking and get that much closer to them.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
If I could go back in time, I would love to go back to the 1950/60s because I am obsessed with the rock and roll of the time period and the fashion! Also…I would just love to meet young Carole King and see her live.

Devery North, Company Management Assistant

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?
Nope, first year here!

Where’s your home base?
Kansas City, KS

What’s your education/training background?
BFA in Theatre Management from Stephens College
Four month program in London with the Theatre Academy of London through Florida State University

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?
Being a Kansas City native and growing up around amazing theatres like Starlight Theatre and the Kansas City Rep, I was bound to become a theatre geek. My parents started taking me to the theatre when I was in kindergarten and they nourished my love of the arts when they enrolled me in my church choir in second grade.

Continuing to push myself in new ways as an artist is a priority of mine. French Renaissance writer François Rabais last words, “I go to seek a Great Perhaps” we’re first brought to my attention in the novel Looking for Alaska by John Green. These words have resonated with me since I read them several years ago. This mantra continues to motivate me to do great things.

How will you spend your time off while here?
Exploring the beautiful parks around Cedar City. Coming from the Midwest I’ve never lived in a place that is surrounded by mountains, so it will be many exciting and new adventures.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?
The Festival Experience to me is growing as a company. I’ve worked in a summer-stock environment before and it always so much fun to bond with the people you are working while also working together to achieve the common goal: producing wonderful theatre.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?
I would be Spiderman, no questions asked.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?
The Globe during Shakespeare’s time! Being a Groundling would be amazing.

Rich Rubin, Playwright of NAAP Play Caesar’s Blood

Rich Rubin, Playwright of NAAP Play Caesar’s Blood

The second play in our New American Playwrights’ Project is Caesar’s Blood, by Rich Rubin. It will have staged readings the week of 8/10 with public performances on 8/14 and 8/15 at 10am in the Auditorium Theatre.

Here’s what we learned in a chat with Rich.

He’s been writing plays since 2008 when he retired from his medical practice. His plays have been produced both in the US and internationally and he is the recipient of many awards. This will be his second trip to Cedar City. He was here in 2011 for the Neil Simon Festival and while here attended several plays at the Festival. He’s looking forward to his return.

Rich told us that the genesis of the play was a book he read called “Brothers – On His Brothers and Brothers in History”, by George Howe Colt.  The chapter about the Booth brothers triggered Rich’s imagination and after much research, this play is the result.

Caesar’s Blood is based on factual events. It takes place in late 1864, during the American Civil War. Lincoln had just been re-elected. The Booth brothers (Edwin, Junius Brutus and John Wilkes) were all famous actors of that era. For one performance only, they appeared together in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. Junius Brutus and Edwin were pro-Union and John Wilkes was pro-confederacy and pro-slavery.

There are two layers of conflict in the play: that generated by their differing political views andby sibling rivalry. Act I is in their dressing room before the play and Act II is after the performance. Additional characters are their mother and Edwin’s dresser, an ex-slave.

Does this evening lay the groundwork for Lincoln’s assassination? You’ll have to watch the staged reading and decide for yourself.

The play has had three previous staged readings. Rich’s goal for this week is to work with the Festival’s terrific actors and his director, Josh Stavros, to strengthen the play with the ultimate goal of a complete production. He is looking forward to being surprised and inspired during the process.

And lest you think it’s a dark play, he assures us that there are plenty of sharp, witty moments where audiences respond with laughter.

You can learn more about NAPP at http://www.bard.org/napp/. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased online at www.bard.org or at the door.

Shakespeare Festivals Serve As a Source of Inspiration

Sam White

Recent visits to the Utah Shakespeare Festival by two notable figures in the theatre and literary worlds have at least one thing in common. Both Sam White, founder and executive director of Shakespeare in Detroit, and Ian Doescher, author of the popular William Shakespeare’s Star Wars books, cite attending Shakespeare festivals as inspiration for their work. 

According to Sam White, it was performances at the Utah Shakespeare Festival in 2008 that inspired her to create an organization to bring Shakespeare to Detroit. While returning to her then home of Las Vegas, White thought, “If they can have a festival in the middle of the desert, we can have Shakespeare in Detroit.”

It took years of perseverance, but in 2013 White produced and directed a performance of Othello in Detroit’s Grand Circus Park. Seven productions later, after performing in non-traditional venues scattered across the city, Shakespeare in Detroit is launching another season aimed at bringing Shakespeare to the locations in Detroit where people already go.

White’s love of the Bard and Detroit push her to give Shakespeare to the people of Detroit. “If there is any city in the world that can relate to Shakespeare, it’s Detroit because of what we’ve been through and what we’re going through,” she said. “There’s comedy, tragedy, and pain.”

White spoke to several groups during her most recent visit to Cedar City as part of the Statera Foundation Conference. More information about White’s story is available at http://www.shakespeareindetroit.com/#!our_story/c18bc.

Ian Doescher was at a performance at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival when the idea to tell the stories of Star Wars with iambic pentameter and other Shakespearean language devices came to him. A love of both Star Wars and Shakespeare fed the project for Doescher, but he also wanted to use Shakespearean language and references for another purpose.

“I do hope that these books can be a bridge into Shakespeare for kids,” he said. “My books get them used to the feel of the language so that hopefully when they open up real Shakespeare, it’s not as big of a leap.” Rhymed couplets, iambic pentameter, soliloquies, and character asides to the audience are found throughout the five books of the series, with a sixth due out this fall.

Shakespeare references also provide hidden gems for those more familiar with the works of the Bard. For example, in The Empire Striketh Back, much of the witty banter between Han and Leia references banter between some of Shakespeare’s famous couples: Beatrice and Benedict, Romeo and Juliet, and others.

Fans of Shakespeare, Star Wars, and Doescher’s work itself attended Doescher’s keynote address at the Wooden O Symposium, hosted by the Utah Shakespeare Festival and Southern Utah University. More information about Doescher’s work is available athttp://www.quirkbooks.com/shakespearestarwars.

SUU & Festival Fellowship Program Continues

The SUU & Festival Fellowship Program

Cedar City, UT – Now in its second year, the SUU Fellowship Program at the Utah Shakespeare Festival is now running at full steam. This program provides Southern Utah University students an opportunity to work at professional theatre while gaining credit towards their degrees.

Participating in the program’s second year are Austin Andrews, Phoebe Bock, Jordyn Cardwell, James Alexander Greig, Chalise Jenkins, Luke Johnson, Halie Merril, Kristine Norbdy, Aimee Pearson, and Robby Wilson.

This program would not be possible without the generous support of Southern Utah University and Provost Brad Cook. Artistic Directors Brian Vaughn and David Ivers have wanted to develop the fellowship program for years, but there weren’t enough resources within the Festival. Thankfully, SUU has stepped in and provided the funding essential to make this program happen.

“The SUU Fellowship provides an incredible platform for the practical application of what has been learned in the classroom,” said Artistic Director Brian Vaughn. “Not only are these students building relationships with top professionals within the field; they are also acquiring the professional experience that one that needs prior to graduation. In the cut-throat world of theatre, giving the student the opportunity to get ahead is central to why this program exists.”

These 10 students either work in the technical shops building the shows or act in The Greenshow and in different shows as ensemble members. Each receives school credit while working alongside professional actors and technicians who mentor them throughout the summer.

The Fellowship Program allows students to bridge the gap between educational and professional theatre. These fellows not only grow as students, but they are receiving hands-on experience that will open many doors after they graduate.

 Austen Andrews, entering his third year in the BFA technical theatre and design program at Southern Utah University, is a stage management fellow at the Festival this summer. “Stage management is a discipline that is not easy to teach,” Andrews explains. “One has to learn by doing, and what better way than working at a professional theatre.  I am exposed to a myriad of techniques and styles of stage management from the Festival’s team. I am grateful for the chance to represent SUU at the Utah Shakespeare Festival!”

Currently in the BFA in classical acting program, Halie Merril will be featured in The Greenshow as well as being part of the Ensemble in Amadeus and South Pacific. “There are several things I’m learning and I’m overjoyed to be growing as a performer and person,” she said. “Going from years of admiring these actors to being in the same room as them is exciting and rewarding. I’m so grateful to be in the fellowship, and it feels amazing to know I’m going to share the stage with people I look up to so much.”

Southern Utah University Provost Brad Cook explains, “The Fellowship Program is one of many ways SUU is providing relevant, applied experience for students to connect with their future communities of practice. Experiences such as this afford focused reflection for students in order to increase knowledge, develop skills and clarify values. Experiential learning is also referred to as ’learning through action’, ’learning by doing’, ’learning through experience’, and ’learning through discovery and exploration.’  The students who go into this program will have an incredible advantage in their next stage of life, whether that is graduate education or employment.”

Tickets are on sale for the Festival’s 54th season, which will run from June 25 to October 31, 2015. The eight-play season includes Shakespeare’s King Lear, The Taming of the Shrew, Henry IV Part TwoandThe Two Gentlemen of Verona. The season will also include Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus, Rodgers and Hammerstein’s South Pacific,Charley’s Aunt by Brandon Thomas and Steven Dietz’sadaptation of Bram Stoker’s Dracula. For more information and tickets visit www.bard.org or call 1-800-PLAYTIX.

Company Spotlight: Isabel Smith-Bernstein and Gail Wolfenden-Steib

Name: Isabel Smith-Bernstein

Position: Dramaturg

Have you ever worked at the Festival before?

This is my first year and I’m excited to be here!

Where’s your home base?

Washington DC

What’s your education/training background?

I hold a bachelor’s in Humanities and Arts in history and dramaturgy from Carnegie Mellon University (CMU). 

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?

I found dramaturgy as a freshman at CMU–I went there thinking I would become a lawyer– and transferred as soon as I figured out what a dramaturg was. Dramaturgy is a way for me to work with Shakespeare and the classics in a living, breathing way.

I love dramaturgy, you get to work in four time periods simultaneously: when the play was written, when the play is set, when the director sets the play, and when the play is being performed. Providing context for the cast and crew and facilitating “aha!” moments never gets old.

Everytime you work on a production, it’s like working on something completely new. That’s what keeps me coming back to dramaturgy and especially Shakespeare–there’s always something new to discover.

How will you spend your time off while here?

Hiking!

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?

As of right now, it means getting to work on three amazing and different shows at once. The Festival Experience enables me to meet and work with all kinds of talented and creative people.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

I wish I didn’t have to sleep. Think of how much I could get done!

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?

Maybe cliche, but Shakespeare’s England. That way I could see the plays performed with their original practices and hopefully discover a few lost ones.

Name: Gail Wolfenden-Steib

Position: Costume Painter/Dyer

Have you ever worked at the Festival before? If so, for how many years and in what roles/capacity?

Yes-19 summers costume painter dyer and 4 Falls-once as painter dyer, one year craft supervisor and two years crafts technician.

Where’s your home base?

Tempe, AZ

What’s your education/training background?

MFA Stenography with a costume focus, BS clothing and textiles at Arizona State University. 

What brought you to your field and what keeps you doing your craft?

Creative element, freelance work, and stimulating environment.

How will you spend your time off while here?

Hiking, retail therapy, designing a show for Childsplay, and making belly dance costumes.

What does the Festival Experience mean to you?

A chance to see old friends and make new ones. Learn some new skills, be inspired creatively.

Do you have a favorite memory of working in the Adams Theatre?

This is my first season to work in the Adams Theatre, so I’m building my memories.  I’m excited that I get to be a part of The Taming of the Shrew, with Fred Adams directing in the Adams Theatre’s final season.

If you could be a superhero, what would you want your superpowers to be?

Figure out how to defy gravity so I could wear the costume without a bra.

If you had a time machine, where would you like to visit?

Victorian India

NAPP - Affluence by Steven Peterson

New American Playwright Project – Affluence by Steven Peterson

A highlight of the summer season at the Festival is the New American Playwright Project. Three plays are selected from many submissions. Each playwright spends a week at the Festival and Festival actors and artists present their plays as staged readings, followed by an instructive discussion between the playwright, actors, and audience.

The first play for this season is Affluence, written by Steven Peterson. We chatted with him to learn more.

Peterson was an English major in college and started writing during his early years. After a number of years in the corporate world, he has returned to play-writing full time. Peterson is a two-time winner of the Julie Harris Playwright Award (2013 and 2014) and a winner of the Dorothy Silver Playwriting Competition (2012). He lives in Chicago where he is a resident playwright at Chicago Dramatists and a member of the Dramatists Guild of America.

He characterizes this as a dark comedy. He got the idea for the plot in 2010. At the end of that year, the estate tax law was changing significantly. Folks were joking about “if there’s ever a year for a rich relative to die, this is it.” His thought – “there’s a play in there.”

Tough times have hammered the once-wealthy Woodley clan. Yet the week after Christmas brings hope. Grandmother is dying and will leave them a bundle. Only there’s a problem: Inheritance tax rates surge at the stroke of midnight, and the old gal isn’t gone yet. What does a desperate family do? And who else is at risk on the slippery slope of murder? It’s a dark comedy indeed.

Peterson arrives in Cedar City on Sunday, August 2. During the week, he’ll work with director Frank Honts and the cast of six characters (cast members include John Ahlin (this year’s Falstaff), Michael Doherty (from Charley’s Aunt), Nikki Ellege and Samantha Ma (ensemble members)) to prepare for the public staged readings. You can attend on Friday, August 7 and Saturday, August 8 at 10 am in the Auditorium Theatre. Tickets are $10 and available in advance at www.bard.org or at the door.

His goal for the week? “Theatre is a highly collaborative art. I look forward to the insights from both the director and the actors. For a playwright, it’s only when you see a play performed that you really see what it is. I like to watch the audience during staged readings to see their reactions. The balance between comedy and horror is tough and this will help me see if we’ve achieved it.”

You can learn more about NAPP at http://www.bard.org/napp/ and purchase tickets online at www.bard.org or by calling 800-PLAYTIX. Tickets are $10 and also available at the door. Affluence will be performed as a staged reading on August 7 and August 8 at 10am in the Auditorium Theatre.

Star Wars and Shakespeare at the Wooden O Conference

The Bard Side of the Force

Author Ian Doescher has “translated” five of the six Stars Wars episodes into iambic pentameter and Shakespearean English. As part of the Wooden O Conference at Southern Utah University, he will do a book signing and deliver the keynote address today, August 3.

For the book signing, he will be at the Gift Shop in the Randall L. Jones Theatre from 12:30pm to 2pm. He’ll be signing his book William Shakespeare’s Star Wars, which you can purchase there.

At 5pm you can attend his keynote address in the Great Hall in the Hunter Conference Center on the SUU campus. Tickets are only $5 and can be purchased in advance at www.bard.org or at the door.

During this keynote, entitled  “The Bard Side of the Force”, he will discuss the process of taking Shakespeare on a journey to a galaxy far, far away. From the genesis of the idea to deciding how to make characters like Yoda and Jar Jar Binks true to the Bard, he will share his journey. Along the way, he’ll tell us why he thinks students might find Star Wars to be the perfect entry point into Shakespeare’s plays.

Ian Doescher is the author of the William Shakespeare’s Star Warsseries.  He has loved Shakespeare since eighth grade and was born 45 days after Star Wars Episode IV was released. Ian has a B.A. in Music from Yale University, a Master of Divinity from Yale Divinity School, and a Ph.D. in Ethics from Union Theological Seminary. He lives in Portland, Oregon, with his wife Jennifer and two sons. 

We had a chance to ask Ian a couple of questions.

Who tend to be your fans? Star Wars fans? Shakespeare fans? Scholars?

The biggest group is Star Wars fans, who have embraced the books and have been very kind.  Shakespeare fans are next, followed by teachers and theater people.  A small number of people from these groups find bones to pick with what I’ve written, but by and large the reception to the books has been really positive.  The Star Wars fans enjoy the books because they deepen the stories of their favorite characters, Shakespeare fans like projects that make the Bard relevant and current again, teachers appreciate what the books can do for their students, and theater folks enjoy thinking about how it could be performed.

Why should non-scholars come to your keynote?

Let’s be clear: I myself am not a Shakespeare scholar.  I’m a person who loves the works of Shakespeare, has enjoyed reading Shakespeare, seeing the plays, watching the films, and so on, but I have had relatively little formal training in Shakespeare.  When I talk about my books, therefore, I’m not approaching Shakespeare from an academic’s standpoint, but from a fan’s standpoint.  Non-scholars will enjoy the keynote, I hope, because I’ll be talking in a really down-to-earth way about how I came to fully express my inner nerd/geek as I wrote the books.

There are currently five books in the series, each telling a different portion of the Star Wars saga. Titles include The Empire Striketh Back and The Jedi Doth Return.

 And if you’re wondering “what is the Wooden O?” – it’s a literary and scholarly conference, sponsored by the Festival,  focused on works from medieval to early modern times i.e. the 1500s to late 1600s. Attendees are scholars who present peer-reviewed papers on topics related to this season’s plays. This year, as a co-conference, the Rocky Mountain Medieval Association will be here as well. The conference runs from August 3 – August 6. More information is available at http://www.bard.org/wooden-o-symposium/

Again, tickets to the keynote (August 3, 5pm at the Hunter Conference Center) are only $5 and can be purchased in advance at www.bard.org or at the door. The book signing will be the same day, August 3, from 12:30pm to 2pm in the Gift Shop at the Randall L. Jones Theatre. Hope to see you there.