Getting Ready for the Globe

This week was fully packed with intense lessons. Whether we were working with Robin, or working with our other Skills instructors, or even listening to a guest speaker, I feel like it all connected and validated everything we've been learning about Shakespeare these past 3 weeks. I can say that I've learned more about Shakespeare in these condensed 3 weeks than I have in any Semester or Term back in my undergrad years! East 15 did everything they could to prepare us for our Globe residency and I can honestly say I am more prepared now then I would have been 3 weeks ago without our Shakespeare Module.

We worked with Romeo and Juliet and Richard III with Robin this week. He's similar to Sonia in that they both say its the actor's duty to look over the script before putting it on its feet. However, Sonia is more about the sounds the words make to help clue the actor about what's happening. Robin is more of an advocate for looking over the text and making sure you understand what its saying before putting it on its feet.

Robin was then kind enough to let us have a short Introductory Workshop with Dickon Tyrrell, one of our directors at the Globe. He seems like an insightful and lovely man who's accomplished quite a lot during his career. He gave us a small taste of what it's going to be like these next 2 weeks working at the Globe and like any good narrator, he left us wanting more! He answered questions people had, told us a bit about his own career, and then discussed why he loves Shakespeare so much, which is always helpful to get me enthusiastic. I found out later in the week that I indeed will be working with Dickon in his Winter's Tale. The other group will be working in Phil Cumbus's Macbeth. I'm actually very pleased to be acting in Winter's Tale because it is a script I have never looked at before this Term. I performed Paulina's monologue in Act III in my Voice class, which was a great introduction to the show for me. Though I've never acted in a full performance of it, I have worked on Macbeth plenty of times in classes and workshops, including Ben Crystal's from last weekend. I feel confident about Macbeth and want to be challenged. Dickon seems to really respect and love the play, so I feel honored to be working on a fresh new story. It seems so fitting to me, as well, that we will be performing The Winter's Tale in the coldest winter London has seen in 60 years—I feel like I'm apart of history!

As I said before, it wasn't my Shakespeare classes alone that have helped me during these past 3 weeks. My other skills courses—Voice and Laban in particular—have contributed to this new confidence and readiness I feel about the Globe. Our Voice tutor, Cathleen, gave us Shakespeare monologues about 5 weeks ago and used this past month to give us pointers on how to vocally perform Shakespeare's text. She gave us useful techniques to bring life to the text, like moving around every time there's a new thought to experience truthful inflections in the voice.

Tracy, our Laban tutor, has flabbergasted me with the notion of using Laban with Shakespeare! I've worked on Laban long before coming to East 15, but I've never reached a point where I thought it would be possible to apply Laban to text! Of course you can! Why has no one ever told me this before?! I always assumed Laban was strictly for movement! Looking over my Paulina monologue, its hard NOT to see when she's Thrusting, or Wringing, or Pressing! It makes absolute perfect sense to me and this new information is still leaving me in a state of euphoria (which Laban would call a movement sensation of Glide)!

I am so grateful to East 15 and our Shakespeare Module. Everyone has contributed to this experience and I have never felt so prepared to start a brief residency at Shakespeare's Globe in London, England.