BRATTLEBORO — Have you ever wondered how it would feel to act in a Shakespeare play with little to no rehearsal?
That's exactly the sort of production New England Youth Theatre's Alumni Association is attempting with “Shakespeare Unrehearsed: The Taming of the Shrew,” a fundraiser to benefit NEYT's Angels in the Wings Scholarship Fund.
For the third consecutive year, NEYT's Alumni Association is following Shakespeare's own production schedule: this show, as in the Elizabethan-era, will afford no more than 10 hours' rehearsal. In Shakespeare's day (he died in 1616, at age 52), rigorous performance schedules and dependence on natural light meant actors could perform only one show per day, six days a week.
And just as the Lord Chamberlain's Men - the playing company for whom William Shakespeare wrote for most of his career - had before them, the young veteran actors from throughout NEYT's history soon will find themselves thrust headlong into the Bard's rich wordplay, imagery, and wit.
“Unrehearsed Shakespeare: The Taming of the Shrew” is presented Saturday, Jan. 5 at 7 p.m., and Sunday, Jan. 6 at 2 p.m. NEYT is at 100 Flat St.
Director Ben Stockman says that the main problem with most theatrical productions is not too little rehearsal, but rather too much. Actors can lose their “freshness” with overwork, he said.
“We will have one read-through prior to the performance, and all rehearsal will be done on day of the performance,” he said. “The actors are not given a complete script, but just their part. This is a wonderful tool because it forces actors to actively listen to each other on stage.”
Stockman, also an NYET alumnus, is a veteran director of more than 20 theatrical productions, including an earlier “Unrehearsed Shakespeare” presentation: A Midsummer Night's Dream.
'A radically different approach'
According to Jessica Callahan, a 2003 alumna of the New England Youth Theatre, and one of the founders of the NEYT alumni association, this immersion is “a radically different approach” to conventional, contemporary approaches to Shakespeare.
“Unrehearsed Shakespeare is really not as an impossible a task as it at first appears,” says Callahan. “All of us in the alumni association have worked together many times. We were 'raised' by the artistic director of NEYT, Steven Stearns, so we find that we speak the same language, which makes us easier to direct than a bunch of novices.”
Callahan says her troupe grew up with Shakespeare at NEYT, performing at least one show a year. She also said many of the cast had performed The Taming of the Shrew elsewhere, so were familiar with the territory.
The Taming of the Shrew has always been one of Shakespeare's most popular comedies, and one of the most controversial: The spirited story centers on the courtship of Katherine, the headstrong and impudent daughter of a wealthy Padua merchant, and Petruchio, a brash gentleman of Verona with an eye on Katharine's dowry.
Callahan says she is delighted to be involved in this production of the Shrew, but feels compelled to note that she thinks that it is “a terribly sexist, nasty play.” She says there have been many attempts to rehabilitate the comedy, but she remains unconvinced. She is therefore intrigued and excited that Stockman has chosen not to “clean up Shakespeare for modern tastes, but to try something different and play it as it is.”
All for Angels in the Wings
All proceeds from the performances will be donated to NEYT's Angels in the Wings Scholarship Fund, which helps students and their families who want to participate in NEYT programs, but do not have the financial capability to do so.
“NEYT is committed to its open-admission policy,” says Stockman, “and never wants to turn away any youth because of lack of funds.”