And The New Yorker weighs in on the Anonymous phenomenon. It does my heart good to have all this Shakespeare buzz in the air!
http://www.newyorker.com/humor/2011/11/21/111121sh_shouts_idle
Tuesday, November 15, 2011
Saturday, November 12, 2011
"Passion lends them power..."
My apologies to those of you who have been checking back in and patiently awaiting my re-appearance on this blog. Fall is one of our busiest seasons here at the Festival, and I've been out and about searching for an acting company for the 2012 summer season.
The auditioning process started in early September, when I drove up to Spring Green, WI to audition the excellent apprentice company at American Players Theatre. (APT produces some of the best theatre in the Midwest, by the way. I highly recommend it if you've not been before.) There was a little auditioning hiatus after that, but now we're in the thick of things.
Weekend before last, I was in Chicago for three days of auditions. I spent Friday at the Actors' Equity Association offices and auditioned about 120 actors - mostly Equity folk. (Equity is a labor union for actors and stage managers. One of the advantages of Equity membership is being given priority at auditions.) On Saturday and Sunday, I was at the Paskal Rudnicke Casting offices, holding non-Equity auditions. (My thanks to ISU alum, Jennifer Rudnicke, who so generously allowed us use of the space!) I haven't done a final count, but I imagine I saw about 200 actors in those two days.
Today, I'm be holding auditions on the ISU campus, where I'll see students from ISU and a number of other Midwest schools (Bradley, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikan, Missouri State, Western Illinois, and others), as well as freelance actors from central Illinois and the St. Louis area.
I visit several campuses in the fall. In early October, I drove over to the University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign. Last weekend, I was at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. Next weekend, I'll be in Texas, visiting Southern Methodist and the University of Houston. And then in early December, I'll head up to Madison and the University of Wisconsin. All these schools have excellent graduate programs in acting and strong undergraduates as well.
My last stop will be the Milwaukee Rep to see their interns and other actors from that area. The interns are always terrific and I'm appreciative that Rep is willing to host our auditions every year.
By the time I'm done, I'll have seen about 650 actors. And I'll have another 30 or 35 who will submit auditions via youtube. Of those 680 or so, we'll cast 20.
I generally spend five minutes with an actor at an audition. I ask that they perform two contrasting pieces from the Shakespearean canon, with a total time of no more than three minutes for both. That doesn't seem like a lot of time, but a director can see many things in three minutes. For example, I can tell whether the actor uses language well (quite simply whether or not I can understand what's being said) and whether the diction is clear and the voice strong enough for an outdoor space. I can also tell a lot about physical investment in a character - whether or not the actor "feels the character in their bones." Because the actor does both serious and comic pieces, I also get a sense of flexibility - an important talent in an actor who will be cast in two or three shows running in rep.
The other two minutes are spent in general conversation. This is as important as the acting portion of the audition. The acting company will spend three very intense months at the Festival, preparing multiple roles in shows that are all in rehearsal at the same time. I need to discover if the actor is cordial and a team player who will keep spirits up when the going gets tough. Most actors are really great, so I'm just looking for any yellow flags...or red flags. I won't gamble on casting an actor who gives out a bad vibe. No amount of talent overrides a bad attitude.
Of the twenty actors we cast in the company, seven will be Equity and the rest non-Equity. Each Equity actor will be cast in one or more lead roles, and often, they'll play a smaller role in another show. (Several years back, Equity actor, Kevin Rich, was cast in the title role of Richard III but played a role in Scapin with no lines at all.) We try to make sure that every actor - whether Equity actor or intern - has a rewarding summer with at least one challenging role (even though the challenges will be of a different size for different actors).
Actor's spend a lot of time and a considerable amount of money auditioning. The costs include time missed from work, travel to and from auditions (I have some actors who will fly in from the east or west coast for a five minute audition), headshots, resumes, postcards (which they send out to let directors know about current work), thank you notes and, of course, the postage to send all this out! Getting a job is a job in itself for actors. The ones who get work have talent, but tenacity, too.
The auditioning process started in early September, when I drove up to Spring Green, WI to audition the excellent apprentice company at American Players Theatre. (APT produces some of the best theatre in the Midwest, by the way. I highly recommend it if you've not been before.) There was a little auditioning hiatus after that, but now we're in the thick of things.
Weekend before last, I was in Chicago for three days of auditions. I spent Friday at the Actors' Equity Association offices and auditioned about 120 actors - mostly Equity folk. (Equity is a labor union for actors and stage managers. One of the advantages of Equity membership is being given priority at auditions.) On Saturday and Sunday, I was at the Paskal Rudnicke Casting offices, holding non-Equity auditions. (My thanks to ISU alum, Jennifer Rudnicke, who so generously allowed us use of the space!) I haven't done a final count, but I imagine I saw about 200 actors in those two days.
Today, I'm be holding auditions on the ISU campus, where I'll see students from ISU and a number of other Midwest schools (Bradley, Illinois Wesleyan, Millikan, Missouri State, Western Illinois, and others), as well as freelance actors from central Illinois and the St. Louis area.
I visit several campuses in the fall. In early October, I drove over to the University of Illinois - Urbana/Champaign. Last weekend, I was at the University of Tennessee - Knoxville. Next weekend, I'll be in Texas, visiting Southern Methodist and the University of Houston. And then in early December, I'll head up to Madison and the University of Wisconsin. All these schools have excellent graduate programs in acting and strong undergraduates as well.
My last stop will be the Milwaukee Rep to see their interns and other actors from that area. The interns are always terrific and I'm appreciative that Rep is willing to host our auditions every year.
By the time I'm done, I'll have seen about 650 actors. And I'll have another 30 or 35 who will submit auditions via youtube. Of those 680 or so, we'll cast 20.
I generally spend five minutes with an actor at an audition. I ask that they perform two contrasting pieces from the Shakespearean canon, with a total time of no more than three minutes for both. That doesn't seem like a lot of time, but a director can see many things in three minutes. For example, I can tell whether the actor uses language well (quite simply whether or not I can understand what's being said) and whether the diction is clear and the voice strong enough for an outdoor space. I can also tell a lot about physical investment in a character - whether or not the actor "feels the character in their bones." Because the actor does both serious and comic pieces, I also get a sense of flexibility - an important talent in an actor who will be cast in two or three shows running in rep.
The other two minutes are spent in general conversation. This is as important as the acting portion of the audition. The acting company will spend three very intense months at the Festival, preparing multiple roles in shows that are all in rehearsal at the same time. I need to discover if the actor is cordial and a team player who will keep spirits up when the going gets tough. Most actors are really great, so I'm just looking for any yellow flags...or red flags. I won't gamble on casting an actor who gives out a bad vibe. No amount of talent overrides a bad attitude.
Of the twenty actors we cast in the company, seven will be Equity and the rest non-Equity. Each Equity actor will be cast in one or more lead roles, and often, they'll play a smaller role in another show. (Several years back, Equity actor, Kevin Rich, was cast in the title role of Richard III but played a role in Scapin with no lines at all.) We try to make sure that every actor - whether Equity actor or intern - has a rewarding summer with at least one challenging role (even though the challenges will be of a different size for different actors).
Actor's spend a lot of time and a considerable amount of money auditioning. The costs include time missed from work, travel to and from auditions (I have some actors who will fly in from the east or west coast for a five minute audition), headshots, resumes, postcards (which they send out to let directors know about current work), thank you notes and, of course, the postage to send all this out! Getting a job is a job in itself for actors. The ones who get work have talent, but tenacity, too.
Monday, October 24, 2011
"Let me be that I am and seek not to alter me."
There was an interesting (and impassioned) article in the New York Times Magazine on Sunday. My apologies to the Oxfordians out there....
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldnt-it-be-cool-if-shakespeare-wasnt-shakespeare.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=magazine&src=me
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/23/magazine/wouldnt-it-be-cool-if-shakespeare-wasnt-shakespeare.html?pagewanted=1&_r=1&ref=magazine&src=me
Monday, October 17, 2011
" for the world is broad and wide..."
Much as it pains me to say it, there are folks who are put off by Shakespeare - who are reluctant to commit to an evening with the Bard. So, we have to woo them! The non-Shakespeares are a way to do that. They tend to sell well and bring out a
different audience. And that’s good for us. New
people get introduced to our space, our actors, and all the fun of coming out
to Ewing. We hope they'll have such a good time that they can't resist coming back for a different show...one by that guy from Stratford!
To put some hard facts to all this...last summer, our non-Shakespeare production was Complete
Works of Shakespeare - Abridged, and it
sold at around 81%. If we take out the figures for the rained out show,
the percentage is closer to 87%. We only had three houses that were under
80% for this show - all of them early in the season when we traditionally have
smaller houses.
In contrast, The Winter's Tale played at 68% and Romeo and Juliet at 66%. There were more performances of R&J, so the percentages are a little misleading - we actually did more traffic for the story of the young lovers. But even with the popularity of R&J (and we saw a lot more teens coming through the gate for this show), it didn't hit the numbers of Complete Works.
In contrast, The Winter's Tale played at 68% and Romeo and Juliet at 66%. There were more performances of R&J, so the percentages are a little misleading - we actually did more traffic for the story of the young lovers. But even with the popularity of R&J (and we saw a lot more teens coming through the gate for this show), it didn't hit the numbers of Complete Works.
What's most important is that some of the patrons who "tried us out" by seeing Complete Works came back to see one of the other shows. When we did Complete Works four years ago, one new patron told me that he'd never seen a Shakespeare play in his life, but that he now wanted to read and see them all. That was a wonderful thing to hear!
It’s important for every theatre to continue to expand its audience base - to bring in younger people and those folks who "don't go to theatre." Our non-Shakespeares are one way the Festival can do it.
We are not alone, by the way, in this move away from all-Shakespeare, as a survey of any of the major summer Shakespeare festivals will show. Utah Shakes even featured the following link to an article about this on the homepage of their web site early last summer. It's worth a read:
And by the way, the Illinois Shakespeare did its first
non-Shakespeare in 1989. The play
was She Stoops to Conquer - like The Rivals, a very funny English play!
Next week, I'll have some things to say about our morning shows for families. Until then...
Next week, I'll have some things to say about our morning shows for families. Until then...
Monday, October 10, 2011
"I'll have these Players play something like..."
So, we're off and running with plans for the summer 2012 season. We're calling it our season of love, lies, deceit, and secret identities - As You Like It, Othello, The Rivals (by Richard Brinsley Sheridan), and a 55-minute family-friendly version of Comedy of Errors. It promises to be exciting.
I'm often asked how we choose a season. The process of selecting this one began over a year ago. First stop - a look at our production history to see which plays were "moving into rotation." Shakespeare left us only 37 published plays, so we come back to our favorites again and again. The Festival has done some of the most popular - Midsummer, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet - more than 10 times in its 34 year history.
Of course, no matter how much we love a play or how interested we might be to see how the next artistic team will attack it, we want to give them all a regular rest. Generally, we wait six years or more to bring any play back. That automatically took 15 plays out of the running for 2012. (I'll include a list of our full production history later.)
Once AYLI was on the list, I started looking at the histories and tragedies - something to balance out the comedy. I'd heard quite a few requests for a history play from patrons last summer. We haven't done Henry IV, Part 1 in a long time (since 1994), so that went under serious consideration. But it has a very large cast and that would mean hiring 3 to 4 more actors than we did last year. Additional costs would include housing them and putting all those extra bodies in costumes. That didn't seem like a smart economic decision right now. I was also very interested in Troilus and Cressida. In 34 years, we've never found occasion to do this one. It's a difficult play and pretty dark, but also powerful, with great resonance for our contemporary American culture. Unfortunately, this one has a large cast, too - and would probably not be a big seller.
And that matters. While it would be nice to let our artistic desires completely dictate our choices, theatre has the same concerns as every other business. We have to make sure we aren't spending more money than we can bring in through ticket sales, contributions, and grants. A balance has to be struck...which is why it often takes so long to come up with a good season - one that serves the Festival artistically as well as financially.
Eventually, we settled on Othello. It's a great play - one of my favorites - a big emotional play with strong cultural and political undercurrents. And it has one of Shakespeare's greatest villains! It's always a challenge to find a good Othello - but I feel confident we'll find the right actor for this.
So, that's our two Shakespeares on the big stage. I'll leave discussion of our non-Shakespeare selection for the next posting. And in the posting after that, I'll chat about our Theatre for Young Audiences show. Until next time...
I'm often asked how we choose a season. The process of selecting this one began over a year ago. First stop - a look at our production history to see which plays were "moving into rotation." Shakespeare left us only 37 published plays, so we come back to our favorites again and again. The Festival has done some of the most popular - Midsummer, Hamlet, Taming of the Shrew, Romeo and Juliet - more than 10 times in its 34 year history.
Of course, no matter how much we love a play or how interested we might be to see how the next artistic team will attack it, we want to give them all a regular rest. Generally, we wait six years or more to bring any play back. That automatically took 15 plays out of the running for 2012. (I'll include a list of our full production history later.)
The comedies are very popular with our audiences, so we do one almost every year. In some ways, selection of the comedy is easy since there are a finite number of Shakespearean comedies. As You Like It, Comedy of Errors, Love's Labors Lost, Merry Wives of Windsor, A Midsummer Night's Dream, Much Ado About Nothing, Taming of the Shrew, Twelfth Night, and Two Gentlemen of Verona - that's about it. The Merchant of Venice is sometimes classified as a comedy, too, but it's hard to see it as funny today.
Warming up in the bullpen this year were As You Like It, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night was questionable because we'd done it in 2005 - so it's just barely out of its six year hiatus. And we did Two Gents last year at ISU, so some of our audience had seen it recently. AYLI seemed a good pick. It's a comedy but has interesting things to say about politics and power - great for an election year. And it has a number of great roles for young women - Rosalind, Celia, Audrey, and Phoebe - an important consideration for 2012 because the Festival is part of the School of Theatre at Illinois State University, and this year there will be four actresses from the graduate acting program auditioning for the Festival. While there's no guarantee that they'll get one of these roles, I want to give them something to shoot for. (Those of you who saw the shows last summer saw these women on stage doing amazing work in roles large and small.)
Warming up in the bullpen this year were As You Like It, Two Gentlemen of Verona, and Twelfth Night. Twelfth Night was questionable because we'd done it in 2005 - so it's just barely out of its six year hiatus. And we did Two Gents last year at ISU, so some of our audience had seen it recently. AYLI seemed a good pick. It's a comedy but has interesting things to say about politics and power - great for an election year. And it has a number of great roles for young women - Rosalind, Celia, Audrey, and Phoebe - an important consideration for 2012 because the Festival is part of the School of Theatre at Illinois State University, and this year there will be four actresses from the graduate acting program auditioning for the Festival. While there's no guarantee that they'll get one of these roles, I want to give them something to shoot for. (Those of you who saw the shows last summer saw these women on stage doing amazing work in roles large and small.)
And that matters. While it would be nice to let our artistic desires completely dictate our choices, theatre has the same concerns as every other business. We have to make sure we aren't spending more money than we can bring in through ticket sales, contributions, and grants. A balance has to be struck...which is why it often takes so long to come up with a good season - one that serves the Festival artistically as well as financially.
Eventually, we settled on Othello. It's a great play - one of my favorites - a big emotional play with strong cultural and political undercurrents. And it has one of Shakespeare's greatest villains! It's always a challenge to find a good Othello - but I feel confident we'll find the right actor for this.
So, that's our two Shakespeares on the big stage. I'll leave discussion of our non-Shakespeare selection for the next posting. And in the posting after that, I'll chat about our Theatre for Young Audiences show. Until next time...
Tuesday, September 27, 2011
"What's past is prologue."
During the last week of every season, I spend a very pleasant afternoon at Moe's, eating lots of chips and meeting with the actors. It's a chance for me to thank them for their work and for them to tell me how we might improve the Festival. At these postmortems, I learn a lot about the Festival that I don't know - and always come away inspired.
This year, the issue that kept surfacing was that the Festival doesn't do much with social media. These actors were rightfully proud of the work produced here and wanted more people to know about it. So, I promised to learn more about websites and Facebook and Twitter. And I made up my mind to blog.
I'll be back at the next posting to talk about choosing a season. Stay tuned...
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