1st Edition
Performing Shakespeare Unrehearsed A Practical Guide to Acting and Producing Spontaneous Shakespeare
Performing Shakespeare Unrehearsed: A Practical Guide to Acting and Producing Spontaneous Shakespeare outlines how Shakespeare’s plays can be performed effectively without rehearsal, if all the actors understand a set of performance guidelines and put them into practice.
Each chapter is devoted to a specific guideline, demonstrating through examples how it can be applied to pieces of text from Shakespeare’s First Folio, how it creates blocking and stage business, and how it enhances story clarity. Once the guidelines have been established, practical means of production are discussed, providing the reader with sufficient step-by-step instruction to prepare for Unrehearsed performances.
This book is written for the actor and performer.
Acknowledgments
Chapter One: Why Unrehearsed?
Terminology
Reading the Cue Script
Other Sources
Chapter Two: Meter in Shakespeare
Basics of Iambic Pentameter
Irregularities
Short Lines
Expanding –ed Endings
Expanding Consecutive Pronounced Vowels
Long Lines
Shortening Consecutive Pronounced Vowels
Unaccented Medial Vowels
Shortening Words with Medial V
Contracting "The"
Overfull Lines
Inverted Feet
Beginnings of Speeches
Within Speeches
Summary
Chapter Three: This, That, Here, and There
Onstage Alone
Including the Audience
This
That
There and Here
Onstage with Other Characters
Identifying Yourself
There
This
Hero’s Blush
That
Audience as Characters
These
Monosyllables
Audience Confrontation
Summary
Chapter Four: We, Us, and Our
Ophelia’s Flowers and Herbs
Rosemary and Pansies
Fennel and Columbines
Rue
Grouping: Collective Words
Wearing the Rue
More Examples of Singular Versus Collective
Othello and Desdemona
Valentine, Speed, and the Outlaws
Unusual Grouping Scenarios
Grouping with Audience Members
Kings and Grouping
Mark Antony, Brutus, and the Assassins
Summary
Chapter Five: Thou and You
The Effect of Thou on Blocking
Thou between King and Subject
Thou between Powerful and Powerless
Thou between Parent and Child
Thou between Lovers
Thou between Husband and Wife
Thou Overpowering I/Me/My
Thou Implied by Verb Form
Summary
Chapter Six: Following and Throwing Stage Directions
Thrown Stage Directions: Blocking
Combinations with Written Stage Directions
Times When Stage Directions Should Not Be Followed
Impractical Abstractions
Improvised Dialogue
Metaphor
Creating Confusion
Thrown Directions Requiring Rehearsal
Music and Dancing
Dead Bodies
Combat
Throwing Directions to the Audience
Summary
Chapter Seven: Cross to the Character….
Crosses to Cue-Givers
Speaking To and Speaking About
Relationship Revelation
Intensifying Conflict
Exception: Characters in Hiding
Summary
Chapter Eight: Action to the Word
Action to the Verb: Thus
Action to the Verb: Will
Future Action at a Specific Time
Impossible Actions
Prevented by Circumstance
Prevented by Practicality
Prevented by Time
Prevented by Dialogue
Playable Action on Future Verbs
Violent
Transformative
Romantic
Bawdy
Combinations of Impossible and Playable
Descriptive Action to the Word
Descriptive Action to the Word in Context
Descriptive Action to the Word: Thus
Summary
Chapter Nine: Overlapping Speech
Short Lines and Overlap
Hamlet at Ophelia’s Grave
Mark Antony with the Plebeians
Simultaneous Speech
Repeated Cues
Summary
Chapter Ten: Preparing for Unrehearsed Performance
Cue Scripts
Creating Text Documents
Building Scrolls
Casting and Doubling
Developing a Doubling Chart
Casting
Platts and Prompter
Rehearsed Segments: Performance Based
Songs
Combat
Dance
Rehearsed Segments: Practicality Based
Furniture and Large Props
Quaint Devices
Costumes and Props
Text Sessions
Marking the Cue Script
Epilogue: In Performance
Guideline Summary
Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 200 Words
Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 100 Words
Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 50 Words
Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 25 Words
Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 15 Words
Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in Five Words
Biography
Bill Kincaid is a Professor of Theatre at Western Illinois University, and founder of Bard in the Barn, an event that has mounted Unrehearsed productions of 17 of Shakespeare’s plays. He has acted in Shakespeare productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the New England Shakespeare Festival, and Chicago’s Vitalist Theatre, and directs regularly at the Crossroads Repertory Theatre in Indiana and New York’s Cortland Repertory Theatre. He is a three-time recipient of the Classical Acting Coach Award from the National Partners— American Theatre, and was presented with the Illinois Theatre Association’s Award of Honor in 2014.
