As You Like It – Actors’ Blog #2

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Week 1: snow, freezing temperatures, a “State of Emergency,” the Sword of John Adams and a touch of magic.

We’ve been Vortexed. As we went about our tax and banking business on Monday we were told that the University was being closed for the rest of the day due to an official ‘State of Emergency’ (exciting!).  Any car on the road after 6pm would be subject to a heavy fine, so businesses duly closed as employees struggled to get to work (or arrange how to get home again).  We hot-footed it to the supermarket for supplies (and an impromptu photo) and commenced a 36 hour lock-down in the hotel.

The company prepares for snowmageddon.

Pictured L-R: Robert Mountford, Deb Gasper (Company Manager), Patrick Miller, Ryan Stutzman (Stage Manager), Joannah Tincey and Dan Winter prepare for snowmageddon.

We rehearsed in their Gold Conference room where the carpet is so psychedelic it almost became the 6th actor in our play.

Wednesday we were allowed back into Washington Hall.  After a quick visit to the stage, which will see our opening night this Wednesday (eek!) we made our way up to The Lab to continue rehearsals (without the crazy carpet).  Thursday we ran the play in front of a very kind and generous invited audience that included Grant Mudge, Artistic Director of Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival, who fondly remembers the AFTLS production of As You Like It 25 years ago that inspired him to build a career in the world of Shakespeare ….such is the magic of Arden.

We are still working to fine tune various bits of the play; transitions between scenes and characters, motivations and drivers for scenes and polishing the crazy dance that is 8 couples on stage at once (with only 5 actors to embody them)…hello Act 5, Sc4! Exploring how best to represent the power and presence of the Forest on stage, has also been a focus for us. Jen has been playing around with Rosalind/Ganymede’s connection to the power and magic of Arden.

“Believe then, if you please, that I can do strange things”

Snow and Jennifer Higham

Jennifer Higham in a “State of Emergency.”

Encouraged greatly by Scott:

“Are you magic-ing?  If you’re going to do magic then go for it…make it more magic-y”…

He’s right though, in this work choices have to bold, clear and motivated and when this happens the characters are drawn out and defined by the forest that surrounds them….Arden (not the hotel carpet) becomes the 6th actor in the play.

At the end of a long week of snow and magic-ing (!) came a cast and company meal to Corndance, where many partook of the ‘Sword of John Adams’…as a pescatarian  I merely looked on in wonder (while tucking in to delicious pear and nut ravioli)….and increasing awe as colleagues ploughed their way through.  I did manage the amazing melting chocolate cake for pudding though.

This evening some of us are off to celebrate the Super Bowl with the ever lovely and hospitable Debs Gasper our wonderful company manager.  Somebody will have to explain the rules I think…Seattle Seahawks and Denver Broncos…and, erm, a ball…or a bowl?

As You Like It – Actors Blog #1

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Hello and welcome to the AFTLS As You Like It 2014 blog!

I’m writing this somewhere above the Atlantic, two and a half movies into our flight. I can’t get in to Elysium somehow, mainly because I can’t hear it very well above the engines (stop mumbling Matt Damon). There are now 3 hours 15 min left until we land in Chicago and commence our 11 weeks State-side. We’ve all been warned (a lot) about the freezing weather, so last night was spent packing and re-packing to try and get enough winter clothes into my suitcase without going over the weight limit. I tried to explain this to Mike (a Banker from Chicago) who is sitting next to me on the plane…

“I couldn’t decide how many jumpers to bring” I said. He had no idea what I was referring to and later confessed that he suspected I might be referring to under-wear (so much for British reserve!). I set him right. Jumpers…sweaters…for the record I have packed 4.

View of Greenland out of plane window

Greenland is white…and so is Chicago, South Bend and the rest of the US.

“Let’s away and get our jewels and wealth together” says Celia at the start of her and Rosalind’s journey to Arden. Though later Touchstone says she has ‘no money in her purse’. I’m just mulling these lines over now as I think about packing (!). Does she just take some gold jewellery to the forest I wonder, not any actual currency that will enable her to pay for things?

“I pray you, one of you question yond man, if he for gold will give us any food” she says in Act 2, nearly faint with hunger. Those things that are precious in the court don’t work so well as currency in the forest when she just needs food to live on. But of course she learns on the way. She escapes her father’s ‘rough and envious disposition, buys a sheepcote and defines herself on her own terms.

All the characters that journey to Arden a changed by it. For me, As You Like It is a play about identity and transformation. The forest becomes a sort of blank canvas in which characters re-imagine themselves.

While none of the cast are fleeing tyrannical Dukes, fathers, uncles or brothers (to my knowledge!) we are certainly on a journey; both literally, as we tour the USA, but also metaphorically, with the play itself. When we stated rehearsals on the 30th December we had a blank canvas on which our play has slowly emerged. To a certain extent, this will be true at each performance too. In a play where philosophy and ideas are as important as plot and characters are disguised and transformed, the language becomes all the more integral to the evolving of story.
But that’s enough on philosophy for now…on to a bit of trivia. Can you match the cast member to the essential travel item I wonder…?
Cast of As You Like It essential travel items:
– A sewing kit
– An Ipad
– A bottle of Jameson’s Irish Whisky
– A box of English tea
– A pair of pajamas

(Aaron Update: For those of you wondering, the London actors arrived safely on campus, albeit vortexed. Their first preview went well, and we’re excited to see the first public performance on Wednesday, Feb. 5.)

Announcing the 15th Anniversary Season of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival!

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This 15th season is also the 150th anniversary of the first Shakespeare play ever performed at the University and the 450th anniversary of Shakespeare’s birth. We look forward commemorating this momentous convergence of events with the following:

 ShakeScenes | July 19 & 20, 2014

Young Company | The Merry Wives of Windsor | July & August, 2014

 Professional Company | Henry IV | August 19–31, 2014

 Actors From The London Stage | Much Ado About Nothing | September 17–19, 2014

Explore the power and imagination of Shakespeare’s works, and celebrate a century and a half of the playwright’s influence here at Notre Dame. Join us for the 15th anniversary season of the Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival.

2014 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival Season

2014 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival Season

Shakespeare In Prisons: Facebook Feed Record

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Othello Plays UT Austin (TX), Franklin and DePauw (IN), & UNC Charlotte (NC)

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Well, here we are with only two weeks left having travelled across the country to Austin, Texas. We have survived Halloween at DePauw University, Greencastle, although trick or treating had to be postponed to the Friday night because of the horrific rain, which might have confused the beasties!

The past 2 weeks have been relatively quiet, as we have only had 1 show. The previous week in Charlotte we had 4 shows, which all sold out! A triumphant week, which, was rounded off with a visit from Professor Matthew Davies and some of his students from Staunton.  Matt is on the board of AFTLS and it was a while ago that we did our first showing to the guys in London so there were a few extra nerves that Saturday night, but by all accounts we did him proud.
 
After Charlotte we went on the Franklin, Indiana. This was AFTLS’ first trip to Franklin, University and I think it will be the first of many. We were met by Dean Ellis and taken to the University via lunch at a diner. And then on to student accommodation – which was a bit of a shock, especially later,  on the morning after the show, coming out of the showers, wrapped in a towel to be greeted by a very excited student, gushing with wonderful words about the previous nights performance of Othello!!!!

Everyone was so lovely and one night we were invited to the theatre by one of the professors – (thank you Gordon) to see ‘ The 1940’s Radio Hour ‘ – not something I would normally have chosen to see but it turned out to be great fun, very little plot more a concert of 1940’s classics. We spent the weekend after our Franklin week in Broad Ripple, a beautiful town/village that sums up what you kind of think real America is going to be like, this may not make sense to anyone else but I suppose it looked like so many small towns in films.

Richard and myself continued our traditional Sunday afternoon walk to water and visited The Virginia B. Fairbanks Art and Nature Park. A beautiful park around a lake with added treats and curios including the abandoned boat and ‘lifeboat station’ with everything left just as it was when the ‘disaster’ happened.

After our weekend in Broad Ripple we were picked up by Ron and driven to Depauw – another beautiful campus – especially in the autumn, sorry fall – with the bright red, almost luminescent, maple trees.

We did a great show on the Tuesday night, slightly edgy as we hadn’t done one for a week, and a bonus moment when Bianca’s shoe came flying off her foot and ended up on the floor at the audiences feet – luckily for us we had a theatre pro, 12 year old Simon who graciously retrieved it for us and handed it to Cassio so he could return it to Bianca. Simon we owe you!!! I personally had an amazing teaching week, with two additions to the usual fabulous university classes.
On the Thursday Anna and myself had a trip out to a womens prison  – it turned out to be a great class, and not in anyway threatening as we thought it might be. We took the willow scene with us and worked through it with them – unfortunately we ran out of time so couldn’t get them on their feet to show the work in progress and It was decided that we would show them our version of the scene, which was well met!  We had an email from Kelsey who organised the programme and had been back at the prison on the Friday, she said:
 ‘had a lovely time at the prison on Friday listening to everyone’s excited chatter about your visit.  As one of the women said, “For those few minutes, I wasn’t in prison anymore!”  ‘ 

Very rewarding. Also rewarding was the trip I took on Friday to Cloverdale Middle/high School as part of the Fall Festival of Shakespeare,  they are doing ‘The Taming of the Shrew’ Grace, who is directing it is brilliant and obviously loves what she is doing, has directed it with a cartoon theme, complete with ‘Pow’, ‘Bang’, ‘Thump’ cards to be held aloft during the fight scenes. And we spent some of the afternoon choreographing the reactions from the whole room in the last few scenes, with the gasps and looks of shock when the wives disobey their husbands and the screams of shock horror when Katherine appears! The students were deeply involved and enjoying every minute of it. I was really glad I got a chance to see them at work and looking forward to seeing the finished performance ( via video in December)

 

On Sunday I continued my tradition of a waterside walk with a trip to the nature Park, after a quick trip to see the East College, dating back to 1870, stunning hall – like an old chapel And the original university building, sooo glad we got to see it. Thank you so much Nathan and Emily for our guided tour.