Jeff Steele | Shakespeare at Notre Dame

AFTLS Quiz Time: I can’t believe this is our last week on the road with Richard III. So, all you Shakespeare pundits. I have a one question quiz for you. Where does this piece of Shakespeare text come from?

To be, or not to be; that is the bare bodkin
That makes calamity of so long life;
For who would fardels bear,
Till Birnam Wood do come to Dunsinane,

But that the fear of something after death
Murders the innocent sleep, great nature’s second course,
And makes us rather sling the arrows of outrageous fortune
Than fly to others that we know not of.
There’s the respect must give us pause:

Wake Duncan with thy knocking! I would thou couldst;
For who would bear the whips and scorns of time,
The oppressor’s wrong, the proud man’s contumely,
The law’s delay, and the quietus which his pangs might take,

In the dead waste and middle of the night, when churchyards yawn
In customary suits of solemn black,
But that the undiscovered country from whose bourne no traveler returns,

Breathes forth contagion on the world,
And thus the native hue of resolution,
Like the poor cat i’ the adage, is sicklied o’er with care,
And all the clouds that lowered o’er our housetops,
With this regard their currents turn awry,
And lose the name of action.

‘Tis a consummation devoutly to be wished.
But soft you, the fair Ophelia:
Ope not thy ponderous and marble jaws,
But get thee to a nunnery—go!

You get two clues…

When I first saw the mighty Mississippi, I laughed like a drain because it reminded me of this brain bender.
It involves a King and a Duke.

Now on to our final two residency weeks, both spent at campuses on the banks of America’s mighty Mississippi River.

Last week, we performed and taught at the University of Missouri–St. Louis, affectionately referred to as UMSL (Um’-Suhl). We all had a blast in class. I taught “Acting for the Camera” to six lovely guys working on scripts written by the brilliant Dr. Niyi Coker Jr. – fantastic contemporary pieces that the young men acted really well. One of them, Dre, turned up in Jacqueline Thompson’s class the next day and knocked me out with his movement, physicalizing some knotty words from RIII.

I also taught an Honours group who were mostly biochemists, business majors, and athletes in Kim Baldus’s class. They were brave, committed, and lovely to teach. Both Jacqui and Kim did all the exercises along with their students – I do admire that.

Hannah went out to the Grand Center Arts Academy, a high school, and part of UMSL’s outreach programme and had a cracking class. We had a 10am matinee on the Friday which was a bit of a shock and had a good talkback after. All of Hannah’s students from the Academy were present and cheered to the rafters when she came out on stage for the talk – just LOVELY.

One of Evvy’s professors sent a message saying, “I’m on FIRE after my AFTLS class.” Not bad, eh?

It’s a strange thing to play just two or three shows a week especially when we all share so much text. We’ve actually only done around 22 performances. Normally, you’d play eight times a week, possibly in repertoire [multiple titles during the same week]. It makes me nervous usually for the first show in a new venue, but we have gradually all become more relaxed and the show has grown and become more textured and nuanced. I think our St. Louis performances were really enjoyed by us AND the audiences. Paul was incredible as he was under-the-weather but soldiered on magnificently. I think audiences are often surprised by how often “the show must go on” does literally happen.

Our first evening show was interesting as all the motorways got closed down because Vice President Joe Biden was visiting St. Louis, supporting a Democratic senator, and his motorcade drove ALONE down the closed-off highways so many of our audience were stuck and we had to hold the curtain for 15 minutes. What a frightfully glamorous reason. We have been fascinated and often horrified by the lead up to the elections. My brother Nick, a BBC sports journalist did actually suggest that maybe I should have a blonde quaff [wig] as Richard – tempting, very tempting.

The 10-story slide at St. Louis's City Museum

The 10-storey slide at St. Louis’s City Museum

Apart from viewing the magnificent Mississippi, we all visited the St. Louis’s AMAZING City Museum, an adult and child playground (in an old shoe factory) where we all had the guts to brave the slightly hair raising slide and climb some of the contraptions hanging off the roof. Three of us got in those funny pods and went up the Arch, visited the gorgeous Forest Park and also went bowling. Evvy won and Alice got the most-stylish-throwing prize. We were invited to an evening of cocktails by UMSL’s Associate Professor of English (and the driving force of our being invited to UMSL) Kurt Schreyer: he and his wife Kim’s gingerbread house was lovely, and we were thrilled to go to someone’s HOME. A very good week. Read more in this from a post in the UMSL Daily.

My room with a (killer) view at Principia College

The view from our rooms at Principia College

As I write this (and before I tell you the answer to the quiz) I’m sitting in a charming room in Principia College (Elsah, Illinois): a Christian Science college just 45 minutes up the river from UMSL. Set in the most idyllic and peaceful surroundings, Principia has a thriving theatre department led by Jeff and Chrissy Steele who both studied and lived in Stratford on Avon for four years. I taught Jeff’s British Dramaturgy class earlier this week which was great fun and Alice, Hannah, Evvy, and Paul set the acting students alight in acting classes throughout the week. I managed to wangle my way into John O’Hagen’s dance class and Charleston-ed and shim-shammed for 90 minutes. Thanks for letting me join in, John; I just couldn’t resist it.

Yesterday, our full group took full advantage of our surroundings and soared through the trees, reveling in the warmer-than-average autumn weather. Flying over 250′ above the ground, we added a new skill set to our CVs: zipline experts. Hannah outdid the rest of us by taking one run fast enough to flip over our instructor and into local legend.

We’re really looking forward to our last shows tonight and tomorrow where there’s a blinking HUGE church organ on the side of the stage which may HAVE to be used in the persuading of the citizens’ scene; it’s just CRYING out to be included. After this week’s workshops, the small but mighty campus is buzzing for our performances. Thanks Principia for being a brilliant final stop on our US tour.

We return to the UK next week and will perform Richard III in London later this month. See our final two performances at The Cockpit Sunday the 20th (5pm) and Monday the 21st (7:30pm). Tickets are available HERE.

I haven’t forgotten our quiz: the answer is The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, for that’s where the two fraudsters – the King and the Duke – decide to perform a night of Shakespeare. They also performed in a small American town on the banks of the Mississippi. Mangled bits of Hamlet, Macbeth, and Richard III make up Twain’s hilarious mishmash of a speech. How wonderful that touring Shakespeare in the US is still such a delight 130 years after that novel was written.

— Liz Crowther (November 4, 2016)

AFTLS’s Joanna Bending with Principia Residency Coordinator Jeff Steele

This winter has been a tough time for the East coast. The weather has been freezing and the snow, certainly in Boston, almost unrelenting. We spent the weekend in Chicago and as we flew out of the Windy (and icy) City we were so hoping for some warmth. We got it in the form of a lovely welcome from the residency coordinator Jeff Steele and his cousin Drew who were at the airport in St. Louis to greet us for our next residency at Principia College. Unfortunately the weather was as cold as in Chicago and over the week got colder.

Principia is perched on a hill next to arguably the prettiest town in Illinois – Elsah. Almost untouched in the twentieth century, Elsah has maintained the full character of its Civil War roots, positioned as it is right next to the Mississippi River. As we drove to the campus, Jeff, who is undoubtedly an expert in local and national history, gave us a guided tour suggesting this part of the river would have been typically where Tom Sawyer and Huckleberry Finn would have floated down on their boat.

Principia (in the Autumn)

Principia is a college for Christian Scientists. The staff and students, of which there are around five hundred, are all members of the church. As such, the campus is “dry” (i.e. no alcohol, caffeine or cigarettes). For most actors this might present something of a challenge – indeed it was for us – but as the phrase goes, “your house, your rules.” We were happy to comply.

We stayed on the campus at the Principia Guest House, which had a huge sitting room that looked out on a forest outside. To British eyes, the birds feeding at the table looked utterly exotic: Red Cardinals, Woodpeckers, even the sparrows were larger and more diverse than in the UK. It honestly was a vision of woodland beauty and utter relaxation. Do we have to go and teach? Do the show? It was a strain just prying oneself away from the constant log fire.

As we have discovered on this tour, the staff and students are always friendly and motivated, but perhaps on this campus the smiles and the welcome were even warmer, which is just as well as the temperature dropped to about -8 Celsius and that was during the day. The mind boggles as to what it was during the night. I have never experienced such cold. After a few minutes of walking you suddenly realized you were frozen to the bone and getting inside became an imperative.

Jeff visited most classes and offered the friendliest of faces. He opened his home to us, gave us lifts, and couldn’t be faulted.

Charles Armstrong (top) and Michael Palmer (bottom) teach in John O’Hagan’s stage fighting class.

A class which Charlie and I took was a stage fighting class which was great fun. To make it more interesting both Jeff, who was present, and the teacher of that class, John O’Hagan, were qualified stage fighters. This kept us on our toes somewhat. Fortunately during rehearsals back in London we had got the great fight director Philip d’Orleans to choreograph the Macbeth/Macduff showdown. His staging not only has the advantage of complete safety for myself and Charles who play those characters, but also that it is equally safe and exiting for the students to learn and perform. To our amazement they all learnt it within the hour – I’ll confess it took me rather longer than that – and some of them really went for it. It was thrilling to watch.

We had only two performances in the week, the first being at the high school in St. Louis, which is part of Principia. A particular highlight for Ben was the teaching of a class run by Liesl Ehmke. Although the class was large having fifty plus students he described them as, ‘Open, generous, talented – a delight to teach.’ Praise must go to Liesl for guiding her students in such a good way. The highlight for Jo was the “sheer beauty of the place,” and for Annie it was the “sense of peace – just sitting by the Mississippi.”

Before the school performance we had a Q and A. Many of them hadn’t read the play or seen it, they were just looking forward to the show and having a good night in their theatre. They asked us about the quick change of characters and whether we get confused; even whether they will understand it. Hopefully they got the story and were very appreciative at the end. There were warnings of ice and snowstorms for that evening and those forecasts turned out to be right. The drive home afterwards was treacherous and special thanks go to Drew who was calm and cheerful whilst driving though those awful conditions.

On Saturday, we gave a show at the main theatre on the college campus, which is the Cox Auditorium. The staff there was brilliant, efficient, and fun. After our final performance on the Saturday night with an audience of over four hundred (who very kindly stood for the applause) we returned to the guesthouse where Margaret Sotos, who runs the place, had made us a fabulous chili and even played the piano (very well despite her modesty) whilst we ate.

So a great week at The Principia. Thanks to everyone we met in particular Jeff Steele who made it happen, his lovely wife Chrissy, and his cousin Drew.

Shakespeare at Notre Dame

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Tag Archives: Jeff Steele

Richard III | Mississippi River Run

Macbeth visits The Principia