It's "Something Fantastic" to Collaborate with Bob Jones

Camp Director Symmonie Preston teasingly titled Bob Jones’ second lecture “Something Fantastic,” and of course he did not disappoint. This time, Bob focused on the concept of collaboration and the importance of collaboration in the playwriting process. The three plays that the campers will perform on August 5th were written using some form of collaboration, and this lecture served as a valuable enhancement to the campers’ understanding of the productions they’re working on. All three were written during England’s “huge thrust” for new plays. This era of popular demand called for single companies to putt on ten to twenty plays a month. This output rate surpassed the ability of a single playwright, whose writing hours were truncated by the sunrise and sunset. Therefore, collaborating with other playwrights and various sources helped to increase output immensely. Collaboration as a concept is fairly simple but occurs in many forms and places. Bob asked the campers to brainstorm in helping him to compile several lists.

Different modes of collaboration between playwrights:
1) Simultaneous partnered collaboration – when two or more playwrights write a play by constantly exchanging ideas so that each scene is the product of multiple authors.

2) Plot and dialogue – when one playwright would come up with the concept for the play and write the basic plott or platt and the other playwright would then write the dialogue for specific scenes.

3) Scene by scene collaboration – when once the plot is agreed upon, two or more playwrights alternate the scenes they write.

Scholars speculate that Beaumont and Fletcher wrote A King and No King in a mixture of the second and third mode. Fletcher wrote the plot and a few scenes, while Beaumont wrote the majority of the dialogue. But these three modes only cover collaboration between playwrights, when there are many more abstract sources of collaborations that a playwright would make use of.

1) Actors – playwrights would base characters off of the actors that would be performing the play
2) Classical Sources – allusions to Greek mythology
3) Historical chronicles
4) Poems/ballads
5) Travelogues – descriptions of foreign lands
6) Stock characters from old plays
7) Recent and current plays – Shakespeare drew from plays running concurrently with his own, and even drew from his other plays, reusing scenarios and certain lines.

After compiling this list of resources for collaboration, Bob presented the campers with the ultimate challenge: to write a nine scene play collaborating with each other and drawing from A King and No King, Henry VI Part I, and Much Ado about Nothing as source texts. The campers started by outlining the main action for each scene. Then they broke into groups of four to write each scene, where they defined the motivations behind the main action. Once the campers wrote their scenes, each group exchanged and edited a different group’s scene. By modifying this new scene to support their authored scene, the campers used this step to make the play more cohesive.

In the end, the play was a hilarious mash-up featuring the protagonists Beadick and Benetrice (a jumble of Much Ado’s Beatrice and Benedick). A King and No King’s clown Bessus joined Much Ado’s Dogberry to wage a war against France led by Don Talbot (fusion of Much Ado’s Don John and Henry’s John Talbot). Much Ado’s Hero acted as a Mulan-type by disguising herself as a man and running off to fight in the war. Not all of the scenes connected well, and there were plenty of character inconsistencies, but the campers learned that those are two side effects of scene-by-scene collaboration. Although the groups weren’t technically supposed to communicate with one another, somehow a random dancing Spaniard appeared in every scene, creating suspicion that some conversation had occurred. This exercise not only taught the campers the struggles and benefits of collaboration and gave them a chance to hone their playwriting skills, but the cold reading of the play also brought campers near to tears from laughing so hard . Everyone could agree that with the guidance of Bob they had indeed created “Something Fantastic”.

--Emma Lo

Box-kicking with Bob Jones

Bob Jones, known around ASC Theatre Camp as a favorite lecturer for his wealth of wisdom, discussed the differences between voice and prose at his lecture on Wednesday.

Verse is a form of writing with a metrical rhythm and strict rules (which many writers, including Shakespeare, do not always follow precisely). Because of its beat-like flow, verse is generally much easier for the actor to memorize and also for the audience to remember. In Shakespeare’s day at a live, crowded theater like the Blackfriars Playhouse, some audience members would have trouble hearing all of what the actors were saying. The structure of verse emphasizes the most important words as stressed syllables, so even if only the stressed syllables are heard, the audience member would have a good grasp of what the actor was trying to communicate. For example, Hamlet’s “To be or not to be” line without the unstressed syllables would read “be not be is quest”. Bob pointed out that those words alone are the meat of Hamlet’s entire speech, and essentially of the entire play.

To help the campers understand verse more fully, Bob got them on their feet for a physical exercise. First, he assigned every camper a line from a scene between Claudio and Don Pedro from Much Ado about Nothing. Bob instructed them to use scansion to determine which syllables were stressed and unstressed. “Now gallop your line!” Bob announced. Each camper tapped out the line according to the stressed and unstressed syllables. The campers with more irregular lines tripped a little on the way, but Bob helped everyone produce an accurate gallop by the end. Here are several examples Bob provided of regularities and irregularities in Shakespeare’s verse:

CLAUDIO
˅        /     ˅    /    ˅    /     ˅   /     ˅      /
Give not this rotten orange to your friend

This is an example of a regular verse line. It has ten syllables that alternate stressed and unstressed and it begins on an unstressed syllable.

HAMLET
˅   /   ˅    /   ˅   /    ˅     /   ˅     /     ˅
To be or not to be that is the question
You’ll notice that this line has an extra, unstressed syllable at its end, which is referred to as a “feminine ending”.

BEDFORD
 /        /   ˅      /      ˅     ˅        /       /      /    ˅      / 
Hung be the heavens with black, yield day to night!

Here Shakespeare breaks all the rules of verse, using several “spondees,” or feet where both of the syllables are stressed. This irregularity in verse would catch the audience’s attention. In this case, the excess of stressed syllables make the line sound more powerful and reinforce the line’s meaning – but, you can see how this line would be difficult to gallop.

In contrast to verse, prose sounds much like how people converse today and has no complex stressed and unstressed structure. A King and No King, one of the three plays in Session 2, is written mostly in prose . While looking at an excerpt of text from this play, the campers noted that there are more punctuation marks, caesuras, and meter shifts than there typically are in Shakespeare’s text. Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher wrote A King and No King during a period when the vogue in writing was moving from verse towards prose, and this play contributed to that transition. Here is an excerpt that when read aloud, sounds like every day speech. Bob noted that Shakespeare never ended a sentence after two syllables into a line, as Beaumont and Fletcher have done here with “So long.”

ARBACES
Bessus, go you along too with her. –I will prove
All this that I have said, if I may live
So long. But I am desperately sick,

After his overview of verse and prose, Bob covered the importance of the last word in a line. While the stressed syllables are more important that the unstressed, the last word in a line is the most important out of all of them. Bob brought out three mysterious white boxes and instructed the campers to choose a small section of their own lines to work on. Then he told them to recite their chosen text by walking during the line and turning abruptly on the last word before beginning the next line. When the campers had perfected their sharp turns, Bob added in the boxes. Now the campers gave the boxes a swift kick on the last word, an even more forceful movement than the turn. This exercise made the campers extremely conscious of putting emphasis on the final word. Bob explained that physicalizing this emphasis helps you to get vocal ideas, and can help you to give phrases weight. At the end of the lecture, Bob opened the white boxes to reveal that a Complete Works of Shakespeare had been hiding in each! The campers laughingly bemoaned the fact that they’d been abusing their idol for the last hour.

The campers left Bob’s lecture with more comprehensive understanding of how Shakespeare, Beaumont, and Fletcher use verse and prose and of their purposeful switches between both throughout the plays. One of the most difficult challenges in performing Shakespeare and his contemporaries is deciphering the playwright’s intent that is hidden within the structure and then actually executing the iambic pentameter. Thanks to Bob, the campers are now prepared to attack their plays, galloping and kicking their way through tongue-tripping text.

--Emma  Lo

History of the Book

            Much of what we do here at the ASC Theatre Camp has the campers up on their feet working with the text, but a certain portion of our efforts go to ensuring that the campers learn about the significance and history of the texts that they are working with. During the course of our three-week camp, we bring in lecturers that teach the campers about their different specialty areas. Sarah Enloe, our Director of Education at the ASC, introduced guest lecturer William Proctor Williams as being something of a “Scholar Adventurer."  Part of his career has involved “finding buried texts” and ensuring that they are properly preserved for future generations. One of his biggest finds was unearthing twenty-three dramatic manuscripts from the seventeenth century. While this is one of his largest successes, William Proctor Williams has been salvaging Early Modern texts from being discarded since grad school.

            If we had had more time than the two and a half hours that were set aside for this lecture, I am sure that we would have been treated to a full history of the written word. Williams was extremely thorough during his lecture, and he answered the campers' questions down to the most specific detail. Despite the time constraint, Williams’s lecture covered lots of ground. Williams began his lecture by explaining the evolution of the book, beginning with 3000 BCE and the use of the papyrus scroll. As he described the evolving forms of binding, he passed around a text with a cover made from vellum (calf-skin) on it. With the development of the printing press, he explained, Gutenberg combined the three major technologies of the day. One of these was the type of binding that was in use. Were it not for this shift, Williams said, we would all be vegetarians since the increase of demand for text would have caused veal to disappear altogether!

Williams’s lecture then transitioned from technological developments in printing to the working conditions that Jaggard, the manufacturer of the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays, would have worked in. The way we think Jaggard’s shop was run worked remained the standard from 1450-1750. His shop is thought to have contained three compositors, one compositor’s apprentice, two pressmen, two or three additional apprentices, a master printer, and a full or part time scribe. The average printer’s workday went from 5am-8pm, during which time they churned out somewhere between 900-1200 copies of a text per day. Ha, and the campers think we work them hard! Learning about the expected productivity of Jaggard’s shop seemed to make everyone a little more appreciative of our own work hours.

Williams ended the lecture explaining that part of working with Shakespeare’s text is learning about the historical conditions in which it was printed. This includes how the printed format that we now work with may have been adapted from the stage to the page.  Williams’s lecture was in-depth and informative. He was able to provide the campers with a vivid image of the history of the book in addition to answering questions that the campers had for him. All in all, it was an immersing and engaging lecture chalked full of information that will be useful to the campers as they work through their text for our upcoming productions!

-Madeleine M. Oulevey

What’s Greek about Shakespeare? with Amy Cohen

The Greeks did their theater with the lights on too. But their stages and their audiences were much larger. To illustrate this, our lecturer from this Tuesday, Amy Cohen (Professor of Classics at Randolph College, and daughter of the ASC’s co-founder and Director of Mission, Ralph Cohen) brought every camper into a circle on the King Theater stage, to feel how close everyone is together, then took everyone outside and had us form a circle in the grass outside, a circle at least four times as large. “This is the scale. Size matters in theater.”

One of the ways size matters so much in Amy Cohen’s productions is in the use of masks for their productions. She and her students have been using full helmet masks in their productions of Greek plays at the college amphitheater, which suit the larger space far better than a tighter indoor venue. To give the campers an experience with these masks, she gave them a little bit of choreography for “row, row, row your boat” and had a group of volunteers all sing and dance together.

The masks are a bit creepy when you first see them, but they improve with exposure, and they seem less weird when the wearers are portraying some sort of strong emotion or action. Cohen has mentioned that it usually takes an audience about five minutes to accept the masks in performance, but that that time is doubled when they have in-climate weather and have to perform indoors. The masks need more space to function. Once an audience has accepted the masks, the masks morph into the character portrayed -- so much so that she often gets questions about how they make the masks move, or how many masks they have for different emotions, when they don’t move at all, and the only emotions read onto them are the ones given by the actor through their bodies.

She had some of the campers do a couple of scenes with the masks on, to show a little of how the masks work in performance. Here is Rachel playing Bottom in A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

After her demonstration with the masks, Cohen fielded all sorts of questions about Greek theater, about the plays in this camp and their classical roots, and about Greek history. She dispelled some common misconceptions about “Classical Theater” such as a “tragic flaw” or the “Aristotelian unities” which get passed off as rules, when examination of the plays we know from the time show these “rules” are merely observations of what happens some of the time. She talked about Greek heroism, and how it is much more self-serving than Roman ideals. Greek heroes seemed to long for their names to be remembered far more than they were concerned about loyalty to a person or state. She also pointed out that the subjects of the Greek plays, particularly the tragedies, are big and noble and not at all colloquial. Today many translations attempt to make them feel like they are the sort of drama which might happen in the living room, but they are comprised of stories with massive scope and consequence. She also mentioned that love stories were not popular topics for drama (until later in Greek history, maybe 4th century BC) the way they are now. Shakespeare and Marlow take some of the scope and grandeur of these stories and add love stories to them, add normal everyday people who bring these stories home, into our lives and minds.

Playing Pretend and the Spanish Armada

Earlier this week Christine Schmidle, graduate of the MBC MLitt/MFA program and director of Session 2's A Midsummer Night's Dream, led a workshop of the ideas and techniques of Michael Chekov. His views on acting include the idea that feelings cannot be commanded, but qualities can. Although it may not be possible to make yourself feel tender, you can behave in a manner indicating tenderness, and you will, therefore, appear tender. First handing out selections from “On the Technique of Acting,” Christine had the campers study the descriptions of different terms and techniques -- such as Focal point, Radiating and Receiving, Improvisation, Entirety, Form, Psychological Gesture, Characterization, and Imagination -- and then explain these terms to the group. These exercises are like lightbulbs. You don’t need them all, but they’re there for you to use to illuminate your acting.

The campers then put these ideas into action as Christine had them do an improvisation exercise where they were exploring an imagined atmosphere. What if all around you instead of air was Jello? “Try moving in it. Does it get in your mouth? Do you like that? Now you are in the atmosphere of fire.” Followed by water, mud, happiness, stone, tension, awe and clouds. It was fascinating to see which atmospheres resembled each other, and how each affected the way the campers moved in their space.

Next was a more elaborate imagination exercise in which Christine led them all through a complicated sequence of locations and attributes, including the beach, the woods, and climbing Mt. Olympus, then becoming a fairy or a classical deity or a soldier all in turn. The campers put themselves into the world Christine described with incredible specificity which was a delight to watch. They fell to the ground when they lost their fairy wings, shivered and laughed with delight when they had run right up to the shoreline and had the waves of the sea crash around their feet, and sat in perfect stillness as Diana or Jupiter, contemplating their own imagined immortality.

By this time everyone was ready for a break, but you know you’re at Shakespeare camp when at a break in the workshop everyone begins working on their lines.

After the break, they started applying these techniques to the characters they play in the productions for this camp, considering questions like: How does your character move her hands? Which leg would he move first? Haircolor? Earrings? Maybe just one? The camper imagined all the particulars of their characters, then stepped into them, and began walking and talking in that persona. For a final exercise, the campers each took about ten lines of the text they are working on in their plays and put concrete actions to motion of the speech. Maybe your character cradles his first line and punches the second. Drawing in a character with the third line? It was two and a quarter hours constructive work, while it all came across with the discovery and delight of playing pretend like a four year old.

On Tuesday, Dr. Mary Hill Cole, a professor at Mary Baldwin College, gave a lecture on the stories of history and what we store in our memories. Beginning with some questions for the campers she circled around what we know or remember about the history of the last 100 years. Next she let us extrapolate what we imagine Shakespeare and Marlowe might have known about the last 100 years in the history of England and its connections with the rest of Europe. Who are the big names? What are the big events?

The rest of the lecture went through some of the events and persons most important in the history of England and the world from 1484 (100 years before the birth of Shakespeare and Marlowe) till well into their lifetimes. We talked about the Wars of the Roses, what was at stake, and how that affected the kings who followed. We talked about Henry VIII, his wives, and their fates. How did Elizabeth became queen, and who was in the way of her coming to the throne? What was the importance of the shift from Catholicism to the Protestant Church of England, and how were the regular English citizens affected by it? We talked about the Spanish Armada, and the Gunpowder Plot, as well as the various plans and purposes of her time as queen. We also talked a bit about James I, and how the country was different under his rule. Dr. Cole ended her lecture by answering any questions from the group. Who was the "dark lady" of the sonnets? Was Marlowe gay? What about Shakespeare writing sonnets to a man; do we know who this man was? Inquiring minds want to know.

First Couple Days of Camp

Dear parents, friends, interested readers, all,

I am writing from the library at Stuart Hall, and while everyone else is hard at work in rehearsal, I thought I would post a first update on the camp and what the last day and a half has held.

For me, the auditions at ASCTC are as exciting as the final performances. Monday morning, these campers come full of potential and energy and dive right into the excitement and the joy of working. Doreen begins with exercises to help get some jitters out, and to remind the campers of the importance of timing and focus, of beginnings and endings, and the place of stillness onstage. All of which skills they put straight to use after learning to sing a round composed by some of the counselors and then divide into groups of three and make their own performances out of that song. Highlights of this section included a camper making up a guitar part to accompany his group, some use of mime, storytelling, unison movement and beatboxing, all of which gives the directors not only a good sense of the special skills of the campers but also shows teamwork, energy, stage presence and creativity.

The next section of the auditions is another sort of devised performance but in much larger groups. In three groups the campers tell the stories of the plays of this session without words, but aided by ten carefully chosen lines from the plays, and a list of required actions. These performances can be so beautiful they take away one’s breath, as Shakespeare’s images become physicalized, and these young people present stars burning in their spheres, the pain of isolation, the delight of young love and the sorrow of endings. Perhaps most impressive was the ten seconds of stillness as all the villagers gathered around the maddened Jailer’s Daughter, who was staring into the distance, “dreaming of another, better world.”

By the time the audition gets to the much anticipated 10 lines of prepared text, the campers were so enthusiastic and so eager to applaud each other’s success that we had to stop them to avoid spilling over into lunch.

The other particularly exciting part of Monday is the tour of Blackfriars Playhouse. After a brief of dense introduction to the whole of the building, including costume shop, trap door, backstage, balcony and then onto the main deal, which is again lead by Doreen, who gets all the kids onstage, all waking up the space and fills them full of questions.

How can you frame yourself in the architecture of this particular stage?
How can you give or command power onstage?
Everything is full of straight lines and angles except for the discovery space, the little curtained entrance right in the middle. How can you use that fluidity?
How can you hide onstage? What makes you take up more than usual?
What about your own voice in the space?
How much sound can you make?
How soft can you be and still be totally clear? It isn’t any easier than being loud, and takes all sorts of energy and focus.

The campers all got a chance onstage to feel themselves in that space, but also were right there in the theater watching their fellow campers, and learning just as much from watching others work, as working themselves. We looked at geometric figures and how, like painters, we can use shapes and lines to create focus and beauty onstage. As Doreen says, “make it art. Don’t make a ‘sort of’ line, make a line!”

Right before dinner the cast lists were posted and that evening the directors ran a “Paraphrase Extravaganza” teaching scansion and meter, rhetoric and how to paraphrase so the campers can begin really digging their teeth into the text.

This morning, Jeremy Febig lectured “On Shakespeares and Centers” which introduced Shakespeare and a smattering of history surrounding the man, as well as the ASC and some of the founding goals of the company. Covering conceptions of Shakespeare as unfamiliar, commonplace, mandatory, unimaginative, fixed up or intimidating, Febig explored some causes of these understandings of Shakespeare and what places like the ASC change these understandings. When produced with skill and imagination, using the staging conditions for which the plays were written, Shakespeare is seen for what he really is, relevant to his own day and ours, in conversation with our world, and with the world in which he wrote the plays. The campers engaged the material and asked lots of questions, shared many ideas of how Shakespeare is and could be taught. One camper said she hadn’t had a bad time learning Shakespeare in her English classes at School, but that it was difficult because they never read anything out loud. In her words, “it’s easier to act Shakespeare than to read it.”