ASOLO REP EDUCATION & OUTREACH PRODUCTION GUIDE 2016 Tour PRODUCTION GUIDE By WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE ASOLO REP Adapted and Directed by JUSTIN LUCERO EDUCATION & OUTREACH TOURING SEPTEMBER 27 - NOVEMBER 22 ASOLO REP LEADERSHIP TABLE OF CONTENTS Producing Artistic Director WHAT TO EXPECT.......................................................................................1 MICHAEL DONALD EDWARDS WHO CAN YOU TRUST?..........................................................................2 Managing Director LINDA DIGABRIELE PEOPLE AND PLOT................................................................................3 FSU/Asolo Conservatory Director, ADAPTIONS OF SHAKESPEARE....................................................................5 Associate Director of Asolo Rep GREG LEAMING FROM THE DIRECTOR.................................................................................6 SHAPING THIS TEXT...................................................................................7 THE TRAGEDY OF HAMLET CREATIVE TEAM FACT IN THE FICTION..................................................................................9 Director WHAT MAKES A GHOST?.........................................................................10 JUSTIN LUCERO UPCOMING OPPORTUNITIES......................................................................11 Costume Design BECKI STAFFORD Properties Design MARLÈNE WHITNEY WHAT TO EXPECT Sound Design MATTHEW PARKER You will see one of Shakespeare’s most famous tragedies shortened into a 45-minute Fight Choreography version created uniquely for Florida students, and performed for the very first time this fall. DAN GRANKE Dramaturg The performers are actors in the third and final year of their Masters of Fine Arts (M.F.A.) LAURYN E. SASSO degree at the FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training. After The Tragedy of Hamlet, each Stage Managers of these actors will perform in additional plays at Asolo Repertory Theatre in Sarasota, FL KELLY A. BORGIA until their graduation in 2017. DAYNE SUNDMAN Voice and Dialect Coach This production is fully rehearsed and choreographed, but because it travels to one or PATRICIA DELOREY two locations each school day, it cannot rely on complex scenery or lighting. In addition to the actors’ performances, The Tragedy of Hamlet will use costume design, sound design ASOLO REP EDUCATION (including music), and simple prop elements. In this way our performance is not so different from the theatre of Shakespeare’s time: & OUTREACH STAFF Education & Outreach Director “Torches, candles, or other visual cues could identify the time as ‘night,’ as could KATHRYN MORONEY costumes (like ‘nightgowns’)… Women were played by boys, kings by commoners; Education & Outreach Specialist night scenes, staged in the middle of the afternoon, were created by language.” RIA COOPER Marjorie Garber, Shakespeare After All Education & Outreach Apprentice ELIZABETH GUILBERT Need a digital copy of this guide? asolorep.org/education/resources ASK AN ACTOR Most performances are followed by a Video webisodes will be created question and answer session with the cast. during the rehearsal process and We encourage you to discuss what you would like to ask the tour; email [email protected] to actors, including questions about the play, how they interpret be notified when a new webisode their characters, or their experience rehearsing and performing is available. These will also be Shakespeare’s work. Ideas are included throughout this guide posted online. to spark your curiosity…. 1 WHO CAN YOU TRUST? An Introduction Whether you know Hamlet very well, or not at all, we invite you to begin to explore the play with All excerpts throughout us this fall by taking a look at a brief passage from when we first meet Hamlet. this guide are taken from the adapted script Hamlet’s mother asks why he seems to be still so affected by his father’s recent death. He answers: as of 9/16/2016. Seems, madam! Nay, it is: I know not: ‘seems.’ ‘Tis not alone my inky cloak, good mother, Try reading the Nor customary suits of solemn black quotations aloud; That can denote me truly: these indeed seem, Shakespeare’s plays For they are actions that a man might play; were meant to be But I have that within which passeth show; spoken and heard. These but the trappings and the suits of woe. (Act 1, Sc.2) Compare Hamlet’s This is a young man who sees and feels keenly: a poet and philosophy student whose description words to another of his inner struggles makes this play one of the world’s most famous works of literature. Here Shakespearean he argues the important difference between the behavior others see, and the real truth carried character’s “within.” For Hamlet, the truth of his deep grief and loss is real, more significant than dressing expression of grief. in black. Anyone can dress in mourning, regardless of the state of their heart underneath. Can you name another play where the In The Tragedy of Hamlet the difference between appearance and and truth, between who can difference between be trusted and who cannot, leads to literal questions of life or death. Can Hamlet trust his appearance and truth family? Can he trust his friends? Can he trust a ghost that looks like his dead father? Can he is important? trust his girlfriend? Can he trust himself? What is at stake if he judges wrong? Our own lives, thankfully, are less likely to end in poisoning or duels than Shakespeare’s tragedies. Still, isn’t the pressure to make important decisions without having enough information a familiar Have you been around stress? How often have you worried about making a mistake in the way you behaved toward people who seemed someone, how you dealt with your family, or took a step toward your future? And how often must to act differently than they really feel? How you take a deep breath and make a choice, even though you can’t know for certain if we’re doing do you decide who to the right thing? trust in your own life? This may be one reason why Hamlet’s struggle, in which he feels sure of “that within” but What was the last unsure of the world around him, still speaks to artists and audiences today. Perhaps the most big decision you famous advice in the play: made? Did you have all the information POLONIUS you needed? Do you This above all: to thine own self be true, decide with your head And it must follow, as the night the day, or your heart? Thou canst not then be false to any man. (Act 1, Sc.3) is spoken by a character who can’t resist the opportunity to interfere and spy on others, and who encourages his daughter to behave contrary to her own feelings. People are complicated, Shakespeare reminds us, and often their words don’t match their actions. ASK AN ACTOR Does your character act rationally or How will Hamlet take action when he thinks emotionally? he should, but still feels wrong? When he is disappointed and betrayed by so many people How do you learn from the play to make a around him? How can he – and we – gather decision like this about your character? the courage to keep moving forward? 2 PEOPLE AND PLOT Use this synopsis to create a character map. This guide presents an introduction to the plot elements, characters, themes, and production concepts included in director Justin Lucero’s 2016 adaptation. If you are reading the play, add the additional characters who do Additional adjustments to the sequence of events and specific lines quoted in these pages not appear in this may be made during the rehearsal process, after the printing of this guide. Every effort has adaptation. been made to accurately reflect the performance you will see. A complete plot summary of Shakespeare’s original, un-edited text can be found: www.folgerdigitaltexts.org/html/ham.html Two female roles in this adaptation (Horatio and King Hamlet died recently, but a ghostly figure resembling Rosenstern) were him appears “in the dead vast and middle of the night.” originally played as The GHOST is silent, but HORATIO believes it may speak men. Why might the to the dead king’s son, her good friend Prince HAMLET. director have chosen to add more women Queen GERTRUDE remarried “within a month” of her to the cast, and to put husband’s death, and Hamlet’s uncle, CLAUDIUS, is the them in these specific new king. Both King and Queen encourage Hamlet that roles? the time for mourning has passed, and that he must not seem so sad. Hamlet insists that he has every reason to be sad, and privately describes his disgust with their hasty marriage. Hamlet confesses to Horatio that he Questions of royal sees his late father in his mind, and Horatio describes succession can be the ghost that has been visiting the castle; they plan to complicated, and watch for it together. follow different patterns across time and geography. The LAERTES bids his family farewell before traveling abroad, warning his sister, OPHELIA, that while following article Hamlet has shown her some affection, he is a prince, and not free to choose whom he loves. does a nice job of She should guard herself from the “danger of desire.” Their father, POLONIUS, further instructs describing what Ophelia that she must be careful not to believe Hamlet’s words of love or spend too much time might be considered with him. “normal” for Hamlet’s Denmark, The Ghost returns again at night and speaks to Hamlet alone, explaining that his death was not Shakespeare’s accidental; his own brother Claudius poured poison in his ear. The Ghost asks Hamlet to revenge England, and modern his “foul and most unnatural murder.” Hamlet makes Horatio swear not to repeat what they have day monarchies: seen, and announces that he may find it useful to“put an antic disposition on,” or behave a bit grainofsandtheatre.com/ strangely in the days ahead. node/168 Hamlet’s increasingly odd behavior frightens Ophelia, but Polonius assures her that Hamlet must be “mad for thy love,” especially since she has followed his instructions to deny Hamlet her attention. Claudius and Gertrude persuade ASK AN ACTOR Hamlet’s old friend, ROSENSTERN, to spend time with Is there any character in this play with whom you have Hamlet in order to find out what is affecting him so strangely.