Alas, our play is done

I know, March 18 was my last post. Every year I want to write about the play while I am directing it and every year I am caught in the tsunami of work and the tide does not recede until a week or so after the performance. So here I am, with a house that needs cleaning, the gardens calling for attention and bookkeeping that is beginning to resemble a mountain range sprawled across my desk.

This was a good year. The play was well done and very well received. The kids were delightful to work with and I had the special added element this year by having my brother from Santa Fe, NM and my cousin from CT come for the performances. A full house and a full theater make for a full life.

So for the next few days I will add posts about lessons learned, characters met and lives changed. Stay tuned.

Imagination all Compact

We are in the thick of it now. We are three weeks into our production and everyone is deep into the theater project. Our young thespians bring their best selves to the stage every rehearsal and inspire me to do the same. Together we create synergy, community and a delightful learning environment.

In this age of techno-gadgets geared to monopolize growing minds it is refreshing to see young people engaged in learning Shakespeare. Their acting is extraordinary. Their insights are fresh, although little raw at times, and often profound.

Many of our students are still connected to the fantasy world of elves and fairies and the enchanted woods through their fascination with Harry Potter, The Narnia Stories and their early childhood exposure to fairy-tales. I realized, the other day, that they are much closer in understanding A Midsummer Night's Dream than those of us who are older and more removed.

Our fairies show me how to dance, the elves explain to me how they should pose around the stage and Oberon and Titania move naturally through the scenes. I am delighted that our actors still use their rich imaginations. They are fearless when it comes to experimenting on stage with voice and body movements.

Dancing with fairies and hanging-out with elves is something most people in their late fifties don't get much of a chance to do. The enchanted creatures of Will Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream take me places that I only imagined when I was a child. They know the world of enchantment because, in their young lives, they have retained what God gives to everyone of us when we are born, our ability to imagine. Somewhere along the road of life we can too easily forget how to use our imaginations. The kids remind me to stay connected to the creative source and in return, I get to live a life as rich as any enchanted creature.

This Green Plot shall be our Stage

I am never bored at our board meetings. We have lively discussions about the direction of the theater company, how to deal with all our challenges, and where to find a safe and secure theater venue for 60 actors and production designers.

In a Midsummer Night's Dream, the amateur actors have the same problem. They have nowhere to rehearse so they go into the woods on a midsummer night and, under the cloak of secrecy, they rehearse between hawthorn bush and green plot of land. That's where Nick Bottom, the overly exuberant actor gets turned into an ass by a spell that Puck hurls upon the foolish man. Once Nick Bottom appears with a donkey head placed squarely on his shoulders, the other actors panic and scatter like pigeons chirping "O monstrous! O strange! We are haunted!" in other words, he's turned into an ass!

In Will Shakespeare's time plays were often performed on the backs of horse drawn carts or in the yards of travel inns. Actors would go from town to town performing for crowds. That's how we think Will may have been exposed to theater when he was a child. But as he matured and became a successful playwright he invested in the Globe Theater on the banks of the Thames River in London.

Even though, at the time, the Globe Theater was a premiere place to perform, it was still open to the outdoors and actors had to endure the elements during rehearsals and performances. Understanding how difficult it was for Will's theater company to survive, I understand why I get no sympathy from him when I sigh in frustration over our own lack of theater venue. During our trip to Stratford-upon-Avon, Will's hometown, I attended the Royal Shakespeare Company's Swan Theater. Now that theater is a work of art!

I am a dreamer and can get overly exuberant at times. I hear Will tell me that what we have is good by reminding me softly "Here's a marvellous convenient place for your rehearsals. This green plot shall be your stage, this hawthorn-brake your tiring house." In other words, anywhere will work .

I tell him, I know, I know we somehow always pull through with finding one place for rehearsals and another for performances and we are always grateful for the generosity of other organizations to share their good venues with us but sometimes I get that far-away look in my eyes and I envision a Royal Shakespeare Perform It! Stage Company here in New Hampshire. Kind of like the bazillion dollar Swan Theater in Stratford-upon-Avon and I fantasize that the Queen and her royal court attend our show as the young Perform It! students take the stage and impress the royal heck out of her.

I guess I'm a lot more like Nick Bottom than I'd like to think.

If Music be the Food of Love...

I spent part of yesterday with the composers/musicians for the show. They are talented guys who play a variety of instruments and speak the language of music fluently. Although I can barely speak their language I find we are still able to communicate because they know how to translate emotions into music.

While driving home, I thought about the impact our musicians have on our performances. Good music is like good food, it can sustain a show and leave audiences feeling well-fed long after the final curtain. Through the years the musicians have given every production its own unique soundtrack. We add dances and songs to Shakespeare's plays and sometimes our narrators belt-out part of the plot-line to a lively tune. The musicians, and we have had a number of them over the years, are playful and fun-loving. They are also hard-working and serious. They listen, translate, and compose with heart.

Together our creative spirits turn Shakespeare's scripts into exuberant productions in part, because the music is so lively and full. The human spirit blossoms whenever people join together to create something bigger than themselves. We share a love for Shakespeare, for theater, and for each other. And so... as Will so eloquently wrote, "If music be the food of love, play on!"

Blocking the scenes

Blocking is a theater term which means to move the actors about the stage so as not to have them run into furniture, fall into the orchestra pit, or smash into each other. Right now I am rereading the script and underlining various parts so that I know how to block each scene.

Shakespeare is a little tricky when it comes to blocking. All the stage direction in Shakespeare is written within the text of the script, not like a modern play where the directions are written in italics. Will gives us all sorts of clues as to how to block the scenes. I study the verbs carefully so that I may stay true to Will's intent. For example, when Will writes Nick Bottom's line ... let the audience look to their eyes, I will move storms... Bottom needs to mime tears pouring out of his eyes. So I keep studying the script. That's the challenge of doing Shakespeare rather than just reading the scripts as if they were works of literature, which they're not. Will wrote plays.


If you are at all interested in Shakespeare I urge you to attend a play or rent a movie. If you open one of his scripts and just read it without seeing the action, you will most likely close it and wonder what language it is written in. It took me awhile to learn Shakespeare's language and after 15 years I am only somewhat fluent. I ruminate over soliloquies and sometimes get trapped by certain phrases and then I traverse the thicket-of-unknowing until I find my way by going to the dictionary. I will never be an expert but I do know it is worth spending long hours with this genius. Will's scripts take a lot of study to perform, and his lessons are deep and lasting and worth all the effort.

Will has shown me the beauty of using just the right verb, turning a phrase into a life lesson, and seeing the world through his poet's eyes. And that's just the beginning. Through the years Will has entertained, delighted and ticked-off audiences throughout the world. For over 400 years the world has performed Shakespeare and that's quite a tradition to follow. Each year, at this time, we ready ourselves to be changed by this lively tradition we take part in. If we follow with intention and integrity, we too get the opportunity to plug into the transformative ritual of bringing Shakespeare alive.

As I study the script to get the blocking I know that theater directors, for centuries, have done the same thing. All of us have our own unique way of translating the text into movement onstage. The blocking is the action that brings the language alive. Will reminds me that how we move through life is as important as what we say.

Read the names of the actors and so grow to a point

Last night I sent the cast list to all the actors. Just before I pressed "send" I winced. I was thinking perhaps this is the year when kids will all like their parts. I know they won't all be delighted, but I also know that they will step into their roles and give us their best. Will tells me, "The actors are at hand; and, by their show, You shall know all that you are like to know." I nod, he winks, and I know he's right. After our young actors spend time and thought on their parts they learn to love them.

So the weekend was kind of hard for the kids, waiting is not something young people do with a lot of patience. Over the past two days a few kids sent me cryptic emails letting me know which parts they thought they might like. Three of them came to my door with fresh-baked cookies on a plate and offered them to me. I invited them in and we had a wonderful visit talking and laughing about things and then one of them turned to me and said,"So, who do you think Puck will be?" It was very cute, these little cookie-fairies trying to charm the cast list out of me. I smiled, most seriously, and told them I wasn't sure.

Now they all know who Puck is, or I should say, who the Pucks are, as I split the role in half and we cast it with two talented dancers. I also added a fiddling elf to the script as we have a young man who plays violin. I created three narrators; Philostrate, who is in the original and then Philomena and Patience. They have the job of bridging the play to the audience. I made them the wedding planners because as the play opens Theseus, the Duke, and Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons, are planning to be married. "Hippolyta, I woo'd thee with my sword And won thy love...But I will wed thee in another key, With pomp, with triumph, and with reveling." That's where the wedding planners come in.

There will be lots of music and dancing. This year we have three musicans who compose the music and play the score during the show. Right now, the kids can only imagine this year's production but starting Febuary 20th rehearsals begin and when we step onto the stage we know anything is possible. The empty stage, like out-stretched cupped-hands, embraces the world of potential. Let the Dream Begin!

Auditions

Everyone comes to auditions with expectations. The students are nervous and want a good part, the parents are nervous and want their kids to get a good part, the board of directors wants to keep the program running smoothly, and as for me, I want to get everyone onto the same page, on the same stage... moving in the same general direction.

After working with Will Shakespeare beside me for years, I realize that everyone has a role to play onstage as well as off-stage. Will often reminds me that his characters come from real life, I see them everywhere I look, including when I stand in front of the mirror. When I look deep inside the human psyche, I see there is a Nick Bottom within everyone who has ever wanted to be onstage, and there is a Titania within every loving, teasing, wife. I often see Peter Quince inside of me, that wacky director who tries to keep all of the amateur actors from A Midsummer Night's Dream, in line, on point, onstage.

Every production is a play-within-the-play. The real-life drama, the high-comedy and low-slapstick antics of kids relating to Shakespeare and each other and the creative challenges of the production all make for a most exhilarating learning experience.

Now we are casting the play. Casting is most difficult because kids want certain parts that they can't have. At this point in the process I am a cross between a favorite auntie who can't deny her nieces and nephews anything, and the tough-love mama who knows that sometimes the best lesson in life is not getting what you want. Over the years I've seen kids who are disappointed in the beginning with their parts, step-into their roles with energy and earnestness, and in so doing, come to the self-realization that they can do anything they set their minds to by fully embracing what they have. That's a huge lesson. But at the beginning it is painful for them to grapple with not getting what they thought they wanted.

Yesterday was a good day. The kids read for various parts. They were all raw, unrehearsed and reading a new language in front of several other students, parents and teachers. All of them did well, all of them gave their best, all of them are brilliant. Now to fit the actors to their roles.

I'm Back

Okay, it has been more than a year since I've written, but the spirit is moving me back to the blogshere and I must obey. I just finished this year's adaptation of A Midsummer Night's Dream and tomorrow is auditions. I am excited. This is our fifteenth year of bringing Shakespeare alive through the hearts and minds of young people ages 5 to 18 years old. That makes me reflect on two things: 1. getting old and 2. looking back through the years at all the kids who have learned about Shakespeare and life while doing stage work.

Some of our alumni are now married, have children of their own, and tell me they can't wait for their kids to get involved. I smile, a bit weakly, when I think of this possibility. My own kids are no longer kids but young women living their own interesting lives.

I do not write to reminisce, but rather, I want to blog about A Midsummer Night's Dream, the story of four young lovers who run into the woods to try to escape their fate and find themselves at the hands of the magical creatures of the enchanted forest on a midsummer night's eve.
I think sometimes we all want to run into the enchanted woods to get away from our troubles and there, in the thicket of our mind's fantasies, we discover just how foolish we are. Shakespeare certainly has a lot to say in this script. He wrote it around 1594 (we think) and it is a lyrical piece of writing that has survived as one of his best in part, I think, because we recognize ourselves and our friends in many of the characters. I have been adapting Will's scripts for a long time and I have directed this show twice before and this is one of Will's most finely crafted plays.

Tomorrow I get to see the kids stand onstage and read from the script. I know their hearts are set on certain parts and I know it takes a lot of courage to stand up in front of 50 or 60 people and audition. I am in awe of their intelligence and honored to witness their growth. Being a young actor is not easy and fully investing themselves into the process of learning-by-doing changes them in remarkable ways. Theater work makes them insightful, helps them to speak clearly, and offers them the opportunity to walk in the shoes of a 400-year-old-character who has graced theater stages all over the world since 1600.

And so, we begin another production with another 40 young people and together we learn about life and each other and the importance of looking below the surface for the true meaning in all that we do. I'm off!

To Stratford-upon-Avon

We are in a whirlwind. Still with very little sleep, we rise early to catch a train from London to Stratford-upon-Avon. We travel through the countryside between small towns with names like High Wycombe and Banbury (Remember the cheese in Merry Wives?). I take a deep breath and try to contain my excitement. Stratford-upon-Avon! We leave the harried traffic in London which chokes narrow city streets, as the ancient history of the city seems to struggle against modern-day commerce. The countryside is just the opposite. Rolling green folds of land dominate the scene, thick hedgerows mark boundary lines and sheep dot the lush landscape. The cars on the roads travel at a more leisurely pace and we get idyllic views from the train. Even the sky is quieter with a few white clouds casting " fair shadows" across the hills.

We arrive at the Stratford-upon-Avon Station around 10:00 a.m. and make our way into the center of town. It is similar to London, but on a smaller scale! People rush in and out of stores and bump into us as we make our way along the street. Taxis and buses whiz by and people dart across the maze of cars which snap around traffic circles with amazing speed.

We spy a park and rush toward the green space. As soon as we enter we sit down on a bench near a fountain at the entrance of Bancroft Gardens.

“Holy cow! I can’t believe how crowded this is.” I say. Richard takes a deep breath. “Let’s just sit here a while and get our bearings” he replies.

We decide that we need to get rid of our backpacks. We head down Waterside Road and find the Thistle Hotel where we have booked a room. The lady at the desk is cautiously cordial when we ask her if we may leave one of our packs as we are a few hours before check-in time. She offers us a map of town and nods her head with authority as she gives us directions.

Will's Childhood Home

We take off and head toward Will’s childhood home. I am a bit giddy when we arrive as there are very few tourists roaming about. Finally, a little bit of peace. Once we walk through the door to the visitor’s center we feel 400 years fall away in an instant. I imagine the whispered voices of the Shakespeare family when we step directly into their ancestral home.

The floors are uneven stones rubbed smooth with 460 years of foot traffic. I kneel down and touch the smooth stones; the floor is cool against my fingertips on this hot, sunny day. I know it must have been freezing for the family to live here in the winter as I remember reading that during Shakespeare’s time there was a kind of ice age in progress and that temperatures dropped alarmingly low during winter months. I get a sense of the extreme struggle just to survive during the sixteenth century. A small lump in my throat forms realizing how easy it would have been for Will not to have lived beyond early childhood.

Mary Arden and John Shakespeare were the parents of eight children, only five of them reached adulthood and of those five only two married. (They lost another son, Edmund Shakespeare, in his 27^th year, so clearly John and Mary withstood unimaginable grief during their lifetime together.)

The Shakespeare Birthplace Trust has carefully restored and maintained the house. In each room a docent/guide answers questions and gives short talks about the house and grounds. Their passion for all things Shakespearean shines like polished pound sterling. I could have spent the day chatting with these women who so diligently and warmly cared for each visitor as we passed between rooms. We appreciated their extensive knowledge and their hospitality.

Going through the house, I feel a growing kinship with Mary Arden, Will’s mom. Intrigued and wanting to know all I can about her, I begin to ask many questions and the docents take visible delight in my curiosity. Mary Arden’s tenacious spirit resounds through out the house. She has taken the half-timbered construction on Henley Street and turned it into a fine home for her husband and children.

The first room has a fireplace, a dinning room table and their best sleeping bed. I ask if this is a sort of parlor/guest room in the house. The docent smiles broadly and nods. “To be near the fireplace was a way to give the best to your visitors during Shakespeare’s time.” She says. “This was a way to show respect to their guests.”

I begin to wonder if this is a clue to Will leaving his “second best bed” to his wife, Anne Hathaway, in his final will which he wrote just before his death. Perhaps Anne and Will had a first “best bed” for their guests who visited them at New Place, the estate that Will bought after reaching financial success as an investor, playwright and actor. Perhaps he honored Anne by leaving her the “second best bed” where they shared the joys and sorrows of their married life together. Although he left his wife and children in Stratford-upon-Avon when he moved to London, I learn on this trip, that Will was closer to home than I had previously thought. I think he might have come back to Stratford on a number of occasions, commuting back and forth, as it were, over the months and years he spent as a playwright and actor. Remember, this is just a theory on my part, as we do not know how often Will traveled between London and Stratford-upon-Avon.

Tomorrow I will tell you about Elizabethan beds, John’s glove making workshop and the room where Will was born. Oh my, you will not believe the size (or the reason for the size) of beds during Elizabethan times… so stay tuned.

To undergo such a maiden pilgrimage

I recently found that it took Will Shakespeare four days of walking or two days by horse to get from Stratford-upon-Avon to London, a distance of about 87 miles. Commercial coaches were seldom used during Will’s lifetime as a form of public transportation so we know he either walked or rode horseback whenever he traveled between his hometown and London. For Will, the dangers of the road, the uncertainty of the weather and staying in questionable inns along the way must have taken its toll.

For Richard and me, to leave our hometown and travel to London takes only one night. We leave at 3:15 p.m. and arrive at 10:00 a.m. in London. After boarding Virgin Atlantic Airlines it takes us a mere six hours and 27 minutes to cross the pond, just enough time for me to take a nap, read a short book and do some writing. Although our travel time is not nearly as long as it took Will and our trip a lot less dangerous, Heathrow Airport, with its gauntlet of security checks and custom officials, makes what used to be a fairly simple airplane ride into a real adventure.

The first time Will traveled to London must have been very exciting. We have no idea if he ever went there as a child or if his first time was when he actually moved there as a young man sometime before 1592. Whenever he did go, all of his senses must have come alive the moment he passed through the gates of London and over the Thames River. Will must have been enthralled by the sight of crowds filling the streets, the sounds of merchants selling their wares at the market place, the stench of city life, and the excitement of street performers, royal processions and colored banners waving in the wind. London was one of the major cities in Europe during the 16^th century. Will entered a world very different from the one he left behind. I have similar feelings on my first trip to London some 400 years later.

As we enter London the noise of traffic and the fast pace slaps me awake. (Remember, I have only taken a short nap on the plane.) The smells, a mixture of diesel fumes and oily fish and chips permeate the air. Coming from a small town in New Hampshire the sheer crowded-ness of London is most impressive. I find it exhilarating and confusing all at once.

Our Cast of Characters

Our travel companions are David, my younger brother, a true jester at heart, and his partner, Aysha, a merry wife as clever and mischievous as Mistress Page of Windsor. As soon as we arrive at our flat on Holland Road we walk up to Kensington High Street where buses, taxis and cars rush by on the “wrong side” of the street. Thank goodness at every intersection painted in bold white letters on the asphalt just beneath our feet are the words “LOOK RIGHT” to remind visitors to look in the opposite direction before crossing the street. The noise is so loud it defies thought, the cars speed by at 50 miles an hour and crossing the street poses significant danger to four weary travelers.

We feel shell shocked with jet lag as we wander down the street. Profoundly sleep deprived we stumbled upon a beautiful park with children happily running about. We stagger toward a large oak tree and fall asleep on the lawn. The day is warm and the grass soft. As soon as we awake we realize we are in Kensington Gardens and only a hundred feet away from the palace of Princess Diana. All along the black iron fence and woven into the gold plated gate are poems, photos, flowers and tributes to commemorate the tenth anniversary of her death. It quickly becomes clear how dearly loved Diana was and still is in her country. The poems are heart-felt and the tributes of photos and flowers quite moving.

I think Will would have loved her story. He might have even written a play about her. Will had such clear insights about life in the royal court. I think Will would have pondered the intrigues of Queen Elizabeth II’s reign as much as he did Queen Elizabeth I. Although the Queen today does not have the kind of power that Queen Elizabeth I had, the royal family is still very present in the life of the British people.

I take a deep breath in anticipation for what I will discover during my short stay in England.

Tomorrow Richard and I go to Stratford-upon-Avon by train. It takes only two hours and 30 minutes from Marylebone Station to Stratford-upon-Avon. Can you find them both on a map? We are staying on Holland Road (a very busy street) in a small flat. It is very loud at night. I have decided that no one sleeps in London…ever.

Further dialogue with Will:

Will: (With admonishment) “Oh that [thee] might sleep out this great gap of time.”

(He pauses a moment collecting his thoughts)

“Awake the pert and nimble spirit of mirth!”

Jan: (Sighs with happy exhaustion)

To awake, dear Will, implies that one was asleep. Now I to bed, “to sleep, perchance to dream!”

Homework for the Curious:

If Will were to write a play about Princess Diana, how many roles do you think he would have included in his script? Do you think he would have been more sympathetic to Princess Diana or more toward the royal family? Why? Did Will ever write a play about Queen Elizabeth I or her court? Why?