Hey cuz, thanks for vistiting. We're thrilled with how Othello is going and we're eagerly anticipating digging in on that crazy Timon of Athens. Please do consider coming to our Gala on April 17. The more the merrier! See you soon,

Allyn

Collaboration Continues to Yield Confidence and Learning

Watching my students work with Robert Walsh is freshly inspiring every year. Eliot Short Term Treatment has just completed its fourth year of collaboration with the Actors' Shakespeare Project, and each year has seen students taking their learning and performances to new heights. For the past four weeks, Bob Walsh has helped my students use both the pen and the stage to access Shakespeare's language and storytelling, and as they've examined love, jealousy, loyalty, and betrayal in Othello, they've come to see the themes and circumstances of their own lives mirrored in a story so old it is difficult even to read. As in years past, it was again a powerful experience to watch my students explore the possibility that to struggle may be universally human, that their circumstances may not be as isolating as they seem. Once again, as I watched Bob challenge my students to dig into their characters' desires and fears, I saw them digging into themselves.

Largely through Bob's tirelessness and passion, our collaboration has gained greater depth and breadth each year. True to form, this year saw the most powerful and dynamic student performances yet, with students staging three scenes from Othello for an audience of peers, caseworkers, actors, clinicians, teachers, administrators, and group care workers. With student input stronger than ever, student voice this year guided script edits, fight choreography, blocking, and live sound. Students collaborated in the development of original soundtracks for their scenes using audio recording technology, and in a moment of great creative insight, one student envisioned and put forth a teleprompter design that allowed students to perform without scripts in hand for the first time ever. Though both acting and performing for an audience were new and challenging experiences for every student, not a single student expressed upon reflection the sentiment that exploring Shakespeare through a more traditional classroom approach would have been better. Robert Walsh and ASP have once again helped my students discover fun in academia and contemporary significance in the arcane. Perhaps most importantly, ASP has helped my students find the courage to engage with and embrace something new. No matter the context or subject, real learning requires courage, and my students have proven themselves brave indeed. As one student wrote in response to the famous line from Julius Caesar:

I move forward with my life and rely on what's mine.

Can’t rewind for my past I left behind

They say, “Cowards die many times before their deaths.”

Well, I choose to fight until I have nothing left.

-DM

Evan Gentler

English Teacher, ESTT

...and my personal favorite, the stage manager giving last minute instructions (with Resident Company member Bobbie Steinbach in the audience - see her comments below on the show!)

Jason Bowen leading the cast in a group warm up and inspirational speech, flanked by Peter Quince and Flute the bellows mender (you can just make out Marketing Director Laura Sullivan in the background)...

...Seth Bodie teaching Oberon's fairies how to apply false eyelashes...

A photo's worth 1,000 words...

Last night was the final dress for BAA's production of A Midsummer Night's Dream and here are some photos of the cast and crew putting the FINAL touches on!




Titania and one of Oberon's fairies applying make-up and nail polish for a fully polished look! (as designed by Seth Bodie)

Naps, knifes, and neck snapping

Being a violence designer has apparently skewed Rob Najarian’s sense of beauty. During rehearsal when he declared, “That is a lovely picture,” he was not describing an early embrace between Desdamona and Othello or even one of Cassio and Bianca’s saucy entanglements. No, he was gushing about how Roderigo (played by Doug Lockwood) wielded his knife a few inches above Cassio’s (Michael Forden Walker) head as they began their deadly duet in scene V.1.

Devising violence for Shakespeare requires an alchemist’s expertise (as illustrated by last fall's post on the sausage tests required for Taming of the Shrew). Minimal stage directions, e.g. “They fight”, must be transformed into realistic brawls with a wide variety of weapons. Each switch of a blade, slap across a face, and snap of a neck must be broken down into minute details. Actors who may not have extensive stage combat training must quickly grasp all the nuances to safely execute maneuvers while keeping the Elizabethan dialogue rolling. And, unlike dance, performers can rarely rely on music to set a cohesive rhythm for the group.

Watching Rob bounce back and forth crafting jabs, thrusts, and falls for all the killings in Othello, is oddly enough thoroughly entertaining. Somehow he manages to remember each person’s individual sequence of movements complete with grunts and moans (his falsetto version of Desdamona ironically slayed everyone watching), maintain a narrative logic within the fight, and pepper his instructions with $5 words like penumbra.

If you are curious to know more about this bloody craft, feel free to check out my interview with Rob about fight choreography from Monkeyhouse's blog.



Karen Krolak
Assistant Director