THE ACTORS'2020 WINTER RENAISSANCE AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE CENTER 6 About the American Shakespeare Center 8 Shakespeare’s Staging Conditions 10 About the Blackfriars Playhouse 12 Recovering the Joys of Shakespeare 14 The Actors’ Renaissance Explained 16 Cast and Creative Team WHAT'S PL AYING JANUARY 24 - APRIL 19 18 Much Ado about Nothing 22 Henry IV, Part 2 26 Henry IV, Part 1 30 A King and No King 34 Enhance Your Visit 35 Spring: Tour Homecoming 36 Summer/Fall: The Marquee Repertory 38 Actor Bios 42 Creative Team Bios 44 ASC Leadership and Board 46 Ingrained in the Blackfriars 48 Donor Honor Roll 52 Help Us Grow 53 ASC Staff 54 2020/21 ASC on Tour BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSE 10 South Market Street, Staunton, VA 24401 BOX OFFICE HOURS 1.877.MUCH.ADO | 1.877.682.4236 Monday-Saturday 9:30 a.m.-6:00 p.m. [email protected] Sunday Noon-5:00 p.m. americanshakespearecenter.com COVER: Zoe Speas and Sylvie Davidson. THIS PAGE: Ethan McSweeny. WELCOME! ou are here at the start of something. Well, the middle, Yreally, because 2020 is the 15TH ANNIVERSARY of ASC’s groundbreaking exploration of director-less classical theatre: the Actors’ Renaissance, or as we affectionately shorthand it, the Ren. When this great experiment began, ASC was the modern progenitor of a very old idea: ensembles of artists organizing themselves around a text without the aid of a director. Over the last fifteen years, this practice has been studied and emulated, but nowhere has it reached fuller expression than here on the Blackfriars stage. We’re celebrating this anniversary with another first: our first Ren Season revival. Why revive? Two reasons: 1) It’s something we know that Shakespeare’s company did and we wanted to explore how it worked in this context and 2) because this revival marks the beginning of an extraordinary exploration of Shakespeare’s history plays that will take place over the next five Ren seasons. It’s a journey that started with 2018’s Richard II, and one that we now extend through Henry IV, Part 2, then onward into Henry V (2021), Henry VI (2022 and 2023), and Richard III (2024). Along the way, we will regularly revive past plays in the cycle, so you can reconnect to the story no matter where you join the trip. And in 2025? Well, if we play our cards right, then we’ll gather to celebrate a Ren season for the ages when this company of extraordinary artists presents the full, sweeping, timeless journey of Richard II to Richard III and a whole bunch of Henrys in between. Along the way, we will continue ASC’s signature investigation of neglected Early Modern work: the comedies, tragedies, and even oddities that would have been produced alongside Shakespeare’s plays in the Elizabethan theatre’s golden age. Join us in this Ren season of revival as we renew our familiarity with characters old and new, revisit this one-of-a-kind space, and reinvigorate our commitment to the work of ASC with the finest Shakespearean actors this side of 1611. See you at the Playhouse, Ethan McSweeny Artistic Director ABOUT THE AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE CENTER ocated in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley, Virginia’s premiere classical Ltheatre is at once intimate in scale and epic in imagination—creating vital, sophisticated, and accessible productions built around companies of versatile actors. Each year we produce up to 14 productions over 3 seasons featuring at least 3 distinct companies of actors. All shows are performed in repertory with troupe members playing multiple roles in each show. We are a center for shared discovery by audiences, artists, and scholars of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and classics old and new. OUR HISTORY e began in 1988 when Jim Warren Wand Ralph Alan Cohen formed the DID YOU KNOW? Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, a traveling troupe that used Shakespeare’s ASC PRODUCED staging conditions to perform his plays. By THREE WORLD- 2000, we had performed in 47 states, one PREMIERE U.S. territory, and six foreign countries. SHOWS IN 2019, INCLUDING THE Partnering with the City of Staunton and HIT MUSICAL aided by private donors and generous THE WILLARD help from Augusta County and the SUITCASES. Commonwealth of Virginia, we built the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor playhouse in 2001. With one troupe at home and one on the road, we expanded our educational offerings and created America’s first MFA program in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin University. We also established an international biennial conference for scholars, and we became the American Shakespeare Center. In 2009, we received the Governor’s Arts Award to honor our achievement of turning Staunton into a world Shakespeare destination. By our 30th year, in 2018, we had played to nearly two million people and produced all 38 of Shakespeare’s plays (many of them more than twice) along with more than 30 plays by his contemporaries. 7 CENTER.COM • 1.877.MUCH.ADO CENTER.COM SHAKESPEARE AMERICAN OUR MISSION he American Shakespeare Center’s mission Tis to recover the joys and accessibility of Shakespeare’s theatre, language, and humanity by exploring the English Renaissance stage and its practices through performance and education. OUR FUTURE ith Artistic Director Ethan McSweeny, we Whave entered a new artistic era, treating our beloved Playhouse as a living, breathing space—a laboratory for exploring the Early Modern stage and its performance conditions in a contemporary context. In this, as in all our programming, our mission is to make good on our promise to be Shakespeare’s American Home. Chris Johnston. SHAKESPEARE’S STAGING CONDITIONS ou may have heard us say, “We do it with the lights on.” But do you know why? We Ybelieve Shakespeare’s Staging Conditions provide the perfect blueprint to create modern, engaging, interactive, and magical theatre—even when the show isn’t by William Shakespeare. UNIVERSAL LIGHTING Shakespeare’s actors could see their audience; our actors can see you. You play the roles that Shakespeare wrote for you— Cleopatra’s court, Henry V’s army, or the butt of many jokes. LENGTH We cannot know the precise running time of a Shakespeare play in the Renaissance, but the Chorus in Romeo and Juliet promises “two hours’ traffic of our stage.” We try to fulfill this promise through brisk pacing, judicious cutting, and continuous dramatic action. CASTING Actors in the age of Shakespeare were predominately, if not exclusively, white males. Women didn’t take to the professional English stage until after the Restoration (1660), so Shakespeare’s female roles were played by boys. Fortunately, we’ve moved beyond Elizabethan casting practices. We look for actors of all shapes, sizes, colors, and abilities. We frequently cast women as male characters and sometimes men as female characters. We cast actors of color in any/all roles. We believe that Shakespeare’s plays tell the stories of all of us and we want our casting to reflect that. Original architectural rendering of the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse. 9 MUSIC Musicians played instruments before, during, and after the play. Shakespeare’s plays are sprinkled with songs for which many of the lyrics, but not much of the music, survive. We set many of these songs in contemporary style, furthering • 1.877.MUCH.ADO CENTER.COM our mission to connect Shakespeare’s text to you. DOUBLING SHAKESPEARE Shakespeare's Julius Caesar has 49 characters and features the scene with the most speaking parts in the canon—15—which provides some idea AMERICAN of the minimum available actors. Henry VI, Part 2, with 64 speaking roles, might have required actors to play at least four (or more!) roles. Our actors, following these conventions, have played as many as seven roles in a single show. COSTUMING Costuming was important to the theatre companies of Shakespeare’s day for three reasons: • Costumes provided fresh color and design for the theatres. • Costumes made it easy for one actor to play a variety of roles. • Costumes helped an audience “read” the play quickly by showing at a glance who was rich or poor, royalty or peasantry, ready to work or party. However, historically accurate costumes were NOT important in the theatres Shakespeare worked in—more important was sharing stories with his audiences. Similarly, we’ll use costumes that are contemporary, Elizabethan, and everything in between to build a unique world for each play. Original architectural rendering of the American Shakespeare Center's Blackfriars Playhouse. ABOUT THE BLACKFRIARS PLAYHOUSE hakespeare’s Blackfriars Theatre was originally a 13th-century monastery. SJames Burbage purchased the property in 1596 and converted it into a playhouse, but owing to zoning restrictions, Shakespeare’s company didn’t begin performing there until 1608. They charged twelve times as much for tickets to the indoor theatre as they did for his outdoor theatre, The Globe. In 2000, at the invitation of Staunton citizens and with the support of the City Council, as well as state and private donations, we began building the Blackfriars Playhouse, the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre. As no reliable records of the original theatre are known, architect Tom McLaughlin based the design on plans for other 17th-century theatres, surviving halls of the period, Shakespeare’s stage directions, consultation with theatre scholars, and the research on the Blackfriars of the late theatre historian Irwin Smith. The result is this beautiful space you are enjoying today. Since opening in 2001, the Playhouse has welcomed over 944,024 guests to over 6,000 performances. 11 CENTER.COM • 1.877.MUCH.ADO CENTER.COM SHAKESPEARE AMERICAN DID YOU KNOW? PLAYHOUSE TOURS You can explore the Blackfriars Playhouse from the inside out, learn about its historical predecessor, and discover the inner workings of our 21st-century professional company.