Pop quiz: to whom does Juliet speak most of her lines? Surprise – it’s not Romeo. Hint: she’s a funny, bawdy woman with a vibrant imagination and a lust for life. If you guessed “Lois Leveen,” you’re in for a delightful interview with the award-winning author of Juliet’s Nurse, the untold history of one of Shakespeare’s most memorable characters.
Could the greatest Macbeth you’ll ever see be performed by an 8-year old? When author Mel Ryane thought she had reached “the end of the road” as an actor, she decided to widen the road. Find out what William Shakespeare and ten kids gave Mel Ryane that Hollywood couldn’t.
Bill Brochtrup joins the State of Shakespeare to talk the 99 seat theater plan and it’s future in Los Angeles, The Antaeus Company and the benefits of partner casting.
Antaeus is a cooperative theater ensemble founded to empower the actor and to bring classical theater to Los Angeles. The company exists to create a family of artists and audiences and is dedicated to exploring stories with enduring themes. Taking their company name from the Titan who gained strength by touching the Earth, Antaeus members — many of whom are familiar to film and television audiences — regain their creative strength by returning to the wellspring of their craft: live theater. Members of the company span a wide range of age, ethnicity and experience; they have performed on Broadway, at major regional theaters across the country, in film, television and on local stages, and are the recipients of numerous accolades including Tony, Los Angeles and New York Drama Critics Circle, Ovation, LA Weekly, and Back Stage Garland nominations and awards. Audiences, who never see an understudy due to Antaeus’ trademark “partner casting,” frequently return to see the same play in the hands of an equally excellent but very different set of actors.
Why does everybody hate Rhetoric but love wordplay? Scott Kaiser, author and Oregon Shakespeare Festival Director of Company Development, can’t repeat it often enough: take my epizeuxis please!
Louis Colaianni, co-author (with Cal Pritner) of How to Speak Shakespeare, takes us on the most delightful deconstruction of the famous “Two Households” prologue we’ve ever heard.
The Winter’s Tale: Act 3, Scene2 Hermione February 12, 2015
How does an actor give voice to unspeakable grief? Don’t fake the funk. Jolly Abraham, appearing as Hermione in The Winter’s Tale at New York’s Pearl Theater, breathes life into Shakespeare’s most *ahem* “statuesque” heroine.
The Winter’s Tale begins previews at the Pearl Theater on February 10th and runs through March 15th. Click here for more information and tickets.
Choose the words! Eric Tucker, Co-Founder and Artistic Director of Bedlam, lets us in past the velvet ropes for a look at a company that is being lauded as one of the best in New York City. Performing a piece from Act 4, Scene 4 of Hamlet, Mr. Tucker moves his audience with questions. What does Hamlet have to say about honor and would Shakespeare agree? To pause or not to pause? Is there a method to the madness, or is it just bedlam?
Much Ado About Nothing: Act 1, Scene1 Beatrice December 9, 2014
Do the math! What do you get when you cross “It’s a Wonderful Life” with “His Girl Friday?” It’s a very merry Much Ado. Actress Marion Adler joins us from the rehearsal hall at the Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey‘s holiday-themed production of Much Ado About Nothing (begins December 6th at the F. M Kirby Shakespeare Theatre.) Join us in a celebration of Beatrice from Act 1, Scene 1 of Much Ado About Nothing.
What if William Shakespeare were alive and writing today? For writer/director/producer Deborah Voorhees, this curious question led to a feature length film. Billy Shakespeare – The Movie is an irreverent tale about a modern day Shakespeare. The film trifles with Shakespeare’s sexuality, slings arrows at his misogyny and toys with the term “lack-beard”. Join the fun from inspiration to final cut on this episode of the State of Shakespeare.
“The words you talk, that’ll be the words you walk” Devon Glover is spreading the Shakespeare word in a unique and refreshingly new way. As The Sonnet Man, Devon is introducing Shakespeare to students by turning the Sonnets into hip hop masterpieces. Putting Shakespeare to a beat connects young students to the text and teaches them about the verse at the same time. It all adds up to one amazing interview as he discusses and performs Sonnet 29.
