Two Households – Love by the numbers in “Romeo and Juliet”
I imagine you’ve heard of Romeo and Juliet. Even if you’ve never seen it, it’s impossible to avoid references to it in popular culture. It’s hard to imagine a time when it wasn’t a part of our cultural fabric and riffed on in every type of imaginable media, from children’s cartoons to action movies to popular […]
GUEST BLOG: OUR HEARTS ARE MIGHTY – My Internship at SF Shakes by Sabrina Rosenfield
(Sabrina Rosenfield, above left, served as a Stage Management intern during the summers of 2012 and 2013, and an Education intern before that. Prior to high school, she attended Shakespeare Camp for many years. She’s now majoring in stage management at Emerson College. She offered to contribute a guest blog about her experience as an […]
WHAT WOULD SHAKESPEARE DO? Advice from 400-year-old Players
In August, some sad news spread across the Shakespeare world – Shakespeare Santa Cruz, an acclaimed 32-year-old professional company on the UC Santa Cruz campus, was told by the University that it will have to close in December, unless its board members and fans can manage to re-invent it as an independent non-profit. SSC’s 2013 […]
HOLDING THE MIRROR UP TO NATURE: Casting Shakespeare for Today’s Audiences
A few weeks ago, in our weekly intern company meeting, I did a session about casting. After we went over the basics of headshots, resumes, cover letters, and interview etiquette, I set them a task – cast the 9 major roles of Romeo and Juliet (Romeo, Juliet, Nurse, Friar, Lord Capulet, Lady Capulet, Mercutio, Tybalt, […]
Rogues and Vagabonds: Pop-up Shakespeare and the history of performance
Over the last two weekends, we’ve been performing “pop-up Shakespeare” in unexpected locations in Cupertino and San Francisco, as part of the Free Shakespeare in the Parklet project. This is the first time we’ve performed pop-ups anywhere but SF, and I had some trepidation about moving outside the “only in San Francisco” bubble. I imagined […]
Sorcery and Skullduggery: The Return of Free Shakespeare in the Parklet
In 2012, to commemorate SF Shakes’ 30th anniversary of performing Free Shakespeare in the Park in San Francisco, we devised a unique celebration – 30 separate performances of scenes from 30 of Shakespeare’s plays in small parks all over San Francisco– primarily “parklets,” green spaces devised from parking spaces in front of cafes and restaurants. […]
Out, Out, Brief Candle: The Fleeting Nature of Summer Shakespeare
Do you remember summer sleep-away camp? That bubble of time that seemed to both last forever and be over much too fast, that indescribable mix of sensory experiences – the dirt under your fingernails, the smell of campfires in your hair, the taste of mess hall pancakes, the squishy squeak as each kid in your […]
My Voice is in my Sword: Violence in “Macbeth”
Last Friday, I went to see our young Shakespeare campers perform scenes from Macbeth and Twelfh Night at McLaren Park in San Francisco. During the brief intermission between performances, a few rambunctious young campers leaped on stage and at the command “Die dramatically!”, they enthusiastically stabbed themselves with cardboard daggers, chopped their own heads off […]
Present Fears and Horrible Imaginings: Making “Macbeth” Scary Today
I saw Joss Whedon’s new film of “Much Ado About Nothing” yesterday. It’s more good than bad. I got the greatest enjoyment out of listening to the teens behind me gasp and giggle at the things they didn’t know were coming. You know you’re doing something right when there’s a huge reaction to “Kill Claudio.” […]