Coming Soon to a Playhouse Near You: ASC Theatre Camp Pre-show!

A unique trademark of the American Shakespeare Center that contributes to their commitment to authenticity is their retention of the early modern association of music with playgoing . At the ASC, actors perform music in the half-hour before the show begins, to welcome audiences and to entertain them as they settle in to the Blackfriars Playhouse. The ASC Theatre Camp has adopted and adapted this tradition and will be performing a pre-show for the ASC’s The Lion In Winter on Friday, July 6th and The Merchant of Venice on Saturday, July 7th. They’ll also be performing the pre-show before their own shows on Sunday, July 8th. Symmonie Preston, the ASC's new Director of College Prep Programming, directs this year's pre-show.

ASC Theatre Camp pre-shows have varied in the past, sometimes taking on a specific theme or a single concept. This year, Symmonie’s vision for the pre-show is that it serves as a teaser for the three shows: Twelfth Night, Gallathea, and Romeo and Juliet. Most audiences will not be familiar with John Lyly’s Gallathea, and the pre-show will give the camp a chance to present some of Gallathea’s main plot points as well as the more familiar themes of Twelfth Night and Romeo and Juliet, hoping to entice the audience with hilarity and preposterousness of the play.

Gallathea’s source of conflict for its characters is the monster Agar, who comes once a year to devour the fairest virgin sacrifice, threatening to destroy the land if the citizens fail to provide the maiden. Though he never actually appears in the play, the pre-show realizes Agar using eleven campers and Symmonie’s movement choreography. In progression, the campers fly on stage from various entrances, forming the monster out of many devilish birds. The whirlwind of capes and masks that swarms around the virgin sacrifice has a chilling effect. Another group of campers has created a soundscape for this scene that involves a haunting melody with saxophone and the triangle. Together, the movement and music bring the creepy Agar to life.

The monster scene is one of many in the pre-show, which includes scenes from all three plays. Excerpts from Twelfth Night outline Viola’s predicament and introduce most of the play’s characters. Likewise, the audience gets to witness Sampson’s and Abram ’s fight and a peek into Romeo and Juliet’s cursed lovers’ lives. All ASC Theatre Camp shows run for 60 minutes only, necessitating significant cuts to each script. Luckily, the pre-show gives us the chance to restore some of these cut scenes. Peter’s big scene in Romeo and Juliet had to be cut from the play for Sunday’s performance, but is a part of the pre-show. Campers with more minor roles in their plays are featured prominently in the pre-show so that everyone has an opportunity to lead the stage while at ASC Theatre Camp. For example, Mercutio does not deliver his famous Queen Mab speech for the pre-show; instead, several different campers share the speech, giving them a stab at this famous speech. These campers used diction guidance from the Ralph Cohen workshop they attended to tell a collaborative version of Queen Mab’s tale.

In fact, the pre-show not only gives the audience a preview of the three plays, but also a look inside many different workshops and master classes that the campers attended, as certain elements from these events are part of the pre-show tapestry. At Chris Johnston’s music workshop, the campers helped to write a song called, “Lady, Lay” that involves singing, a troupe of guitarists, and complicated hand-claps. “Lady, Lay” features in the pre-show, along with several other songs that the campers arranged.

The ASC Theatre camp pre-show may precede the main performances, but it is an entire show of its own, making an outstanding start to an afternoon of theatrical wonder on Sunday. Join us at 7:00 on Friday and Saturday night and 11:30 on Sunday morning to see ASC Theatre Camp’s pre-show!

--Emma Lo

Romeo and Juliet Rehearsal

As an observer of Romeo and Juliet rehearsal, I entered through the walls of Verona into a world of wooden daggers, tennis shoes, and first kisses. Putting on Shakespeare’s most famous play is no easy feat, as the tale of Romeo and his “three-hours wife” has enjoyed (or endured) countless retellings in countless varieties. But under the direction of Sara Holdren, the ASC Theatre Camp is tackling Romeo and Juliet with a vivaciousness you will find nowhere else. One of the most significant rehearsals I’ve sat in on was the cast’s first run-through. In the words of the director, “This is the first time you guys get to put the whole thing together. Keep your energy up. Keep your focus up”. Sara encouraged the actors on this intimidating day, when all of the lines, entrances, and blocking have to be at the front of each actor’s mind in order to make the run-through efficacious.

Run-throughs always begin with a fight call, where the actors lace up their sneakers and briefly practice all the show’s fight scenes at a slower tempo than they will use in the actual performance. This way, the actors won’t be going into these scenes cold during the run-through, which could result in confusion and possible injury. Stage combat in its essence is ironic because it’s the exact opposite of fighting. The fight partners work hard together, sharing weight and doing as much as they can to support each other in this mimic of a fight. Fight call is both an opportunity to practice the physical progression of the fight and also the accompanying vocals and expressions. One camper watching the fight call scenes praised Tybalt’s “troll face” that intimidated the entire room. Sara encouraged the actors to experiment with their pain noises and to imagine a realistic reaction to a sudden cut to the hamstring.

After fight call, the cast formed a circle to warm-up physically and vocally. It’s important that the campers’ bodies are fit to perform an active hour’s worth of brawls, dancing, and dying. Likewise, the shouting matches and the language in this play call for an extensive warm-up of the voice as well. The cast practiced lip-trills to loosen the lips, sirens to use the full vocal range, and overdone diction to ease the delivery of lines. The last warm-up is always an energy warm-up, as it’s crucial to build up enough energy to last through an hour of performing. Starting low to the ground and in quiet voices, the cast began to chant, “Ooh I feel so good, like I knew I would!” As they repeated this line again and again, the campers became increasingly loud and wacky until they were shouting and jumping into the air ecstatically. With a huge burst of energetic expression, the cast was now ready to tackle the play.

One of Romeo and Juliet’s biggest challenges is the “transition from a world that’s full of humor to that great tragedy” that Sara identifies as one of this cast’s biggest successes. This was profoundly evident from watching the run-through and the reactions of the cast further underscored that importance, when they served as audience members for the scenes they were not in. Almost Mercutio’s bitter death speech brought almost half the cast to tears. During the big fight between Mercutio and Tybalt, the cast watching divided and cheered them on, chanting “Mercutio! Tybalt! No, Mercutio! No, Tybalt!” In the middle of the Juliet and Romeo’s first encounter, Sara suddenly called out, “I’m so sorry, but this is where the first kiss is. You guys better get used to doing this!” The entire room blushed as the pair “let lips do like hands do.” From tears to heated shouts, gasps of surprise to reddened cheeks, this cast has the ability to affect and move each other through an entire range of emotions that Romeo and Juliet calls for, as a romantic tragedy.

While watching the rehearsal process, it’s easy to imagine you are with these characters inside the church’s tomb, until a hilarious mishap pulls you straight back to 2012. As Juliet awoke from her poisonous sleep, she accidently elbowed her dead husband, prompting an “Ow!” from the miraculously and momentarily arisen Romeo. It’s fun, light-hearted moments like this that alleviate the serious and hard-working tone that runs through rehearsal.

Rehearsal ends with notes, a reflective time when the director and assistant directors share comments, suggestions, and changes they’ve noted throughout the run-through. The campers write down their notes in their script margins and will try to incorporate them in the next run-through. While Sara found places in every scene that needed adjusting, she stressed that they had had an outstanding first run-through, and are well on their way to a polished product.

When asked to describe the cast, Sara was eager to praise this talented group, saying that they are “really brave and really willing to throw themselves as deep into the play as it calls for. They’re a great group, they’re funny, hard-working, very brave, open honest with each other, good listeners. They’re a group with a really good energy, with a nice feeling of ensemble”. Sara’s favorite part of rehearsals so far has been “the energy and the commitment level of the kids because I’ve seen versions of this play done by adults where the energy levels haven’t gone as far as the play asks for emotionally”. And it shows, as Sara and the cast do a wonderful job of using the youth of these actors to make Romeo and Juliet a thoroughly convincing tale of young love.

The performance of ASC Theatre Camp’s Romeo and Juliet, along with Twelfth Night and Gallathea, will be on 11:30 Sunday, July 8th at the Blackfriars Playhouse. Admission is free.

--Emma Lo

Introducing the 2012 American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp

It's very nearly that time again! The American Shakespeare Center Theatre Camp starts up this Sunday with Session 1. This program offers summer Shakespeare intensives for ages 13-18 (residential or day camp). In each three-week session, campers participate in performance master classes (stage combat, dance, music, acrobatics); attend academic classes (theatre history, scansion/rhetoric, source study); visit the Blackfriars Playhouse to watch the professional Resident and Touring Troupe actors rehearse and perform in our summer season of plays; and they finish the experience off by performing in an hour-long version of a Shakespeare play on the stage of the Blackfriars Playhouse.

2011 Campers performing Christopher Marlowe's Dido, Queen of Carthage

This year, the camp moves to Mary Baldwin College, taking advantage of the wealth of opportunities there. Participants in ASC Theatre Camp are taught by ASC Education staff, graduate students from MBC's MLitt/MFA in Shakespeare in Performance Program, and professional artists and educators from our acting troupes. Our vibrant community of Shakespeare enthusiasts welcomes campers to a wonderful world of intense play – we hope you can join us to celebrate their hard work during their showcases on July 8th and August 5th! The shows for this year are:

Session 1: June 17 – July 8, 2012

• Twelfth Night is a cross-dressing romp with hidden depths of emotion. Finding herself stranded after a shipwreck, Viola disguises herself as a boy to serve the Count Orsino, with whom she falls in love. Unfortunately, Orsino is in love with the Lady Olivia, who then falls for Viola in her guise as Cesario. Their romantic entanglements are further complicated by the antics of Olivia's household, who convince her steward, Malvolio, to make a fool out of himself, and by the reappearance of Viola's lost twin, Sebastian. Love letters, poor swordsmanship, joyful reunions, and yellow stockings ensue.
  Director: Amanda McRaven was the director of YCTC from 2001-2004. She is SO EXCITED to return this summer. Since leaving ASC, she earned an MFA in Directing and a Fulbright in Community-based Performance in New Zealand. She works with all kinds of actors and all kinds of theater, but Shakespeare with teenagers is still and always will be the truest thing she does.
• Romeo and Juliet is Shakespeare's most famous tale of love gone wrong, where comedy and tragedy collide. Two teenagers defy their families to be together, but the tangle of rivalries, feuds, and hot tempers leads to a bloody chain reaction of revenge. Romeo and Juliet features some of Shakespeare's most beautiful and romantic verse, but it's also packed with rollicking comedy, from witty Mercutio to the dryly disapproving Friar Laurence, from the effusive Nurse to the rowdy servants. Vows of love, vicious duels, larks, tombs, and passions ensue.
  Director: Sara Holdren is a director, actor, and designer whose love affair with Shakespeare started early and blazed into life at YCTC (now ASCTC) when she was fifteen. She has trained at RADA and received her BA in Theater Studies from Yale University. This fall she will begin an MFA in Directing at Yale School of Drama. She has directed Shakespeare's The Tempest, Richard III, Henry IV, and As You Like It, as well as Red Noses by Peter Barnes and He Who Gets Slapped by Leonid Andreyev.
• Gallathea by John Lyly is a doubling of mistaken-identity confusion. When the god Neptune demands that a town sacrifice their most beautiful maiden to a sea monster, two fathers disguise their daughters as boys and pack them off into the wilderness -- where they promptly fall in love with each other, each thinking the other is actually a boy. Meanwhile, Cupid tricks a flock of Diana's nymphs into falling madly in love, despite their vows of chastity, and a trio of apprentices try out every occupation they can think of in search of their destinies. Failed sacrifices, love-knots, alchemy, and general hilarity ensue.
  Director: Chelsea Phillips is a graduate of the MFA program in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin College. She is currently a third-year PhD student at Ohio State University, where she has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company to introduce their Stand Up for Shakespeare program into local K-12 classrooms. 

  

  2011 Campers performing William Shakespeare's The Winter's Tale

Session 2: July 15 – August 5, 2012

• Much Ado about Nothing is a witty comedy about finding love and growing up. The young Count Claudio wins the hand of the beautiful heiress Hero. Hero's cousin Beatrice and Claudio's friend Benedick can never meet without verbally sparring, so their friends and family conspire to trick them into falling in love with each other. The tale turns dark when Claudio spurns Hero, falsely believing her to have been unfaithful. With Hero seeming dead and Claudio unrepentant, Beatrice must convince Benedick to prove himself worthy of her love by standing up for what's right. Deceptions, redemptions, bumbling constables, and some of the best quips in Shakespeare ensue.
  Director: Daniel Kennedy has worked as an actor, writer, director and teacher in his 19 years as a theatre professional. Daniel has worked internationally with Australian street performance group CHROME, LIVING SCULPTURES in The Netherlands and Les Ballet C de la B in Belgium.  Daniel is also the founder and artistic director of The Wooden Spoon Theatre Company, whose mission is to obliterate mundanity through random acts of chaotic joy.  As a long time actor with the ASC, Daniel has always enjoyed the playful innovation of the ASCTC and is looking forward to being a part of it.
• Henry VI, Part 1 kicks off Shakespeare's first tetralogy, which will end with the machinations of Richard III. With a child-king on the English throne, the nobles of England must scramble to keep from losing everything that Henry V won. Their task is complicated by the emergence of Joan of Arc, who rallies the French to unexpected victories -- but is Joan a holy visionary, or a fraudulent sorceress? One of Shakespeare's earliest plays, Henry VI, Part 1 shows the young playwright beginning to experiment with his use of language. Battles, scheming, sieges, and demon-summoning ensue.
  Director: Jeremy West: This summer marks Jeremy's 5th show as a Director for ASCTC as well as his 6th teaching the stage combat class.  Jeremy is a veteran of the ASC having worked with the company, off and on, since 2004 as:   Actor, Assistant Director, Fight Director, and Fight Captain.  He holds an MFA from the University of Exeter, England, and has recognized fight training, and awards, from the Society of American Fight Directors and the British Academy of Dramatic Combat, as well as over 10 years experience teaching and choreographing for the stage. His other credits include stage and film work from:  Virginia Shakespeare Festival; Shakespeare Theatre, D.C.; Virginia Stage Company; Vanguard Theatre Company, and others.
• A King and No King by Francis Beaumont and John Fletcher is a powerful Jacobean tragicomedy, blending boisterous humor with political drama. King Arbaces, returning from war, not only discovers that his mother tried to overthrow him in his absence, but also begins to suffer an inconvenient passion for his sister, Panthea; so too does the captured king Tigranes, whose current lover doesn't think much of his changing opinion. Arbaces eventually determines to deal with the problem by killing everyone involved, including himself, when fate intervenes to make all well. Elaborate hoaxes, amorous verse, moral quandaries, and royal successions ensue.
  Director: Riley Steiner has been an actor, director and playwright for longer than she cares to admit. She decided to grow up and go back to school to pursue her MFA in Shakespeare here at Mary Baldwin College. She is thrilled to be back this summer for more ASC Theatre Camp.

From the Session 2 Finale, 2011

 We're looking forward to a great summer -- Follow this blog for further updates!