BLACKFRIARS CONFERENCE 2011 – PLENARY SESSION X

Cross-posted from the American Shakespeare Center's blog

Hello – Charlene V. Smith here, welcoming you to Saturday afternoon of the 2011 Blackfriars Conference. I’ll be liveblogging Paper Session X from 2:30pm to 3:45 pm. The session is moderated by Farah Karim-Cooper from the Globe Theatre, and the presenters were assisted by Mary Baldwin MFA actors A. J. Sclafani, Linden Kueck, and Angelina LaBarre.

Annalisa Castaldo, Widener University
“Here sit we down…”: The location of Andrea and Revenge in The Spanish Tragedy

Thomas Kyd’s The Spanish Tragedy opens with the entrance of the Ghost of Andrea and the figure of Revenge, and presumably they both remain onstage for the entire play. Castaldo mentions a footnote in an essay by Barry Adams pointing out Scott MacMillian’s assertion that the characters would have appeared on the main platform of the Rose in full view of the audience.

Castaldo suggests that this set up is a ridiculous waste of two actors and stage space. Castaldo compares the play to Taming of A Shrew, where Sly, onstage for entire play, repeatedly interacts with the action. In contrast, Andrea and Revenge sit still, pretend that the actors cannot hear them, speak only to each other during breaks in the action. Andrea and Revenge act more like a modern audience than an early modern audience.

Other plays of the time suggest interaction form audience, so Castaldo wonders if an non-interacting Andrea and Revenge located onstage would have in fact been distracting to the audience. With that thought, Castaldo wonders how might the characters have moved around the stage? Where would they have been?

In the very first scene, Revenge says, “Here sit we down, to see the mystery.” In an indoor theatre, they could take gallant stools. But there is no evidence that the Rose had seating onstage. Would stools have been preset? Would the actors have carried them on with them? Castaldo thinks these options seems unlikely. These problems can be solved if the characters enter above.

Further evidence for this idea comes in 3.2, during Hieronimo’s famous “O Eyes, No Eyes” soliloquy. His speech is interrupted by a letter which falls from above. The letter comes from Bel-imperia, so it would make sense that Bel-imperia drops it from her balcony. However the stage direction from the printed text is ambiguous: “a letter falleth” suggesting instead a supernatural element. Castaldo argues that Revenge drops the letter, which he can do so from above.

Castaldo also points out the stage direction that appear between acts three and four, “enter Ghost.” The previous action upsets Andrea and Castaldo says the “enter” indicates that Andrea appears onstage and shouts up to the sleeping Revenge, who is still above.

Castaldo ends her presentation with a strong recommendation that the ASC produces The Spanish Tragedy, a statement that is met with enthusiastic applause from the audience (much of it, admittedly, mine).

Jeanne McCarthy, Georgia Gwinnett College
The Two Blackfriars Theatres: Discontinuity or Contiguity?

E.K. Chambers conjectured that both Blackfriars theatres were located in the same place in the monastery. Later scholars have imposed great difference between the two theatre on what McCarthy calls “slim evidence.” Scholars have come to view the first Blackfriars as inferior in location, size, and ambition, a failed attempt that was corrected with the second. McCarthy suggests this comes from a selective reading of the evidence.

Many scholars push first Blackfriars into northern end of the upper floor in the old buttery. This conclusion is based on misunderstandings of audience access, room size, and roof height. Documents from the period speak both of divided rooms and also one great room, suggesting a mutability of space. McCarthy points out evidence authorizing the removal of walls.

McCarthy argues that the desire of scholars to seek a permanent purposed built theatre in the Blackfriars is anachronistic. The documents are evident, instead, of a fluid, transformable sense of space.

Joe Falocco, Texas State University – San Marcos
“What’s in a Name?”: Defining an Appropriate Nomenclature for Elizabethan/Original Practices/Early Modern/Renaissance/ Shakespearean Staging

Since late 19th century, theatre practitioners have sought to emulate the staging conditions of Shakespeare’s playhouse. Falocco’s paper investigates what we should call this movement. Early incarnations were known as Elizabethan Revival. This causes problems, the chief of which is the name Elizabethan is historically inaccurate. Early Modern is more accurate, but few people outside of English departments know what that means. Falocco says that calling the movement Renaissance Staging would avoid these pitfalls, but unfortunately would cause tension with disgruntled medievalists.

The term Original Practices has gained some popularity recently, though there has not been complete agreement over what these practices are. This term has been associated strongly with Mark Rylance’s tenure at the Globe and the New American Shakespeare Tavern in Atlanta. Theatre historians, however, have pointed out the Globe’s ahistorical use of the yard for entrances, exits, and processions. At the Shakespeare Tavern, the audience is seated in front and does not surround the playing space. Nor does the tavern consistently employ universal lighting.

Jim Warren, Artistic Director of the American Shakespeare Center, told Falocco that everyone used to refer to Shakespeare’s staging conditions. Falocco suggest Shakespearean Staging as a viable alternative to these other terms. However he admits that this terms shortchanges Shakespeare’s contemporaries and also causes confusion, as every production of Shakespeare play is in some sense Shakespearean staging. But, Falocco argues, the benefits of name recognition might outweigh these drawbacks.

Ann Jennalie Cook, Vanderbilt University and Sewanee School of Letters
Light and Heat in the Playhouses

Cook begins her presentation by noting that even in our original practices productions we don’t fully realize the influence of light and heat in the early modern period. The availability of light regulated activity in the early modern period. Torches and candles were expensive. Whatever happened at night involved spending money.

It was, additionally, really cold most of the time. The period was consistently colder than temperatures have been in the 20th century. Weather conditions caused permanent snow on Scottish hill tops and frequent storms brought rain and crop destruction. The Thames River froze solid at least eleven times during the 17th century.

1601 was the coldest summer in 2,000 years. The weather, like the light, had monetary implications. During the period, the price of fuel climbed steadily. Clothing was also expensive and shoes were a necessity, not a luxury.

Both factors of heat and light affected season attendance and governed activities in the playhouses. Cook wonders how often performances were curtailed or canceled due to weather? How many groundlings remained shivering until the end of the performance? To sit out of the rain and weather in an outdoor playhouse cost more money. Indoor playhouse likewise had a higher cost of admission.

Considering these elements will help us understand the plays better, Cook argues. Shakespeare’s text clearly makes references to weather, season, and time. A Midsummer Night’s Dream takes place at a time of year where the light and weather allow for lovers to sleep on the ground, and for rude mechanicals to rehearse in the woods. “Sleeping in mine orchard,” as mentioned in Hamlet, was only possible for a limited period of the year. Looking at the season and the school schedule at Wittenberg, Cook suggests that Hamlet would have been at Elsinore when his father died. Cook states that the action of the plot of Hamlet begins in early September and “the days thereafter grow steadily colder.”

Nova Myhill, New College of Florida
“The Concourse of People on the Stage”: An Alternative Proposal for Onstage Seating at the Second Blackfriars

Ben Jonson’s prologue to The Devil is an Ass is concerned with the physical restraints the stage-sitters put on the actors. Thomas Dekker makes similar observations about the behavior of these audience members in his plays. The Blackfriars recreation we are currently sitting in allows for eighteen occupants of Lord’s Chairs in box like area, behind a half wall, and places twelve gallants stools on stage. This Blackfriars recreation follows scholarly opinion that assumes a small numer of spectators onstage. Andrew Gurr, for example, restricts the number to “as many as ten.”

Myhill asks what would happen if we stopped looking at Jonson and Dekker’s descriptions seen as satiric exaggerations. What if we maximize the possible number of onstage audience members rather than minimizing it? This thought brings up two areas of inquiry: how many stage-sitters were there, and where would they have been located.

Myhill tells about a strage law case in 1609 where a theatre employee was accused of receiving 30 shillings a week for the stools on the stage of the Blackfriars unknown to everyone else. Myhill states a cost of six pence per stool, extrapolating that according to the case, sixty people hired stools. Were there enough already onstage that sixty more would have been unnoticed?

One scholar has proposed that there were no boxes at the second Blackfriars, simply side seating, though an illustration from the time shows that there were. Myhill proposes that perhaps the boxes were located at the rear of the stage, allowing for more spectators on the stage itself.

Myhill ends by pointing out that the estimates of ten stage sitters, or even twenty to thirty, that scholars suggest can not produce the effects mentioned and bemoaned by Jonson and Dekker.

Lauren Shell, University of Virginia, Technical Direction MFA program
Lighting Effects in the Early Modern Private Playhouses

Shell states that we must realize that lighting design is not a modern concept. It began as early as the ancient greek and roman theatre, where plays called for torches brought onstage for certain moments. Here at the Blackfriars recreation we assume an even wash of light onstage and through out the house, but Shell argues that lighting effects were more nuanced that that and points out that text of the early modern plays we study suggest lighting effects.

Shell then discusses evidence of lighting effects in books and manuals from the 17th century. Some of these manuals provide instructions for how to achieve these effects. Shell then demonstrates her own models of possible early modern lighting machines.

First is a device whereby lit candles have covers over them. These covers are attached to ropes and can be lowered and raised, effectively dimming and increasing the level of lighting. Proof exists of such a device being used in court masques, so it seems probably that the same device could have been employed in private playhouses. Shell points out the difference between the stage directions “as if groping in the dark” and “a darkness comes over the place.” These directions are not the same. The first deals with perceived darkness; the second, actual darkness.

Shell then demonstrates how colored lighting would have been created by placing containers of colored liquid in front of candles, the forerunner to modern day gels. Shell then shows a device where candles are surrounded by microreflectors that could be swung open and closed, creating a sudden burst of light.

Inigo Jones and Ben Jonson first collaborated on The Queen’s Masque of Blackness. Jonson’s text contains verbose descriptions of stage effects, including lighting effects. Future masques that Jonson worked on do as well. These effects, when employed in the private playhouses, brought the sophistication of court to the common man. 

BLACKFRIARS CONFERENCE 2011 – GEORGE T. WRIGHT KEYNOTE ADDRESS

Cross-posted from the American Shakespeare Center's blog

Greetings! I’m Charlene V. Smith and it’s 10:30 am on Day 2 of the 2011 Blackfriars Conference. George T. Wright from the University of Minnesota is giving the Keynote today, entitled “Climbing Shakespeare’s Ladder, and Other Sound Patterns.” Wright is well-known among the both the conference attendees and the graduate students at Mary Baldwin due to his seminal work Shakespeare’s Metrical Art.

After some announcements from Sarah Enloe, director of Education at the ASC, Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen takes the stage to introduce Wright. Wright is a professor emeritus of English at the University of Minnesota. Besides Shakespeare’s Metrical Art, Wright has also written Hearing the Measures: Shakespearean and Other Inflections and Poetical Craft and Authorial Design.  Dr. Ralph says that when the graduate Shakespeare program at MBC began, he really wanted to use Shakespeare’s Metrical Art as a classroom textbook. He was worried that some students, less familiar with Chaucer and poetry, might find it difficult. He says he made the mistake of using a different book, but for year two of the program Ralph “switched to the Wright/right book.”

Wright begins by noting his growing interest in ladders in Shakespeare’s text, and that years ago he noticed too many actors underplaying long verse speeches and rhetoric. They were being cheated of their force, brought down to the prose moments of the play.

Wright grew aware of growing interest amongst British actors and directors in speaking Shakespeare’s verse. Wright was interested in how verse was heard by the ear of the audience. These actors and directors were looking for guidance and rules for shared lines, pauses, enjambed versus end stopped lines, etc. Wright cares much more about the weight given to stressed and unstressed lines as they are critical to the emotional intensity of the text.

Wright notes that there are three kinds of people interested in the meter of the verse: Actors, editors, prosodists. The questions each group asks are how shall we speak the lines, how shall we print the lines, and how shall we hear the lines, respectively. Wrights says that editors and actors must print and speak the lines in a way that allows us to read and hear the lines as metrically coherent.

Wright has consulted many texts of Shakespeare’s verse and has not found much dealing with the ladder. As an example, he presents an early speech from Julius Caesar, a speech Wright says in a perfect example of a ladder.

And do you not put on your best attire?
And do you not cull out a holiday?
And do you not strew flowers in he way
That comes in triumph over Pompey’s blood?
Be gone!
Run to your houses, fall upon your knees
Pray to the gods to intermit the plague
That needs must light on this ingratitude.
(1.1.48-55)

The first four lines step up, and the last three lines step back down the ladder. A ladder is sequences of clauses that keep elaborating on a topic until it’s been exhausted and then the actor has to run back down.

After 1593, Shakespeare’s line really find their range. Wright says we have the plague to thank, as it caused Shakespeare to write the sonnets. With the sonnets, Shakespeare was training himself to compose verse speech in a larger four line unit. Though many sonnets are end stopped at the end of each line, usually do to the rhyme scheme. The end stopping of the lines halts the rising of the verse. There is an inherent rise and fall in the structure of the sonner. The quatrains build up and then down.

Shakespeare then used more ladders in his blank verse. Wright demonstrates Shakespeare’s powerful buildup via ladders with Richard II’s “For God’s sake, let us sit upon the ground,” John of Gaunt’s This England, and Henry V’s famous St. Crispin Day speeches. Shakespeare had found a new way to be seriously expressive. Why say a thing once, when saying it differently and again and again will make it more memorable?

Wright notes that the performance of these ladders is not always the same, nor is it a continuous rise. The voice likes to back track a little, or down track a little, before it continues to the next level of the speeches. Wright speaks some of Macbeth’s speech, “Who can be wise, amazed, temperate and furious, / Loyal and neutral, in a moment?” This speech goes up and down constantly, as if Macbeth doesn’t know where he wants to be.

Wright launches into Claudio’s speech from Measure for Measure, “Ay, but to die, and go we know not where,” a speech Wright calls, “one of the finest of all ladder speeches.” This speech goes up for many lines, and then steps down powerfully. The imagery is as over the top as the dramatic structure of the ladder, and Wright suggests that Shakespeare intended that.

Wright notes that every actor will not perform ladders the same way, but that the device should be recognized as respecting it creates a powerful effect. Shakespeare was an extraordinary writer but also an extraordinary listener.

Wright loves the increasing attention given in recent years to the performance of verse, but the more he reads about it the more questions he has. Metrical variations add texture to Shakespeare’s verse. Readers, editors, and voice professionals need to note these variations. Not just the normal variations such as trochees, but the rarer ones such as hexameter, broken-back lines, and epic caesuras, should be considered. Shakespeare uses these irregularities more than the other Elizabethan and Jacobean dramatists, and we should wonder why.

Wright then takes a few questions from the audience. One person asks about Wright’s suggestions that we have some reservations when we hear a ladder, and wonders if that is connected to a feeling that the ladder is calculated. Wright likes the idea and the suggestions it gives for performance. Another scholar asks about evangelism and whether Wright thinks Shakespeare could have picked up some of the ladder technique from church. Wright thinks it is completely possible and beautifully quotes a poem of John Donne. Mary Baldwin professor Matt Davies mentions that the sonnets were metrically regular, and that so were the examples, there weren’t a lot of inverted feet in them, which might cause a trip in the ladder.  He asks whether regularity is essential to building a ladder. Other audience members respond to this idea and ASC actor James Keegan says he notes that sort of thing a lot in Tamburlaine. Keegan then notes that he feels contemporary actors are afraid of pitch, of singing the pitch, and has anxiety about it. Wright agrees, and says that they are afraid of going of the top. But Wright says he’d like to hear actors going over the top a bit more and notes that you can find fine examples of this, nodding to Keegan’s fine performance as Prospero in The Tempest the night before.

BLACKFRIARS CONFERENCE 2011 – PLENARY SESSION I

Cross-posted from the American Shakespeare Center's blog

I’m Charlene V. Smith, and I’ll be liveblogging Plenary Session I from 1pm to 2:15pm.

Leslie Thomson, University of Toronto
The Tempest and the Stage-Sitters

Thomson starts by pointing out that the King’s Men had already started using the Blackfriars by the time that Shakespeare started writing The Tempest. Thus he would have known that the most expensive seats would have been those on stage. Thomson asks what effect the gallants onstage might have had, for example they created a type of stage dressing, and caused an alienating effect by reminding the audience that they were at a play.

The stage-sitters would have completed with the players for staging space and for audience attention, so Thomson explores whether the plays at the time included elements meant to counteract this or remind the sitters to behave? Thomson argues that The Tempest is constructed to quiet the stage sitters using elements such as soliloquies, discoveries, masques, and other staging devices.

The Tempest's 78 uses of “now”and  numerous mentions of the island create a single shared time and location. Events in the play such as the shipwreck, banquet, and the masque draw attention to drama onstage as opposed to the drama offstage. The text also suggests a number of sitting, reclining, or leaning positions. Groups of figures are also regularly observed by others. All these features help point the audience’s attention to the play itself. Thomson then suggests that Prospero acts as a stage-manager, speaking directly to the playgoers, and controlling moments of action during the play.

Thomson concludes with the thought that the presence of stage-sitters couldn’t be ignored during the early modern era and therefore shouldn’t be ignored now. By considering their effect on the performance, we can gather a more accurate and fuller picture of early modern theatre.

Mark Z. Muggli, Luther College
“After the first death, there is no other”: Except in the Case of Falstaff

Muggli mentions that much attention has been paid to Falstaff’s reported death in Henry V, and says he instead wants to focus attention on Falstaff’s first death in Henry IV, part one. Falstaff, to avoid fighting in the battle, “falls down as if he were dead.” The “as if” is ambiguous.

Should Falstaff rise up thirty lines later to the audience’s complete surprise? Or should he fall down with a wink to the audience so that we know he is faking during Hal and Hotspur’s fight?

Muggli says that a Falstaff who informs the audience that he is faking is an impressive trickster, but he is only a trickster. A Falstaff that convinces the audience that he is dead is a Falstaff who has the power to resurrect himself.

Muggli mentions a production he saw recently where an overweight Falstaff apparently suffered a heart attack and falls down. To Muggli, it was convincingly real. While speaking to colleagues about this production, one disagreed, telling Muggli that “it was obvious that Falstaff was faking.” Muggli suggest the cultural legacy of Falstaff means that audiences, even nonspecialists, are aware that he does not die in the first play he appears, and so his resurrection can never truly come as a surprise.

Walter Cannon, Central College
Complex Hearing

Cannon describes complex hearing as a moment when a character hears something that he or she cannot respond to directly, either due to disguise, eavesdropping, decorum, tact, or prevailing social norms.

Cannon says the character’s reticence and a restraint can be used as a guide to emotional and psychological complexity.

To demonstrate his point, Cannon looks at two speeches of Edgar’s in King Lear. The first in 3.6 is a soliloquy in which Edgar speaks out-loud to himself. The second is the speech he delivers in 5.3 to Albany and Edmund. These speeches deal with Edgar’s disguise of Poor Tom.

Cannon points out that disguises are often used to gain or regain power, but Poor Tom gives Edgar knowledge, but not power. It is a disguise that puts an emotional burden on Edgar that he reveals after his fight with Edmund.

Cannon stages the speech in 5.3 in order to demonstrate that the onstage hearers guide audience response. Edgar faces entirely upstage, where Albany and Edmund are located. Edmund and Albany’s faces were therefore much more visible to the majority of the audience.

Bill Gelber, Texas Tech University
A “Ha” in Shakespeare: the Soliloquy as Excuse and Challenge to the Audience

Gelber begins by mentioning the large debate surrounding soliloquies: should they be internal and introspective or external and taken to the audience? To explore the answer, Gelber looks at Shakespeare’s use of a single word, “Ha.” “Ha” can be a shorter version of the word “have,” when elision is necessary, or it can be repeating to simulate a character’s laughter: “ha, ha, ha,” or it can be a word of chiding, especially when located after a question.

Gelber is interested in this final use, especially when it occurs in a soliloquy. Shakespeare uses it sparingly, and Gelber with the help of the actors explores two examples.

The first is from Measure for Measure, 2.2. Angelo asks, “Who sins most? Ha?” In this moment he is looking to the audience for an answer. Gelber argues that the “ha” here is an interjectional interrogatory used to explain Angelo’s previous aside in the scene with Isabella, an aside that is an abrupt and surprising admission of temptation. In this soliloquy, Angelo is making his case before a jury of playgoers.

Gelber then briefly looks at a couple examples where “ha” us used in dialogue, where it is used to provoke other characters to respond. Gelber says “ha” is used in much the same way in a soliloquy, only the other character is the audience.

Hamlet says “ha” in his “Am I a coward?” soliloquy. Gelber argues that the “ha?” seeks an actual response, otherwise why would Hamlet bother? This soliloquy assumes response. Gelber mentions the famous production of Hamlet starring David Warner where one night when Warner asked, “Am I a coward?,” a man called out, “Yes!” When Mark Rylance played Hamlet he performed this soliloquy at the edge of the stage, as close to the audience as possible in order to provoke a response.

Evelyn Tribble, University of Otago
Inset Skill Displays

Tribble’s paper is on early modern actors and their skill set. She bemoans that this aspect is not paid much attention in current studies. For example, the art of gesture is often dismissed as static and old-fashioned. Tribble feels that we should look at these skills positively and as part of an ecology of skill.

Tribble notes that the abundant stage directions in early modern play texts call for a wide range of physical and verbal abilities, including speaking, fencing, wrestling, vaulting, dancing, tumbling, and singing. Londoners could experience many of these skills in arenas other than the theatre, meaning that they were educated and informed.

Fencing displays were part of theatrical tradition and also civic life. and therefore viewers of drama were likely to have a high knowledge of the sport. Many plays also call for highly technical forms of dance. Dance had a wide cultural currency. Spectators attended performances at London’s dancing schools.

Tribble encourages us to consider how an early modern performer’s skills existed in a whole culture that cannot be discovered by looking at the printed page alone.

Katherine Mayberry, Grand Valley State University & Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company
Judging Spectators: The Manipulation of Audience Critical Response

Mayberry took the stage to discuss the use of prologues and epilogues in early modern drama. These speeches address the theatre audience as an audience; they define the audience role and give specific instructions. These prologues and epilogues frequently refer to the audience’s power to judge the performance, but manage to shifts the responsibility for the play’s success or failure onto the audience.

Playwrights use several tactics in their prologues and epilogues, including scripting and cueing applause, preemptively apologizing, anticipating criticism and dismissing them, and stating that the play will appel to discerning auditors.

Shakespeare cues the audience’s applause in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Tempest, and As You Like It. Puck says, “Give me your hands if we be friends.” This is a conditional phrase. The audience must either applaud or cease to be the players’ friends. Rosalind’s epilogue scripts the audience response: “bid me farewell,” and cues the audience: “when I curtsy.”

In the opening Chorus of Henry V, Shakespeare uses the tactics of preemptively apologizing, and anticipating criticism and dismissing it, specifically demands for onstage realism. The Chorus also enlists the audience in the creation of performance, thus suggesting if the play’s not successful the audience has failed.

Mayberry moves onto examples where the playwright is more insulting to the audience. Ben Jonson’s prologues were often antagonistic. He disparages the judgement of those who criticize the play. Jonson doesn’t solicit the audience’s help, but places blame for negative response on the audience’s poor taste.

John Ford’s The Broken Heart offers auditors membership in an elite club of those with “noble judgement” and “clear eyes.” giving an incentive to like the play. Thomas Middleton’s No Wit/No Help Like a Woman concedes failure before the play begins: “How is it possible to suffice so many ears? So many eyes?”

Mayberry concludes that early modern authors recognized the audience’s power over playwright and performer and sought to control it. They sought to wrest that power back by orchestrating audience response.

The speakers in this session were aided by ASC actors John Harrell, Allison Glenzer, and Gregory Jon Phelps.

Capital Fringe Festival continued

Here is the continuation of my accounting of the Capital Fringe Festival. If I forget to mention anyone I met or who saw my show I apologize. It was a busy couple of weeks!

Sunday, July 17
This morning started off with volunteering. I believe I was originally scheduled to work in the bar, but when I arrived they asked if I would mind doing box office instead. Um, no, not at all! I ran box office for two shows, Pinoy: A'merican Tale at the Apothecary and then since I have my car I ran over to Spooky Universe for Sanyasi. The latter is one of the many shows on the “Ooo I want to see this but I can't” List. But by running box office I at least get to say hi to Betsy Rosen and Nora Achrati, two of the performers.

At 4pm I made my way to the Apothecary to take in Stephen Spotswood's The Sisters of Ellery Hollow. Stephen is a DC playwright, and one of the many delightful theatre people on twitter. Ellery Hollow was performed by Rachel Holt and Melissa Hmelnicky. It was a lovely piece, about two sisters who were story tellers, revealing the magical circumstances of their birth and life. The script made use of beautiful imagery, and the two actresses performed with charm and spunk.

Then I rested for a short time before my second performance at 6:45pm. I felt really good about this performance. The nerves from the first performance seemed to settle, and the piece felt like it had a lot more flow. I felt like I was able to just go along for the ride of what was happening in my piece, and in the Juliet scenes, rather than worrying about whether I would forget my lines. I was blessed every performance to have friends in the audience, and this night were Jeremy, Joshua, Brett, Renee, and Richard.

After the show ended, Victoria and I ran over to the Warehouse to snag standing room only tickets for Illuminate: A Martial Arts Experience, as it was sold out. We are successful and run back to the tent to grab a little dinner. Time for the Apple and Cheddar Panini once again! While scarfing down the food we talk to the gentlemen performing Glengary Glen Ross. They are charming, in their own way, and we have a few hearty laughs before we have to leave.

Illuminate is fantastic, even before it begins. The packed house affords some memorable people-watching, and we'll just leave it at that. There is a loose story to Illuminate, basically a put-upon man learns martial arts to defend himself and masters the skill. The story is told through a series of martial arts demonstrations. Most of them are performed in blackout. The performers wear all black, and glow sticks on their hands and feet that reveal the moves. The hero of the story wears the color green, and that allows us to track who he is, even though the individual performing the role changes.

Victoria knows one of the performers, John Shyrock, and he performs my favorite part of the piece. In Illuminate, John showcases Chinese rope dart techniques. Again, the theatre is in blackout, and there are lights attached to the end of John's rope. He flings it out into the audience, whipping it back and forth. Every time you swear the rope is going to hit someone, yet it never does. Every time you flinch, and every time everyone is safe. It was remarkable.

Monday, July 18
On Monday, a second review, this one from MD Theatre Guide appears. It is extremely favorable, and, which I almost appreciate more, very well written. Positive notes aside, the review accurately represents the piece I was trying to create, describing the play as “part shakespearean performance piece, part memoir, and part literary discourse.” It seems disingenuous to praise a positive review, but it is truly a relief to find out that your performance goals have come across to a member of the audience. We in the theatre can spend a lot of time talking about good reviews and bad reviews and whether to ignore them or not, but I've always had an interest in dramatic criticism, and the thing you can learn from a review is what a specific audience member got from the production. And when that is exactly what you were hoping to portray, it's encouraging.

Tuesday, July 19
On Tuesday I head to Shrewing of the Tamed at the Shop. This production involves William and Mary students, so I run into a couple of former professors. I had gotten to meet a few of the students during the Fringe festival as well. I think it's fabulous that William and Mary is using the Capital Fringe Festival as a resource and learning experience and wish they had done so when I was a student there.

The marketing materials for the play asked the question “Can a woman be as funny as a man?” For some reason in my head I got the idea that this meant they were going to gender flip Kate and Petruchio. This isn't what happened at all. The main change was an increased emphasis on the frame narrative. It harkened back to the time when women were not allowed on stage, and so the actress-who-would-be-Kate had to prove that she could play the role as well as a man. The play then started from a point of competition that paralleled Kate and Petruchio's competition.

Wednesday, July 20
I start off by volunteering for A Year of Living Dangerously at the Redrum (more fun decorating rocks with Terry and Robert). Then I have to prep for my third performance. I'm nervous about this one because very important people will be in the audience. Beforehand I was talking to Kimleigh Smith, the force of nature behind the show TOTALLY. She's fantastic, and I think I met her one night while talking to Seth. She says simply and calmly, “Hey. Just tell the story.” She is right, and my nerves are settled. Just tell the story.

Jim Gagne, a dear friend of mine, and a brilliant teacher attends, as does George Grant, another brilliant teacher, and a man who knows a vast amount about Shakespeare and how to perform it. Just tell the story. Jim tells me afterwards that it's the first time he's seen scholarship used theatrically in a successful manner.

Thursday, July 21
Thursday is play night for me. No being a volunteer, just being an audience member. First up is Brett Abelman's The Magical Marriage Computer and other plays. Brett is another local playwright producing work at the Fringe festival. This set of plays explores love in different circumstances amongst different types of people. My friend Rachel Manteuffel is in the show, one of her parts being, of all things, Johnny Depp.

After that is the biker King Lear at the Apothecary. The piece is directed by Kelli Biggs, and starring one of my best friends, Katie Wanschura, as a gender flipped Edmund. Everyone is drinking beers, flashing knives, playing pool, talking on cell phones, wearing leather.

One Shakespeare play is never enough for Charlene, so after King Lear I'm scheduled to attend Hamlet: Reframed at the Shop. There's a little bit of downtown in between, so I hang out in the tent and talk to friends. Everybody is there that night, many to see Hamlet. Allison, Katy, Lee, Mark, Bess, just to name a few. I had been joking with some Fringers earlier in the week that the Festival and the Helen Hayes are the two times of year where we in the theatre are liable to run into any number of exes and past indiscretions. I chalk up the second one of the festival that night. I'm feeling spunky, so I command him to bring me water from the bar! I figured I could get away with it since it's the least he could do for me, and it's over 100 degrees that day, so Fringe is providing it for free. He humors me and graciously complies.

It's a good thing I have water because the heat in the Shop is oppressive. Audience and actors alike are dripping with sweat. Impromptu fans are being waved back and forth. Despite the distractions, the actors hold the attention of the audience. Hamlet: Reframed was a modern telling of the famous play, with one catch: all the soliloquies are cut. What do we get in this version? An unstable Hamlet, with unexplained behavior, and a King and Queen desperately trying to keep a country running. We don't get the ghost in this version, which prevents us from immediately siding against Claudius. The cut shed a different light on the characters. I thought Carl's objective for the production was clear, and that he successfully achieved it.

Friday, July 22
On this day I went into town just for one volunteer shift. I was scheduled from 5-8pm at the Free Store, which as Nyree, the Volunteer Coordinator, told me, is where volunteers go to die. Basically it's an extremely boring shift, in an hot and stuffy room without chairs. You sit on the floor and greet people as they come in, answer questions, lay out donations, and do your best not to sweat too much. And, true to reputation, the shift was rather boring, at least from 5-7pm.

For the last hour of the shift some performers came into the Free Store, and getting to know them made the end of the shift far more enjoyable than the beginning. First I met Drew and Sam, and later Nate and Nate came in as well. These four guys were half of OneBodyWorks, the group performing I See You. They had spent six weeks working on a farm in North Carolina, with limited access to technology, and developed a theatrical piece in response to their time there. The fellows were cute and charming, and became known around Fringe as “the farm boys.” At least that's what I called them, and everyone always knew who I was talking about. Apparently the guys found this amusing, since on the farm, they were the city boys. I hear great things about their show, but alas, I don't get to see it.

Saturday, July 23
At noon I show up in the side room at Fort Fringe to find out about that One Year Theatre project, whose postcards I had seen around the festival. But that story isn't for this blog – in short, I am involved, I designed the webpage, and you can learn more there and at the blog.

I scramble over to Spooky Universe for When ET Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest. Unpredictable bus schedules mean I slide in there right at curtain time and sheepishly ask if I can still get in. Luckily they hadn't started yet. This rock musical tells the story of Joan who gets contacted by aliens that dig her music and want her to be the leader of their intergalactic band. It's starring fellow standardized patient and all around awesome lady Emily Webbe, whose fantastic voice I get to hear for the first time.

Time for the fourth performance of What, Lamb! What, Ladybird! There are several friendly faces in the audience for this one. Catherine and Terrance Aselford are there. So is Kavita Mudan, one of my favorite female Shakespeare Geeks. Matthew Pauli, one-third of Clown Cabaret attends and we get to talk shop about Shakespeare afterwards.We talk about what's missing when there is one performer – the reaction of characters. A great deal of acting comes when you aren't speaking. So when performing multiple roles, especially in Shakespeare, how do you find the balance between letting some of those reactions in, and keeping the text driving forward? Two of my former co-workers, Jennifer and Krystal, whom I don't get to see nearly enough, come as well.

This is possibly my best performance. I feel very free in the moment, and I am able to explore moments in the text in a way I hadn't been before. It feels very fluid. It feels great. Until. Disaster. I am on the very last page of the script. Right in the middle of what is a very scary and emotional confession for me. And I completely blank. I know where I'm going, but I can't remember the very next line. Words stumble out of my mouth as my brain frantically searches for the sentences that have escaped my memory. I can't find them, so I move ahead to the next moment, leaving out about three lines of text. Well, it happens. You move on. But everything was so perfect up until that moment. But I almost wonder if being more connected to what I was saying is what actually made me forget what I was saying. To be truly living in the moment of what I was confessing and finding myself unable to say the words due to the nerves and the terror of admitting was I was admitting. It's a possibility, but still, Perfectionist Charlene is not pleased!

Several of us head to Busboys and Poets for dinner afterwards, along with Karen and Jim who were at the Festival that night as well.

After dinner and after socializing at the tent Jim and I head to the Mountain for Faction of Fools' Fool For All. We are joined by Hannah, who is a co-worker and friend of Jim's, and on the staff at the Festival. The Fool for All is comprised of nine scenes and over 40 artists. Not every scene is performed every night, so it's always a different show. The production also serves as a learning experience for the artists, as they vary in experience and skill level. Some are professional clowns, others have just taken a class or two with Faction. I know next to nothing about Commedia dell'Arte, but while watching it becomes clear that there are three levels of skill to mask work. The first level: actors who are wearing the mask. Second: actors whose faces match the mask. And the third level, the level of the uber talented Matthew Wilson, are actors for whom the mask becomes a natural part of their face. It's fun to note how this works, and also to see so many friends on stage, like Gwen Grasdorf, Karen Beriss, Steve Attix, Paul Reisman, Grant Cloyd, and Sarah Olmsted Thomas.

The show is followed by more socializing at the tent, with some of the aforementioned persons, and also audience member extraordinaire and extremely intelligent guy, David Tannous. He tries to convince me to join him for Meagan & David's Original Low-Cost Creativity Workshop, but it's midnight, and I'm exhausted. I try to convince him to see my show on Sunday instead of the one he's already got a ticket to. Neither of us succeeds. Nevertheless, it's lovely to talk to him, and I've already run into him at another theatre event since Fringe.

Sunday, July 24
Here it is. The final day of Fringe. I start of at the Goethe Institute seeing John Hefner's The Road to Nowhere. Hefner is a friend of mine, and an accomplished solo artist who has toured his shows to several Fringe Festivals. He had given me advice throughout the process. I'm glad that I could make it to his show, especially as it's been quite a while since I saw him in person. He was pretty busy. As the title of his show implies, he went on a long road trip that kept him away from DC. Then he fell in love, got engaged, oh yeah, and just had a baby. Busy guy.

My final performance is in the afternoon. Friends Kelli, Katie, and Rachel are in the audience. The fact that it is over doesn't seem quite real.

We pack up my car with the set pieces. Then I have one last play to see, Belle Parricide, directed by Catherine Aselford and Nick Allen. Catherine and the playwrights have been working on this piece for something like two years. I saw a staged reading of one version of the script quite some time ago, and it has grown and improved immensely. Five female playwrights wrote short pieces about Beatrice Cenci, portraying the girl and the murder of her father in different lights. After the show I head into the tent for some final socializing and to say goodbye to everyone.


The Capital Fringe Festival was an amazing experience for me this year. I did things I had never done before. I wrote and performed a one-woman show! I went places that terrified me, and survived, nay, grew as an artist. I made a piece that was about me and about the kind of theatre I love, and infused with the kind of thinking I do. And though it was made from a very specific standpoint, audiences responded positively. It was so rewarding to discover that this dual approach that I have spent so much time talking about, so much time thinking about, this actor-scholar path, could have a tangible existence.

Will this have an after-life? I'm not sure yet. I know that if I were to perform it again, there are a couple more things I want to look up, a couple places I want to cut, and a couple places I want to add. Three people commented on the educational possibilities of the piece.

Two different people told me I should present this play at the Blackfriars Conference that the American Shakespeare Center hosts every two years. And indeed, working on this play is the very thing that confirms that I am making the right decision in attending the MFA program at Mary Baldwin this fall. The program explores the two pillars of scholarship and stagecraft, and that is exactly what my play turned out to be. And it wasn't my intent to make it that; the play came to this status naturally, simply by virtue of what I find interesting.

But the most dear compliment of the experience was relayed to me by Victoria. An actress she has worked with came to the play along with one or two other actresses, all who had played Juliet. They told Victoria that afterwards they found themselves talking about the piece and how exciting it was because I did things with Juliet they had all been told they weren't allowed to do.

And that's the point, really, I think. Let's get this false idea of Juliet as the willowy ingenue out of our heads. Let's not play what we think she is. Play instead what Shakespeare gives you in the text. Let a young actress bring all the charm and all the tempestuousness and all the lust and all the strength that she can. For that is what Juliet is: mercurial and strong, logical and loyal, curious and giving. There has never been a 14-year-old like Juliet, nor will there never be. And that is the magic of this play, this character, and Shakespeare's writing.

Fringe Week 1

The first couple days of Fringe I am not involved. I am rehearsing like a madwoman. It is a lot of work to memorize one hour worth of text. Luckily the majority of the Shakespeare is in my head already. What’s not is soon learned, thanks to the rhythms of his text. I get it, but not word perfect. This is a disappointment to me, the perfectionist. I find that little words slip. The yous and thous sometimes get mixed up. And in this line is it will or shall? Hath/Doth/Does? Surprisingly, I find it’s harder to be perfect when you are memorizing multiple characters. Somehow it’s a little easier to keep track a single character’s reasons from flipping from thou to you, than it is to keep track of five characters. But I work really hard on it. When characters say similar things, it’s easier for them to get jumbled when you are speaking both versions. And with an hour-long show, there is a lot of text floating around in my head.

The words I am writing myself are easy to learn. Mostly because I don’t have to get those perfect. The quotes from people in the past are difficult, particularly the non-contemporaries. The writing from the Victorians in particular, is complex, with ornate structure, and multiple phrases, making for some rather long sentences.

Victoria and I communicated with our savvy tech, Sean Eustis, over email in the week leading up to the Festival. We told him want we think we needed, and he let us know that he could do exactly that. He even had access to a projector, and all the necessary equipment.

Those final days before opening were nerve-wracking. Would I remember the lines? Would anyone see it? Would it even work? Would I still have a voice after giving a walking tour on Friday and another on Saturday? But soon Sunday was here.

Sunday, July 10
Our tech is at 10:30am. The space – The Bedroom. We meet our venue manager, Terry, who seems great, and his equally great partner in crime, Robert, who is managing The Redrum, the other space in that building. These guys with aplomb put up with my sarcastic “charm” for two weeks. We get started a little late due to parking issues. Thankfully the rest of the festival parking and transportation remains on our sides.

Our set is small. It has a dagger and a coil of rope, both conveniently borrowed from our previous production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona. There is the ever-important vial, which I’ve had in possession for months, due to needing it for publicity photos. The largest piece is the bench, which comes from Victoria’s furniture collection. I worry about possible damage, but it returns to her house unscathed two weeks later.

As is always the case with tech, one never gets done as much as one wants. It’s all pretty much spent setting up the technical elements. Which I suppose is really the point. But we actors always want to run the show!

Where do we put the projector? Here I walk in the way of it, there audience members’ heads pop up as shadows. We have to adjust the text size of the words it is projecting. Then we have to figure out the lights and the cues. The Bedroom has an inordinate amount of lighting instruments for a space that small, but I’ve been warned not to complain about it, as lots of lights are better than no lights at all, which is the state where the Festival started.

We go through the lighting changes. We have the Shakespeare scenes – some in day, some in night. Day Wash. Night Wash. We have what we affectionately call “Scholar Wash” for all the parts in between. Before we know it, it is 1pm, and our tech time is over. One hour to show.

Quick! Eat! Bathroom! Stretch! What are my lines again??????

2pm comes, and I must walk out onstage, begin “I have a faint cold fear that thrills through my veins” and take the ride.

I survive. I don’t lose my place. I have a couple moments where the corner of your brain separated from your acting says, “Wait. Is that what happens next? Did I skip something?” But I turn out to always be in the right place. I have a couple people I know in the audience, but also people who I don’t know, including some big Fringers. My former roommate Karen Beriss is in the audience with her mom. My friend Kerry drives from Towson to try and make the show. She doesn’t make it in before the doors close, but thankfully decides to wait until around so that we can still hang out. I more than survive the play. Some people stand to applaud.

My heart is beating and I am covered in sweat. Victoria, Kerry, and I head over to the tent to chat (and drink!). While I’m there three patrons who were at the performance approach me and say how much they liked it. One is David Kessler, the man who will be the 2011 Fringe Fanatic. I had met David at previous theatre events, and he saw me perform in last year’s Fringe Festival. I run into him throughout the next two weeks, and enjoy finding out what he has seen and what he has loved. His favorite seems to be iKill, a work getting a lot of buzz, but one I am unable to see.

These positive audience responses mean that What, Lamb! What, Ladybird! works as a piece of theatre! Whew! But now I have a week before my next performance, and adrenaline to spare.

Being a full time artist, and knowing that I will lose money on this production, I cannot buy tickets to see all my friends’ shows. Of the 124, I believe I know people involved with at least 30 of them, possibly more. I discover that you can sign up to volunteer with the Fringe Festival. Every shift you work yields you a free ticket. Score! I initially start with four shifts, but quickly add more.

Monday, July 11
Working. Resting. The first review arrives. It’s a bad one, though not the kind you can be upset about, or take personally. The writer likes my acting, but misses the entire point of the piece. She seems to come in with a preconceived notion of who Juliet is (she dismisses her as a “lustful teenager”), and is unable to let it go. When a review is more about how silly Juliet is, and less about what you are actually doing in your piece, what can you really do? Though I do wonder, if she missed it so entirely, maybe it means the piece isn’t working theatrically. But everyone else who saw that first performance got it. And then I remember hearing a local actor say he didn’t like Venus in Fur because he doesn’t enjoy plays about theatre people. I am reassured by the fact that what is obvious is some is not so obvious to others. (If you don't know the play, Venus in Fur takes place at an audition, but this is only the most surface level. It really has absolutely nothing to do with theatre people.) I think secretly I am more bothered by her negative characterization of Juliet, than by her not liking the play. In my head I write essays rebutting how she sees Juliet, supported with evidence by the text. But of course, I’ve actually already written that essay. And I’m performing it. So there it is.

Tuesday, July 12
I come to the Fringe straight from some teaching work. I need to pick up some food before my first volunteer shift! I fondly recall the apple and cheddar panini that I ate several times last year. But what’s this? It’s not on the board! I asked at the bar, they tell me they can make that, no problem.

I am working box office for Losing My Religion, a solo performance, being performed in my venue. I spend more time talking to / annoying Terry and Robert. I get to meet the performer, Seth Lepore. He’s charming, personable, cute… and married. ;-) I run into him throughout the festival. I see him in the tent chatting people up. He has a list of popular shows and when they let out so that he can hand out postcards. I watch him and learn about going up to strangers and selling your show. I don’t make it to his, but he’ll next be performing at the Minnesota Fringe Festival.

After the volunteer shift, I’m hanging out in the tent to see Karen Beriss et. al. perform in the free Clown Cabaret show.

I notice the apple and cheddar panini is now on the board! It remains there for the rest of the festival! My work here is done.

After a delightful Clown Cabaret, I talk to Karen about the show. Whether the projections and the scholars names work, and the switching between parts. She says it all does, and it doesn’t bother her not having more information about the people I’m quoting. Her main note: Lose the noisy plastic water bottle. She gives me a plastic goblet to drink from for the remainder of Fringe.

Wednesday, July 13
I have another volunteer shift. But at this point I really can’t remember what show it is for… From the schedule I can deduce that it was probably for The Morphine Diaries, which is also at Terry and Robert’s venues. Those guys have a collection of colored sharpies and a bucket of rocks, and we pass the time making art.

I hang around the tent awaiting the 9:45pm showing of Cabaret XXX. I know 75% of them: Karen Lange, Allyson Harkey, and Toni Rae Brotons. I think I met all these ladies on twitter first, before in real life. Their show rocks. They basically are playing scorned lovers singing angry songs about their exes. And all four performers have great voices. And they are backed up by a wonderful band. They give out tattoos and condoms and t-shirts. I take a lesson from Seth and talk to the people sitting near me. I tell them about my show. They tease me when I take a condom, in mock shock, “Why, Juliet!” The man at the table gives me his as well, saying he can’t use it because it’s probably too small. The two women with him look mortified, but also amused.

Friday, July 15
I slip back to the Fringe Festival for more Clown Cabaret. My friend Lindsay joins me, and we get to catch up a bit. We head to Busboys & Poets with the clowns for dinner. Then I remember my other Fringe staple, the Apple and Gorgonzola sandwich. Yum. With sweet potato fries!

Saturday, July 16
A very full day. I am volunteering from about 10:45 to 3:30. I do three box office shifts, but I’m not sure I can even guess what shows they were for. I think A Year of Living Dangerously, again with Terry and Robert. Then I think King Lear in the apothecary. There I run into Bill, a local theatre performer who saw my opening performance. He tells me it was the best college lecture he had ever scene. It’s a compliment, and I know what he means. Then I think it’s Patrick & Me at the air-conditioned Goethe Institute! The venue manager there, Kate, is a lot of fun to talk to, with a healthy appreciation of Shakespeare.

I take off from volunteering and decide to go see A Piece of Pi at the Apothecary. It is fantastic. Three male clowns who have very much honed their types and their relationship to each other, perform a series of physical comedy clown skits. They take juggling tricks and other known scenarios and twist them with clowning. One of them is “weak” and skinny. One is “the strongest man in the world!” One is quieter, and maybe not the brightest. They are wonderful.

I get on the bus and hurry over to Spooky Universe on 16th to see Emily Morrison’s But Love is My Middle Name. It’s a lovely piece as she takes us through her stories of love and not love, singing the songs that defined her life. I hope she can make it to my piece, as I see connections between them. (She does, and sees them too). Fun Fact: Emily and I once auditioned for a production of Romeo and Juliet together, and neither was cast.

When it ends, I have to rush back to the tent. The bus isn’t coming on time, so I walk. It takes me exactly the 25 minutes I have before Hotel Fuck. I’m familiar with most of this cast. The delightful Frank Britton everyone knows. I know James and Gabe, and I know who Jay and Christopher are. I’m not sure I can describe the piece, other than to say that the title accurately prepares you for the experience. I feel like part of Fringe is seeing at least one crazy, wacky piece, perhaps with nudity, and this year, Hotel Fuck is that piece for me.

I carry my script with me everywhere, and whenever there is down time, I read over my lines.

That’s the first week! More soon!

What, Lamb! What, Ladybird!

This has been an incredible summer. I have not been able to blog as much as I wanted. Okay, I haven’t been able to blog at all. I’m disappointed because I wanted to better document starting my own theatre company and launching with The Two Gentlemen of Verona. I’ll come back to that in a later post, because now I want to talk about the Capital Fringe Festival while the experience is still fresh in my mind.

Throughout last fall, Romeo and Juliet is on my mind. While living in DC, I’ve auditioned for the role of Juliet three times, and not gotten cast. The funding for a production with a director that wants me to play the role does not come through. This is irking me. I’m starting to feel the time run out. I remember reading David Tennant say that he thought once he hit 30, his chance for Romeo would be over. He got his in. At 27, I see that 30 approaching. Though there is no obvious rule about it, it seems to make sense. To play Romeo, and Juliet, one has to be old enough to handle the text, to feel what they are going through, but young enough to carry off teenage impetuousness and innocence.

I spend a lot of time talking about it with others. My roommate Karen says we should mount our own production. We talk about what we could do with it. Small cast? All women? Maybe just three of us, or four of us. It sounds like a good idea, but then we realize that Joe Calarco has already written that play.

The Capital Fringe Festival keeps coming up in the process of my discussions with her and others. The perfect opportunity to mount some sort of production. But what sort of production should it be? It needs a reason for existing other than the fact that I want to play Juliet. I begin to play with the text. How do I make a piece about Juliet, from her perspective?

I talk to other friends about it, and somewhere the notion of a one-woman show comes up. How to do it? How to make it about Juliet? I think about Kate Norris’s one woman Hamlet: Now I Am Alone. Is this piece like that, but with Romeo and Juliet? Am I just doing a short version of the play where I play all the parts? Do I just do Juliet’s scenes? I read the play again, but I skip all the time she’s not on stage. I’m surprised by the fact that the entire plot remains intact. I hit upon an idea where her scenes are the main through line and when Juliet hears about something happening, parts of that scene come in. But this seems less like a one person thing, and more that it needs multiple actors. And the piece needs one concept, not two.

I keep playing, I keep talking to people, I get frustrated messing with the text. I worship Shakespeare, so I don’t want to do all this crazy stuff with his text. I just want to do his play! I’m close to giving up on the idea entirely. On New Year’s Day I have coffee with a friend, Jessica. I had come home from a party that morning and found my first wrinkle. I have a slight freak out, not about getting old, but about not being able to play Juliet. I haven’t worked since September. I need to create a project. But creating work on your own is hard. I’m frustrated from not acting. I have some things going on in my personal life. I have graduate school auditions to prepare for. I’ve just taken the GRE. Lots of stress. And I need theatre. I talk to my friend, a fellow actor and director, and she tells me to do it. Do a one-woman show in Fringe about Juliet. Just do it. The only caveat from her is not to name it something stupid. “Like what?” I ask. “Like ‘Kickin’ it Solo with Juliet!’” she answers.

I am still conflicted. The application is due January 7th. I write it, but I’m not sure. But I can’t stand not acting. I have to do something. I realize I’m also scared by the prospect of a solo piece. Well then, I think, you have to do it. I make myself mail in application.

I get into the festival, but I still don’t know exactly what I’m doing. What will this piece be? Who the hell will I get to direct it? Can I do this on my own?

I don’t have to. On January 11th, my life changes. I meet Victoria Reinsel at a callback for The Comedy of Errors at the Virginia Shakespeare Festival. I am given the side of Adriana. She, Luciana. I know it makes sense that I am reading Adriana. Sass and strength I can pull off. But really the harder part is Luciana. We read the scene in the side hallway before auditioning. “Oh.” I think. “This woman knows what she is doing.” We audition. At some point during the scene I slap her ass as a sign of sisterly affection. I apologize afterwards, after all it’s a little personal for someone you just met. She laughs and says, “No, that was great!” Now when we meet people, she tells them we met when I slapped her ass in an audition.

It’s the best audition with a stranger I have ever had. We exchange cards and 2 days later we meet for coffee. We talk for hours. We agree on seemingly everything when it comes to Shakespeare. She’s worked for the American Shakespeare Center, and attended the MFA program at Mary Baldwin, one of the graduate schools I am applying to (and where I will eventually decide to go).

In short, we keep getting together, keep talking theatre and life for hours, and at the end of February launch our own theatre company, Brave Spirits Theatre. We perform first in June with a six-actor production of The Two Gentlemen of Verona (but that’s a blog for another time).

In any case, I now have someone I can create theatre with, and I have a company to produce my Fringe play. Naturally, of course, producing, directing, and acting in Two Gents means my Fringe project doesn’t get as far as quickly as I would like. I watch July approach and am still unsure of the final form of my play.

Victoria and I sit down and I read through Juliet’s scenes. I already know that I want to start with her last soliloquy: “I have a faint cold fear thrills through my veins / That almost freezes up the heat of life.” The question is, is it necessary to have Juliet’s death? Looking at the text, that scene belongs so much to Romeo. Juliet is awake for about five lines before she stabs herself. Plus, everyone knows what happens at the end. Is it needed to show it? Could I just end with the first few lines of the soliloquy that I perform at the beginning?

Victoria agrees with me that starting with the soliloquy is a great idea. And also that the death scene isn’t needed. But she also agrees with the little voice inside of me saying that simply doing Juliet’s scenes isn’t enough. She suggests maybe we connect the scenes with Juliet’s thoughts about what’s going on. That I write some connective materials. Something that we don’t hear from Shakespeare. Even if it is a simple as, “I never meant to hurt my family.”

This idea terrifies me. First of all, I am not a playwright. Second, to write something that has to stand up next to Shakespeare’s text seems an impossible task. I am incredibly nervous. Victoria tells me to journal as Juliet and see what comes out.

I’m scared, but I make myself do it. I surprise myself by coming up with some really interesting things. One section of it makes it into the final piece, the paragraph where Juliet (or I) comments on our first time giving sex with Romeo, prior to the Lark/Nightingale scene.

But as I’m journaling as Juliet, I also write down my own thoughts about things that happen in the play, about Juliet the character and how I relate to her. I write things that I have never admitted to anyone. When I hand the papers over to Victoria, I think I tell her that the second set is an “invented narrator,” not quite willing to admit some of my hidden feelings.

When we meet again, Victoria tells me that she really likes the stuff that I wrote as me and that we should explore that more.

So at this point I have a few things that I’ve written that I like, that I think have dramatic possibilities. And I know I want to focus on Juliet’s scenes. And I know I want to start with the potion soliloquy. But there is still some sort of connective thread that is missing. The only answer, when you have an approach like mine, is to spend a day at the Library of Congress.

I do so, planning to read and read and read about the play until some brilliant idea strikes me. Amazingly, this is exactly what happens. I sit down, with the statue of Shakespeare looming over my head, and search for Juliet in the catalog. I discover the following Subject listing: Shakespeare, William, 1564-1616 --Characters --Women. I order everything in it that might talk about Juliet. When the librarian brings me books, she asks, “Are you going to be able to get through all this?” I am, because I don’t know what I’m looking for, and some of the books will quickly and clearly become not it.

I am already familiar with the series Players of Shakespeare, which has many interviews with well-known actors (mostly from the Royal Shakespeare Company) in which the actors talk about a specific role they play. I order all 6 volumes in order to find out whether anyone has spoken about Juliet.

While I’m waiting for those, I am flipping through other books and I discover the lynchpin. Helena Faucit’s On some of Shakespeare’s female characters. This book contains a series of letters written to a friend where Faucit waxes poetic about the roles she has played and what they have meant to her. Juliet is clearly the most dear to her, for she wrote twice as much on her as on any other character. It surprises me to find a Victorian actress so enthralled with Juliet. And Faucit was not the only one of the period to write about the character. I have found my starting place.

One reviewer of the final piece noted that as a modern woman, it was “wrong-headed” to look to the Victorians, as their conception of womanhood was so different than ours. Victorians, at least as we view them, have a very unprogressive, restrictive view of womanhood, based in the idea of femininity, charm, and obedience. (Though what history records versus what people thought in their hearts could be two very different things, and I often feel that we today are not really so different as those in the past, but again, that’s another topic.)

BUT – this is what makes it all the more remarkable that they would attach themselves to Juliet. If what we think of as the Victorian ideal was completely true, these women should have eviscerated Juliet. She talks back to and disobeys her parents. She has sexual feelings. She commits suicide. She speaks up and says what is on her mind, rather than merely doing what she is told. And these Victorian actresses worshipped her. I find that fascinating! (As a note, Shakespeare’s source is written much more as a cautionary tale – we are supposed to see in R and J’s death a punishment, or at least result of, their immodest behavior. Shakespeare’s text, however, does not judge these young lovers.)

I find quotes from actors and scholars, past and present. The piece quickly takes shape. I am quickly able to create a through-line. And it’s precisely what I find engaging. After all, actors have so frequently been ignored when it came to Shakespeare scholarship, something that has thankfully been changing in recent years. Of course, this is yet another reason why it is amazing to discover these documents actresses have left behind.

I’m still struggling with the form. I dream frequently about this play, which makes me all the more anxious. But one day in a fit of panic, when my brain will not shut off, I see in my head how the play should end. Helena Faucit’s writing allows me to start with the soliloquy, as I wanted to. And I realize the emotional place the play has to go to in order to end with it as well. But this time it’s not Juliet speak those lines, it’s me.

The question remains how to present these quotes? My brain tells me that I should project the names when I am quoting someone, thereby making it clear when I am speaking as myself, and when as someone else. How Moises Kaufman should the script be? Should I say the persons name before each quote? I think the projections are enough. How much like Gross Indecency should this be? Do I need to inhabit a character for each of these writers? Do I need to use accents???

We decide no. To just keep it simple.

I am a bundle of nerves when I hand the script to Victoria. I pace about the room as she reads over it. She comes to the final page. She looks up to me, nods, and says, "I like it."

The script is finished, at least for this incarnation. Three things are interwoven. Shakespeare’s text. Quotes from scholars and actors. My own opinions and memories. I have never seen a play like this. I have no idea whether it will work. I tell people it is halfway between a play and a paper. Will the play part work to support my thesis? Will the paper part be dramatically viable? We shall find out at the Capital Fringe Festival.

to be continued…

Titus Androgynous, Second Performance

The second performance was less frantic, and a little more polished, in terms of lines, entrances and exits, props, etc. Still, there were surprises and there were many moments that were different from the night before.


One of the results of not having a rehearsal process with a tech week is that costume problems don't get discovered before the show is in front of an audience. Shannon, our Titus, had to adjust her costume for the Sunday matinee, for she discovered last night that her wooden dagger kept falling out of her sash. Saturday night it actually happened in the final banquet scene when Saturninus and Tamora had sat down to eat. Shannon played it off great: she picked the dagger back up and smiled with sheepish innocence as if to say "how did that get there??"

On Sunday it was another person's sash that caused some live theatre magic. This was near the opening of the play after Titus has declared Saturninus the emperor. Sarah was speechifying and her sash had come off her shoulder. As she moved and strode around the stage it slowly slipped down her body, and the rest of us stood on stage wondering how to help her. It finally started tangling around her ankles, and there was this moment we all had -- will this make her trip?? So Shannon said "Madam--" (again, interesting gender coloring -- the ad lib was automatically feminine, though in the text we keep all masculine pronouns). This brought the sash to Sarah's attention. Sarah stayed 100% in character, laughed it off, and said something along the lines of "Oh! I am embarrassing myself in front of the tribunes! One gets so excepted with you are made Emperor of Rome!" And she sold the ad lib so well that there were members of the cast that did not realize the lines weren't part of the text.


We also had a great moment of an actor impulse creating "accidental" blocking that turned out to be oh-so-right. In a moment I'll talk about another choice of JJ's (our Tamora) that I got to ask him about, but I did not remember to ask whether he meant for this moment to happen the way it did, or if it just occurred (what I'm about to describe did not happen during the Saturday performance).

It is the scene after Bassianus has stolen Lavinia from Saturninus. Titus has slain one of his sons in the fight. They are all met before the Emperor, and Tamora pleads with the Emperor to be merciful and forgive Titus. Tamora says:

Then at my suit look graciously on him,
My Lord, be ruled by me, be won at last,
Yield at intreats, and then let me alone:  
I'll find a day to massacre them all,
And ‘rase their faction, and their family,  
The cruel Father, and his traitorous sons,  
To whom I sued for my dear son's life.  
And make them know what 'tis to let a Queen
Kneel in the streetes, and beg for grace in vain.  
Come, come, sweet Emperor, come Andronicus.

At some point during this speech, JJ walked over to Shannon, put his hand on her shoulder, and forced her to kneel. Titus's sons then had to follow suit. I found this fascinating: a) due to the reverse gender, our Tamora is taller than our Titus, and so it is believable that Tamora could have some amount of physical power over Titus; and b) because of what the text brings next.

Saturninus. Rise Titus, rise, my Empress hath prevailed.

So Titus and his sons stand back up. The scene continues:

Titus.  I thank your Majesty, and her, my Lord.  
These words, these looks, infuse new life in me.

Tamora.  Titus, I am incorporate in Rome,  
A Roman now adopted happily.  
And must advise the Emperor for his good,  
This day all quarrels die Andronicus.
Sweet Emperor, we must all be friends,  
The Tribune and his Nephews kneel for grace.

Instead of this line becoming a description of what was happening, JJ played it as a command. Titus and his sons were forced to kneel twice in a very short amount of time, a humiliating action. In the scene playing out this way, it became very clear how much Tamora was toying with the Andronici.


My final lines changed as well. Sara had mentioned when we were working out fights on Saturday that when Saturninus is killed her crown fell off her head and made a huge thump. She pointed out that it may be on the floor for someone to give to Lucius. I said I may be able to, but it depended on where the blocking fell at that moment. On Saturday night I couldn't do anything with the crown because it fell behind Sara, and close to her body. I couldn't really see where it was, and it would have been awkward to try and get it.

When Saturninus died at the Sunday matinee, however, the crown slid off her head, and the momentum caused it to slide along the floor towards me. It was close to me, and very much in my character's awareness. From my point of view, Lucius seemed to notice the crown as well. It certainly gave me a "how can I turn this situation to my advantage?" feeling.

So when it came to my line, I was able to pick up the crown, stride to the center of the playing space, and kneel before Lucius, presenting the crown. Now that the crown's been picked up, the issue is created of where does it go - does it end up on Lucius's head? If so, who puts it there? Elizabeth told me that when this happened, she had a moment of "how do I deal with this crown before me?" but then her text gives her the answer. Lucius says:

Thanks gentle Romanes, may I govern so,  
To heal Rome's harms, and wipe away her woe.  
But gentle people, give me time awhile,  
For Nature puts me to a heavy task:
Stand all aloof.

So she/he was able to waive off the crown with "give me time awhile."


We had a great talkback after the Sunday matinee with our audience. We spent a while discussing gender, and what the swapping did. Some audience members said they got used to it pretty quickly, and it didn't matter; some said they never quite got used to it. We discussed whether it made the play even darker to have feminine bodies performing these acts of violence.

There was also a discussion about why Titus Andronicus was chosen. Many audience members seemed less familiar with it, and Cyndi, our Bassianus, pointed out that at one point in Philadelphia, over 100 years passed between productions of this play. Felipe, our Lavinia, pointed out that theatres find extremely violent plays difficult to pull off. We live in a movie society, and movies have vast technology that can make anything seem real. In a very violent play you have to work harder to convince the audience, because if they see the holes in the combat or the blood work, it no longer seems real. I pointed out that the play also has a reputation as "lesser Shakespeare" and that attributes to it being done less often.

We also talked about the nature of the Bare Bard and whether they are as successful with tragedies as they are with comedies. One of our audience members said that he prefers seeing comedies on the Saturday night, because the frantic energy and the mistakes add to the fun, but he likes seeing the tragedies on the Sunday matinee, because they are well served by the extra bit of polish.


Speaking about the spin the changed gender put on the play reminded me that I had a specific moment I wanted to ask JJ about. In Tamora's scene with Aaron, Tamora has a line comparing the two of them to the Prince and Dido. JJ gestured to himself on the word "prince" when normally Dido, the Queen of Carthage, would be the equivalent one in the story to Tamora. I asked him if that was a conscious choice, or did he do it automatically because of inherent male identification with the word "prince?" JJ said it was a conscious choice because he decided that in this version, his Tamora, being male, was the Prince in the story. The choice certainly worked in the context, the moment passes so quickly, and the word "prince" highlights Tamora's status as royalty, particularly with an audience not immediately familiar with the background of such classical allusions.

It was a fascinating weekend, as a Shakespearean, and as an actor, and I certainly hope they will have me back again in the future!

Titus Androgynous, First Performance

I have survived my first Bare Bard at Maryland Shakespeare Festival. This one certainly had a lot going on: violence, no rehearsal, large cast, plus the reverse gender cast. Things certainly went wrong on Saturday night: people of course had to call line, entrances and exits were flubbed, props were forgotten, but in the end, we did the play. The story happened. That was what I found remarkable.

The moment that I had mentioned before was near the end of the play. All the deaths have occurred and Marcus and Lucius have speeches explaining what has occurred and asking for pardon from the Roman people. Aemilius, who up to now is really just a messenger with a name, steps forward and declares Lucius to be emperor. Aemilius takes the reins and what he says happens. “Lucius our Emperor, for well I know / The common voice do cry it shall be so.” My joke is that I am Aemilius the Emperor Maker, as opposed to Warwick the King Maker. (Oh nerdy obscure Shakespeare jokes!)

I was curious about this moment because Maryland Shakespeare had sent all the actors a packet of information and staging and rhetoric and language, to help us prepare for this Bare Bard. Part of the packet dealt with status, and how what words you use to refer to someone should dictate the physical action – “Sir” vs “Lord” vs “Emperor.” Due to that information, I know that when I proclaim Lucius emperor, I should kneel. And if the people onstage are listening to my line “the common voice do cry it shall be so” they should follow suit and kneel as well. In the original text of Titus Andronicus, there is a crowd line that follows Aemilius’s line, concurring with what he has proclaimed. But that line was cut in our script, meaning that very few people would have had any reason to read that particular moment and to know what was about to happen. Without the crowd line, there was nothing to point the other actors to what they should do, and it would just be up to them to listen and act appropriately. And they did. Everyone on stage followed suit. Yay!

Part of this was due to this moment occurring at the end of the play, after we had collectively had a couple moments already of “oh… should we all respond…????” and so I think we were all more aware of moments like that and more comfortable in responding to them. At the beginning of the play, Saturninus is proclaimed emperor, and we didn’t have a crowd response. We had a meeting this morning and that was a moment that was brought up – how we all really wanted to say something, but were nervous about vocalizing something that wasn’t in the text. I think we’ll all be more comfortable with that sort of ad lib in today’s matinee.

I think the most useful aspect of these Bare Bards is the sense of freshness, of things unfolding for the first time before you, because that is exactly what is happening. Without four to six weeks of rehearsal, the story isn’t drilled into your head. Even though we know the story, the details are all hazy for us, and that’s what allows the surprises to happen.

I had two specific moments where I felt the magic of events occurring right in front of me, or receiving information for the very first time.

The first was when I run in to tell Saturninus that Lucius has gathered an army and is on his way to attack Rome. All I knew in my head was that Saturninus and Tamora had some lines and then Saturninus says something like, “Aemilius do this message honorably.” And I respond, “Your bidding shall I do effectually” and exit. So I go on stage, deliver my message, and then I am waiting for my cue line, waiting for Saturninus to tell me what to do. What happens in the scene is that Tamora comes up with the entire plan. I’m standing there listening to Tamora’s ideas, but I’m not going to do anything until The Emperor tells me to. It was a interesting, and unexpected, dynamic, particularly because Sarah, playing Saturninus, was playing this scene a little frantic and like she/he didn’t know what to do, and she/he took a moment before playing, “Yes! We will do that plan!” It was a very cool moment to live through with my fellow actors.

The other thing I noticed had to do with the ending of the play – living through the story, I don’t think you feel that Rome’s troubles are over. It seems like a rough, violent society, and one that will stay that way. I know Elizabeth feels that Lucius is very honorable, and that she/he puts Rome first, but that doesn’t change the fact that the way we put Rome first is through immediate retributive violence. Lucius calls his son up to say goodbye to the dead Titus (the young boy’s grandfather). There is this sense of Lucius telling is son to take the scene of carnage in and learn from it. And there is this tenderness to the Andronicuses saying their farewells to Titus.

Then Lucius flips on a dime and has his speech about Aaron the Moor’s punishment. And it’s mean. And cruel.

Set him beast deep in earth, and famish him.
There let him stand, and rave, and cry for food:
If any one relieves him, or pities him,
For the offence, he dies.

It’s two very different colors, and says a lot about the character, and the world of Titus Andronicus.

Now it’s time to warmup and get ready for the matinee!

Titus Androgynous, Day 2

We are currently on our two hour dinner break, after being at the church from 9:30am. We began the morning with some physical and vocal warmups, and then headed straight into an entrance and exit run. That was quickly dispatched, but helpful because I'm now an attendant to the emperor and have to follow him/her around and now I know where I am supposed to be. I have become Aemilius, the curtain holder!

The death of Bassanius

Then the majority of the morning was spent on stage combat. There are a lot of deaths in Titus Andronicus, so all that violence had to be worked out safely. Quick decisions were made about weapons and blood (red fabric). Then we went through the play and practiced each death and moment of violence, one-by-one. Meanwhile people could go off and work on lines and text.

How do we cut of Titus's hand?

I used the time to double check all my entrances and exits. And since I have many scenes where I stand on stage without lines, it's my job to stay out of the way. So I checked the chart to see where other characters would be entering, to make sure I could pick a spot on stage that was out of the way.

We stopped for lunch, and I got to geek out more about Shakespeare (this time it was through sharing my undying love of the Histories). I got to have a conversation with Stephen Lorne Williams, a lovely man whom I had seen perform in Measure for Measure at the American Shakespeare Center. When I introduced myself to him in the morning, I think I surprised him by asking him about a specific choice he had made on the line "If any in Vienna be of worth / To undergo such ample grace and honour, / It is Lord Angelo." Williams delivered the final words with a big fat question in his voice. I knew this production had been directed by Patrick Tucker, who believes strongly that the First Folio has all the answers, so I wanted to know if this choice was suggested by First Folio punctuation, or just the idea of the actor. Williams said he think it was just his choice in the moment.

The deaths of Chiron and Demetrius

When lunch was done the last few deaths were plotted out. Then, at about 2pm, our facilitator Abbie Isaac came up and gave me another line! That's the kind of thing that happens in this set up -- you have to figure out who says random unassigned crowd lines. It certainly keeps you on your toes! People also planned the interlude music. I'm excited that a suggestion of mine, half made in jest, was accepted, and I'll be playing my recorder for it. Then we found out when the intermission is and blocked the curtain call.

And in an hour we are due back. In two hours we perform. There is little pressure on me, since my role is small, so I'm getting to observe the process a lot. When they say there is no rehearsal, they aren't kidding. Nothing we did was anything like a rehearsal. None of us know what is going to happen tonight. I am involved in one important moment at the end of the play, and I don't know where the two people I need to interact with will be standing. I don't know how or if the other people onstage will respond to the plot point that I put out there. (I'll explain more after the performance). But I'm very excited to see what happens.

Titus Androgynous, Day 1

We arrived at the church at 5:30pm. The night started off with food and mingling. Hi, I'm so and so, what's your name? Who are you playing? were the commonly heard questions, along with, Have you done one of these before? This Bare Bard has quite a few of us who are taking part for the first time, including the actresses playing Marcus, Bassanius, and Saturninus.

As we were eating the conversation naturally turned to Shakespeare geekery. The question of families appearing onstage together was discussed -- what plays have a child and both parents? Romeo and Juliet and Macbeth (Macduffs) were the ones that easily came to mind. Someone asked about Merry Wives, and that was confirmed. Then Comedy of Errors (one of the few where it turns out well for mother, father, and child), Pericles, and The Winter's Tale. Loving the histories as I do, I was able to point out Margaret, H6, and Prince Ned in 3H6, the French King, Queen, and Alice in H5, and the Duke of Aumerle and his parents in R2. Any others that we missed?

Before long it was time to stop being nerdy and time to start... being nerdy. We began the evening with group warmups. Chairman Mao's warm up, which I hadn't done in years, some Linklater, and some tongue twisters. We passed a sound and motion around a circle, and played a name game while tossing balls. This last exercise was difficult because most of us had all just met. If you had the ball, you had to make eye contact with someone, say their name, and then toss them the ball. We added movement and something tells me the act of recall along with panic, eye contact, and having to change spots on stage, felt something like what this performance tomorrow will feel like.

Then we did a status exercise. Talking about status has always been one of my favorite tools, as I feel it's extremely enlightening. The most difficult part was remembering who everyone was playing. Then as we were told we had to line up according to status, the questions came -- is this the top of the show? Is Tamora a Roman Queen, or a Roman prisoner? Actual status, vs. personal perceived status? We discovered, of course, that this is a play where the status of the characters in Rome change quite a bit. Aaron the Moor was also an interesting piece of the puzzle. In general, everyone speaks badly of him. But Tamora is sleeping with him, and her sons sometimes show a grudging respect. Part of the status exercise is about it being displayed by how others treat you and how you treat others. Others treat Aaron as low, but Aaron does not act subservient to them.

The night finished with a couple brave actors taking the stage to test out making direct audience contact in speeches and playing with rhetoric. The speeches were quite unpolished, but there was something electric about them all the same. It was very exciting to watch. Bassanius wanted to do his speech were he tells Saturninus to pardon Titus. Instead of just ending there, the actress playing Titus stood up and said her line in response, coming out of the audience. Then the actor playing Tamora stood up and moved from the audience space to the acting space. It all seemed so spontaneous, because it was. And there was a magic in that. A magic I'm looking forward to seeing more of tomorrow night.

And now it's time to sleep, for we start back tomorrow at 9:30am.

Titus Androgynous

Right now I am packing a suitcase and getting ready to head to Frederick, MD for the weekend. Once there I will be packed in with a group of actors who together will put on a production of Titus Adronicus with barely any rehearsal. It's one of Maryland Shakespeare Festival's Bare Bards, and my first time participating. The play was cast and scripts were sent out about a month ago. We all arrive (hopefully) completely off book. We get together for dinner and a workshop on Friday night. We rehearse (mostly exits, entrances, and fights) on Saturday. We perform Saturday night and Sunday afternoon. We drink.

Hopefully somewhere in the middle of all that craziness I'll find time to blog and tweet about the experience. I've been wanting to take part in one of these projects for a long time, so I'm very excited to see first hand how it all works, or doesn't. There are already a couple moments that I am curious about.

And if that isn't enough wackiness, this Titus Andronicus is reversed gender! I'll be playing Aemilius. The cast also includes Shannon Parks, JJ Area, Maya Jackson, Sarah Thomas, Lindsey Mitchell, Cyndi Rose, Liz Hostetter, Elizabeth Jernigan, Erin Brannigan, Emily Karol, Felipe Cabezas, Christina Frank, Anne Nottage, Colby Codding, and Corey Mullen. The production is facilitated by Abbie Isaac.

March 19 -- 8pm
March 20 -- 2pm

Sunday’s performance will be followed by a spirited post-show discussion. No two performances are ever the same, so come twice! $15 suggested donation at the door. Seats fill quickly, so reserve in advance by emailing Karen@mdshakes.org or by calling (301) 668-4090.

Performances located at:
All Saints Episcopal Church
21 North Court Street
Frederick, MD 21701