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Adam King, ASC Elementary & Homeschool Programs
Coordinator as
Romeo and Kati Grace Brown as Juliet Photo Credit: Daniel Parvis Photography |
It
is probably no surprise that year after year the Atlanta Shakespeare Company
receives the most student matinee ticket requests for Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet. Countless students
of all ages, particularly freshmen English students, encounter this play and
the wisest of teachers plan to spend one of their coveted fieldtrip spots on a
trip to our Playhouse to see those immortal words brought to life. And year
after year, no matter how we try to modify our performance schedule in order to
accommodate each and every school group, some schools are left on the waiting
list without having the chance to experience a performance. As an administrator
with the Atlanta Shakespeare Company’s Education Department, this fact troubled
me. As a professional actress with the company who auditioned for our yearly rendition of this play time and
time again only to walk away with an ever-growing sense that I might never have
the opportunity to captivate an audience with Juliet’s text, I saw an
opportunity. As a woman quickly approaching thirty coveting the role of a
thirteen year-old, I was running out of time. I charged ahead.
Out of respect for the incredible work done by our
colleagues in the Georgia Shakespeare Festival’s Education Department deploying
touring productions to schools through Georgia and, I believe, the surrounding
states, ASC had always passed on the suggestion that we “throw six actors in a
van” to reach a greater number of schools. Our two theatre both shared a commitment to present Shakespeare’s
plays to the citizens of Atlanta, albeit through completely different
performance styles. However, when the Georgia Shakespeare Festival’s doors
closed, much to our dismay and the dismay of the greater Atlanta theatre
community, it seemed that now there was a
terribly important and valuable void to fill. As a Department, we became
committed to the powerful and valuable mission that the Georgia Shakespeare
Festival began to serve school populations that, for whatever reason, simply
could not venture to us.
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Teaching Artists O’Neil Delapenha, Vinnie Mascola and
Mary Ruth Ralston as Mercutio, Lord Capulet and
Lady Capulet with Adam King and
Kati Grace Brown as Romeo and Juliet.
Credit: Daniel Parvis Photography
|
The first challenge was to adapt the script of Romeo and Juliet for five actors. Our
company utilizes a style of performance known as Original Practice, and, in
observance of that style, we rarely cut very much of a play, choosing rather to
bring the existing text to life in accordance with what we believe
Shakespeare’s actors would have done. I took on the task of script adaptation,
inspired by the incredible, hour-long Shakespeare productions
toured by the Barter Players of Virginia’s Barter Theatre, and I found a great
deal of joy in the puzzle-like task of doubling and tripling characters in
practical and thematically-driven ways. I drew further inspiration from being
afforded the opportunity to design the script to fit myself and my dear and trusted colleagues in the Education
Department. I mention that the cast was entirely made up of teaching artists
already employed by ASC because, while our Artistic Director had greenlit the
project for a trial run in Winter 2015, it was with the understanding that payroll
and other costs be kept down wherever possible. The costumes, props and set
were scavenged from pieces that we already had in-house with the intention that
Capulets would wear green, Montagues blue, and royalty purple. While not the
most nuanced of choices, the bold colors identifying clan and status certainly
helped our younger audiences keep track of who was who amidst the seven- and
twelve-second costume changes. Promotional shots were taken and every school
on our waiting list was contacted and offered this alternative experience.
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The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse stage.
Credit: Daniel Parvis Photography |
One thousand, one hundred and eight students saw our first tour of Romeo and Juliet Abridged at various
venues including one completely free performance in-house on the Shakespeare
Tavern Playhouse stage, a performance for an audience comprised entirely of
students with special learning needs and another for students in an at-risk
intervention group whose mission is to inspire and challenge Atlanta Metro eighth
graders to stay in school. That turnout was accumulated with no official publicity
besides a handful of personal emails sent by members of our staff to our
wait-listed teachers. We immediately made plans to offer the tour again,
rebranded as R&J:60, and to seek
funding partnerships to widen its scope.
During the fall of 2015, the previous cast returned
for a successful fall tour in which we upgraded the look of our product by
bringing in a professional costume designer. ASC invested in brand-new rapiers for
us to bring out on the road and our Board of Directors generously gifted us a fifteen-seat
passenger van, which was a great improvement over shoving set pieces into our
personal vehicles or repeatedly renting a van or truck. We partnered with the
City of Atlanta’s Office of Cultural Affairs to offer 1,000 free tickets to
Atlanta Public High School students at our Playhouse. In total, we reached
10,415 students. And after a year of being the guinea pigs, our original cast
will hang up our Velcro costumes pieces and pass the torch to the 2016 crew.
Based on the enthusiastic response to our first tour,
we submitted an application for the NEA Shakespeare in American Communities
grant, in which we proposed to bring R&J:
60 to schools in under-served and rural communities throughout Georgia and were graciously funded
enough money to do just that. Our six person tour troupe will visit nineteen
schools throughout the state from February through May 2016 and bring our
abridged production and interactive workshops to approximately 9,740 students
who would not otherwise be able to take advantage of our programs.
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Adam King as Romeo brings the Balcony Scene to life
as
600 McIntosh High School
(Peachtree City, GA) students look on.
Credit: Daniel
Parvis Photography
|
There is no way for me to express the
utter joy that I felt each and every day working on my two tours as Juliet, as
well as Gregory and Tybalt. I have admitted many times that while the core mission
was always to bring Shakespeare to more students, it was with no small bit of
selfish motivation that the idea for this program was conceived. For a while I
felt a certain amount of guilt in the relish I took playing this iconic role,
surrounded by my friends and Shakespeare family. The number of students that we
have reached with Shakespeare’s words and their enthusiastic reactions to
watching us perform absolves me.
Charging ahead once more, as I seem to know no other
pace, it is with attempted grace and humility that I prepare to head back into
the rehearsal hall of the 2016 R&J:60
in a new role as assistant director. I cannot wait to see what a new cast will
do with these words and I am thrilled beyond measure to send them off into
Georgia, inspiring students of all kinds. But, in particular, it is my hope
that perhaps they might inspire a new generation of young ladies who will share
my passion to utilize creativity in order to overcome obstacles and perform one
of Shakespeare’s leading ladies themselves, no matter how unlikely.
Written by Kati Grace Brown
Educational Programs Producer, Atlanta Shakespeare Company
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