All’s Well in Wellesley

Posted on October 14, 2015 by Shakespeare

“Women are the largest untapped reservoir of talent in the world.” – Hillary Clinton

There is no fear that the women of Wellesley College (Hillary Clinton’s alma mater) will fail to make their mark in the world. Nora Hussey, Wellesley College Theatre Director, invited us to Wellesley and she runs a wonderful department with the help of the exquisite Charlotte Peed, a flame haired, feisty southerner with alabaster skin, looking after us. Aside from the incredible women in the department we also met so many students who are most certainly going to be the future leaders of this country. The students are all women of course, as this a single-sex college, but please let us not forget the wonderful men that have also helped us hugely. David Towlun, Theatre Production Manager, has been wonderful on the technical side. Given this was our first week performing in a theatre, that help was invaluable. Besides the great company, we also had beautiful surroundings. Wellesley must be one of the most beautiful settings for an educational institution. Lake Waban is surrounded by the Wellesley campus and is spectacular in the autumn with the changing leaves and chipmunks running around.

This week we settled into what will be the normal stride of the tour. It felt like we were a big family this week as we were staying in a big house near the Campus rather than a hotel. We made friends with our neighbor, Sherry, who also happens to be a golf professor and she very kindly gave us all a golf lesson. Patrick seems to be a natural golfer while Sam struggles not to turn the golf club into a baseball bat. Fun was had by all, and we now know much more about golf.

This week saw us doing individual workshops with the incredibly bright students at Wellesley. Our job in the workshops is to offer an alternative approach to learning rather than simply the cerebral academic approach. The workshops on the whole focus on an actor’s approach to Shakespeare, and in particular A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but we do get invited to some more unusual workshops too. Claire took a workshop with a group of students doing scenic design, while I joined class entitled ‘Spirit of Spain in the middle ages’ – this is a class in Spanish, which I do not speak. When I first read Shakespeare it may as well have been another language but working on text practically can really enhance the understanding of it.

Ruth Nagel Jones Theatre at Wellesley College

We had three performances in a row, which was great as we haven’t had many bashes at the show as yet. The audiences were fabulous! There was a particularly lively crowd there on Friday night and we were extremely heartened by their vocal response.

Our hosts spoilt us rotten and we had invitations to dinners and drinks most nights after the show. One night we were invited to Shakespeare House which the Shakespeare Society use for plays. They are about to put on Twelfth Night, so, if you are in the area, do try and check it out.

We did have some spare time too. Sam and I went to Boston, just 40 minutes east of Wellesley, MA.

Onwards to Texas…our next two residencies will be back-to-back weeks at The University of Texas at Austin and The University of Texas at San Antonio.

Prisoners “Dream” with AFTLS

Posted on October 6, 2015 by Shakespeare

Our merry 'Midsummer' band at the Westville Correctional Facility, pictured with Shakespeare at Notre Dame Executive Director Scott Jackson (second from right)

Our merry ‘Midsummer’ cast at the Westville Correctional Facility, pictured with Shakespeare at Notre Dame Executive Director Scott Jackson (second from right).

I have never been into a prison before. Apprehensive does not come close to describing my feelings about it. From the stipulations about my underwear to the sign saying that carrying a cell phone into the prison is classified as a felony, all the rules and responsibilities, the dos and don’ts, made the anticipation of Sunday’s two-hour workshop at Indiana’s Westville Correctional Facility palpable.

Getting into Westville is a similar experience to going through airport security. We showed our ID, took off our shoes, went through a metal detector, and finally got patted down by a guard. This is where the experience began to differ from the airport; rather than being released to fly off to a sunny beach, we were held in a Sally Port. For those of you unfamiliar with this term, this is a holding area with two heavy metal mesh doors – only one opening at any one time. Finally, you are escorted in a van to the designated cellblock.

As we arrived in A3 and were led down the corridors, we felt the prisoners watching us. The initial meeting was awkward, no one knowing what the exchange was going to be. This awkwardness was eased through playing theatre games. I don’t know much about the prison system or the lives of the men incarcerated there, but I’d guess that play is not a huge part of life at Westville. We taught them our games and they taught us ones that they had done with Scott. (On Sunday I won ‘Zip, Zap, Zoom,’ a very proud moment!)

Inmates learn through Shakespeare’s text at Westville Correctional Facility

Samuel Collings led us all in the click game. This is where a click is passed around the circle as if it is a ball. In our production the click represents the flower ‘love in idleness.’ After the initial games, we played with the text of The Tempest. We created a storm using our hands, the floor, plastic chairs, the walls, our voices and breath – anything we could bang and make a racket with – and what a wonderful racket we made. (The guards commented on it.) Kyle, a man covered in tattoos with a neck the size of my thigh and a voice that would give Barry White a run for his money, volunteered himself for the part of Ariel, the very airy spirit. He had us in stitches and his enthusiasm was infectious. As we moved through the edited version of The Tempest, we got to know this group very well.

On Friday, when we came back to perform the play, an inmate told me that the prisoners had reprised Wednesday’s click game and had the entire block playing it. So, when Patrick came on as Puck carrying the flower, a ripple of excitement swept across the watching audience, knowing exactly how Puck was going to pass the flower to Oberon.

AFTLS actors Samuel Collings (standing as Oberon) and Claire Redcliffe (on floor as Titania) perform a scene from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the Westville Correctional Facility

The Westville shows were our first public performances of the Dream, and we couldn’t have asked for a better response. I speak for all of us when I say it was extremely rewarding and an experience we will never forget. By Friday, we had met, worked with, and become invested in many of the inmates; it was sad to leave.

Thank you Scott Jackson for organizing our week at Westville.

— Actress and Midsummer blogger, Ffion Jolly

(Note: The AFTLS Midsummer cast will return to Notre Dame in 2016 to perform and discuss their Shakespeare in prison experience at the Shakespeare in Prisons: In Practice conference January 25-27.)

Dreaming up a Fresh “Midsummer”

Posted on September 18, 2015 by Shakespeare

Wow, three weeks into rehearsals and it seems like a dream, forgive the pun! The five of us met in Brixton three weeks ago to begin this journey which feels fairly similar to Peter Quince’s and his troupe in the play. We have two veteran AFTLS-ers and three ‘newbies’ muddling through Shakespeare’s (arguably) greatest comedy. The past few weeks have seen us mere actors take on not only up to six roles within the play but also the roles of director, production designer, prop and costume buyer and stage management. It has been a test of our mettle and an insight into what ‘mere’ actors can achieve when left to our own devices (fingers crossed it’s good-judge for yourselves when you see the show).

It has been a blessing and a curse having fairy magic on our side. Whilst having an infinite amount of options available to us for our fairy realm (not easy when directing by committee) it has also opened up the floodgates of our creativity. On a small budget with little technical back-up we really to have to use our imaginations and trust the magic of theatre to aid us in our ‘devices’.

We should also give Shakespeare some credit too. The road has been made much smoother by some good writing. A lot of the magic can be found within the text. Actors know that we are expected to perform miracles for our audiences, but, with Shakespeare, he gives us a statement of fact to deliver and produce the same effect: ‘I am Invisible and I will overhear their conference.’ Thank you, Will!!!

The wonderful practitioners whom have helped us have also made our road smoother. Lucy Cullingford, our Movement director, and Bobby Delaney, our musical director, have gone over and above what we expected and have been joys to have in the room. Their hard work, generosity, and expertise have informed a great deal of our production. Thank you Bobby and Lucy too!

I have been walking into rehearsals over these last 3 weeks and have taken a great deal of Midsummer inspiration from the street art that adorns my route. Who’d’ve thought Peckham would be so relevant to Shakespeare…

Post and photos by Actors From The London Stage actor Ffion Jolly

‘I’ll go with thee, cheek by jowl’

‘Meet me in the palace wood a mile without the town’ ‘At the Duke’s Oak we meet’- This picture was taken from a place called Honor Oak Park- named so because Elizabeth I took a rest under an oak tree on the top of this hill on a morn of may in 1602 and so the oak was honoured.

‘I know a bank where the wild thyme grows’

Macbeth Tours Through the Heart of Wyoming

Posted on March 25, 2015 by Shakespeare

One of the many great things about working with AFTLS is that it takes its actors to parts of the States they may not normally expect to see. The cities are exciting, the universities always interesting and unfailingly friendly, but this week was something new even to regular alumni such as myself. We headed off to the heart of Wyoming on a mini tour – three shows in three separate towns.

The cast (sans photographer Michael Palmer) and Leigh Selting next to a statue of Chief Washakie in the foyer of Lander High School.

Leigh Selting, the Head of Drama at University of Wyoming had arranged for us to perform Macbeth in Riverton, Lander, and Jackson Hole. We checked out of our hotel around midday and piled into the University’s large people carrier to set off toward Riverton. We ventured toward the mountains where herds of deer, tenuously angled rock formations and vast flat plains were all around us. Almost at every turn, not that there were many of those, one could just sit and look in a kind of reverie. Every so often, Leigh would throw in a nugget of interest – the name of a mountain, a river or some such.

Perhaps four hours later we got to Riverton where we checked into a hotel, which, curiously, had a swimming pool, right in front of reception complete with chairs and an umbrella to protect the sunbathers from the non-existent sun. I found the town rather characterful. Not sure some of the locals shared that interest, as ‘How did you people end up in Riverton?’ was a question we heard more than once. After dinner we decided to visit the Wind River Casino which is owned by the Northern Arapaho Tribe. Leigh settled down to a game of Black Jack from which he enjoyed a nice win. Skill or luck? He would say skill and he may be right, as myself and Charlie had no skill and even less luck betting wildly, desperately trying to hang on to thirty dollars at a roulette wheel. None of us could quite see the appeal of the casino but at least the profits go to the Arapaho so we felt we had contributed in some small way to their welfare.

CWU Technical Theater Director, Chontelle Gray

Tuesday we gave a performance at Central Wyoming College, which featured a fabulous auditorium with around seven hundred seats, run by the delightful Chontelle Gray. The college was on Spring Break and we were concerned we may possibly be playing to a lone cowboy and his dog. Thankfully, well over a hundred came and were highly appreciative. I thought we gave a good show, and the acoustic for such a large theatre was fantastic.

Wednesday we were at the Lander Valley High School where Diane Springfield who runs the Wyoming Shakespeare Co. gave us a nice welcome to a great theatre – the schools and colleges round here are served pretty darn well when it comes to theatre facilities. Again a lovely and listening crowd followed by a great response.

Things suddenly went from good to great. On Thursday we drove through the Teton Mountain range toward Jackson Hole, which is a famous and highly chic skiing resort with the small but perfectly formed town sitting at the foot of two huge ski slopes.

Technically the town is called ‘Jackson’ named after a nineteenth century trapper and the ‘hole’ is the valley in which it sits. Apparently Harrison Ford lives here and had the poor chap not recently had a major mishap with his plane I would have expected to see him at our show. Or not. We went from hotel to motel – the Antler Motel (what better name for such a mountainous resort?) which had an almost log cabin quality which made us like it all the more.

The Jackson Hole Center for the Arts is a new and beautifully designed arts complex with a theatre which looks smaller than its five hundred capacity. Once again a standing ovation. I like these American audiences.

The following day Leigh had arranged through an ex student of his, a very nice guy called Will Dunn, for us to go snowmobiling. Jo went off to spend the day skiing, which, by all accounts, she is extremely good at.

Will Dunn, Leigh Selting, and Annie Aldington (on far right)

At the pick-up point, we clambered onto our various snowmobiles, which were large, powerful and to my mind potentially dangerous. Tenuously we inched forward and got up to speeds of maybe thirty miles an hour. Will’s gleaming red mobile was plainly built for speed and he flew around us in something of a blur. Leigh was also skilled, Ben took to it easily, Charlie and Annie had a kind of ‘tandem’ version, and I followed up the rear.

Michael Palmer (in mask) and Ben Warwick

We were encouraged to leave the path and try our newfound skills off road. I gave it a go and felt rather ‘Bond’ like for a minute or so till I got stuck in a drift and fell off. Embarrassed I waved my arms as it to say, ‘no problem’ but I was genuinely stuck. This bit of the experience I could have well done without. Particularly as it happened again half an hour later. On that occasion Ben arrived to help and he got stuck next to me. Stay off the soft snow apparently although I found it impossible to tell the difference visually. After a ten mile ride we arrived at a hot spring in which we were able to take a dip. It was slightly surreal, rather like having a bath up a mountain. Do we have to go back, can’t we just stay here? Back we went however, and by the time we got to Jackson we were pretty exhausted. Stimulation overload. That evening we took Leigh out for dinner as a thank you for organizing such an incredible week.

The six hour drive back was yet again over moon-like panoramas and dizzying rock spectacles. Well worth the drive if any reader of this is up for it. What other job would take us through the heart of Wyoming, the Teton mountains and hot springs? So, yet again, a huge THANK YOU to Leigh Selting, a brilliant, friendly, and supportive Coordinator without whom the tour wouldn’t have happened.

A Wyoming Shakespeare Explosion

Posted on March 13, 2015 by Shakespeare

Our next residency was at the University of Wyoming in the city of Laramie. Quite a contrast from up-state New York. It is, to British eyes at least, real cowboy country. From the hotel we could see the University complete with the motif of this state – a cowboy riding a bronco.

We were here as part of the University of Wyoming’s Shakespeare Project, a mini-festival of three student productions of Shakespeare’s popular comedies, Much Ado About Nothing, A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Merchant of Venice.

Pictured L-R: AFTLS directors Paul O'Mahoney, Alinka Wright, Roger Lawrence with Leigh Selting, Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Wyoming.

Pictured L-R: AFTLS directors Paul O’Mahoney, Alinka Wright, Roger May with Leigh Selting, Professor and Chair of the Department of Theatre and Dance at the University of Wyoming.

These productions used fifteen drama majors and were done in exactly the same style as our Macbeth – five actors, twenty odd roles in each play. The slight difference was that these shows had directors, all of whom were AFTLS alums: Roger May who directed The Dream, Paul O’Mahoney who worked on Much Ado, and Alinka Wright in charge of Merchant. These three were here as part of the Eminent Artist-in-Residence Endowment and had been working with the students for about six weeks. They had been invited here, along with ourselves, by Leigh Selting who is Head of the Drama Department at the University of Wyoming.

To get here we had to catch a 6am flight from New York, which meant we expected to be pretty drowsy the following day. At the time we were picked up to go to the airport to we weren’t even sure whether the flight would take off. In weather like this you just have to go to the airport and hope for the best. We were lucky and the flight was on time.

The Rocky Mountains rise up beyond the Denver skyline.

Once at Denver we were driven across the Rocky Mountains to Laramie in a shuttle bus where the driver informed us we were about seven and a half thousand feet above sea level. The air is thin up here, although at that time I didn’t notice any difference. More of that later…

Upon arriving in Laramie we met the Residency Coordinator Leigh Selting whose house was where the faculty meeting was to take place. Most of us were a little bleary eyed but the welcome was warm and thankfully Leigh had organized food which went down very well. Thanks for that.

The following morning began with two rather unusual classes, each just over an hour long with two hundred and ten students per class sitting in a lecture hall. We don’t really do lectures as such and prefer to get the students up and acting although with space being tight this required lateral thinking from us and good will from them. We were told many of them would be ranchers, farmers, and military, so we weren’t sure how they would react. As it happened, a more positive group you couldn’t wish for, all getting involved and some coming down to the front and really going for it in some improv exercises we set up. Highly entertaining.

The witches (in red) in AFTLS's production of MACBETH (pictured L-R): Joanna Bending, Annie Aldington, Ben Warwick, Michael Palmer, and Charles Armstrong

The witches (in red) of AFTLS’s production of MACBETH (pictured L-R): Joanna Bending, Annie Aldington, Ben Warwick, Michael Palmer, and Charles Armstrong

Jo then taught them the first witches scene of Macbeth. This scene seems to lend itself to no end of variations in performance: bikers, old folks, cheerleaders, it doesn’t matter – all seem to work and all are funny, in fact the more outlandish the better.

Our evenings were spent watching the student shows which were by turns charming, exciting and amazingly skilled. It was plainly a great experience for all those young actors as they must have felt they were not only expressing themselves dramatically but also artistically as they had to a large degree created the shows under the guidance of their directors. This no doubt would have given them ownership of each play over and above a more ‘traditional’ rehearsal process.

This week we were finally given some leniency from the weather, reaching the upper 50s with blue skies and the chance to sit outside with a coffee not huddled in Starbucks clad in thermals. Some of us took to the hotel fitness centre and I was surprised to find I couldn’t last more than about three minutes on the running machine before being doubled over and gasping for air. Was I that out of shape? Then a guy on the cycling machine turned and drawled, “Welcome to 7200 feet.” This suddenly became a concern as on the Saturday we had to do two performances and our production is pretty physical, some of the speeches and the fights require a lot of puff even at sea level but half way up a mountain? We’ll be panting for air before the first interval. Hope for the best I suppose.

The land here is open, vast and the Snowy Mountains extend beyond the horizon. This makes for spectacular views and Jo commented on how much she loved the sheer ‘size’ of the sky.

Scott Jackson, our producer and Executive Director of Shakespeare at Notre Dame, came midweek to join us and to see the Shakespeare Project for himself. Always great to see him.

Saturday came and we tried to relax in the morning keeping energy levels good. The first show went well, and as we hadn’t done it for a week were ready to go. Thankfully we were able to get through it without too much altitude strain thanks to the brilliant acoustic in the Buchanan Center for the Performing Arts. We enjoyed ourselves though and thankfully the sell-out audiences were, as ever, responsive and warm in their applause. They had been the same all week with the student shows, which is hardly surprising as their achievement was high.

After the second performance there was a party that to thank the three directors of the student productions, the students themselves, and indeed to everyone who was involved in the whole project including Ruby Calvert and Jennifer Amend from Wyoming PBS who were wonderful company. Primarily the main thanks goes to the President of the University, Richard McGinity, who was prepared to back the project and whose witty and modest speech charmed us all, and in particular to Leigh Selting whose ideas and inspiration originated the festival.

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Tag Archives: AFTLS

All’s Well in Wellesley

Prisoners “Dream” with AFTLS

Dreaming up a Fresh “Midsummer”

Macbeth Tours Through the Heart of Wyoming

A Wyoming Shakespeare Explosion