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Do you perform Shakespeare at Faire? If so, please read and respond!!

Started by Redheaded_Rosalind, July 17, 2008, 10:28:10 AM

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Redheaded_Rosalind

Hello!!

I'm new here, but I am a senior at St. Mary's College of Maryland, and I am doing a project on what attracts actors to perform Shakespeare at Ren Faire and actor-audience interaction. I would love to have any performers who have done any Shakespeare at Faire participate in my project. 

I hope to perform at Faire in the future, and this combined with my love of Shakespeare is what inspired this project.

My senior project is in unexplored territory, so all of my material comes from interviewing actors and patrons.  I have a few questions which take very little time (unless you'd like to babble about Faire like I do! The more information I get, the better!)  If any of you are interested, please message me as soon as possible - I am trying to finish by the end of summer, and need material asap!

If you know of anyone else involved in an act at Faire that performs Shakespeare whether on the stage, tightwire, or a Mud Pit, please send them my way! Any suggestions are welcome!
Jingle Wench and Ren Faire-ologist


lowlandscot

Also: The Mad Mechanicals

http://www.themadmechanicals.com/

(I've worked alongside them at VARF; they are all very friendly and would be approachable, I think, if you wanted to contact them with questions.)


Queen Maggie

Since you're in MD, you should check out Shakespeare's Skum, who do wonderful parodies. As well, the faire writes a slightly condensed version of a Shakespeare show every year (it's just too much to expect people to sit still for more than 2 hours in a venue where there's so much going on, and a different act every half hour on every stage!) That is always good. I just moved out of state this year, but was a member of the company for the past ten. -there is always a lot of competition for the Shakespeare roles.

Actor/Audience interaction... that's usually about the characters on the street, not the Shakespearean ones on the stage: different type of training altogether. MDRF has just started rehearsals for this season (and the Artistic Director is probably hip deep in script writing... they'll open the last weekend in August and go through the 2nd to last of October. (Not this year, but several times in the past, they've had Shakespearean festival weekends, with companies from all around the area performing, and a sonnet marathon running all day: we each took several of the sonnets, and spoke them in order... it was such a delightful way to hear people really interpret the words... and to see people appreciate the performance!)

About the interaction experience, a former company member has recently received her doctoral degree based on research about the interactions and the use of the Renaissance Faire as a "magical space"... She's now teaching Performance Studies in  MO State University, I believe . You should get in touch with her; your senior project does have some antecedants, and you could get a real leg up on where to start. send me a private message and I can put you in touch.
Queen Maggie
wench#617, Bard #013
aka Mistress Mannerly, Goodlief Bailey, Cousin Undine Mannerly, Mother Lowe

King Henry Tudor

#4
I would refer you to contact three fellow performers from Theatrical Combat Network who have officially licensed the Reduced Shakespeare cataloge. 

Calling themselves Three Mind Vice, they have performed Romeo and Juliet (Reduced) and Hamlet, Prince of Denmark (Reduced) many times over the past three years at Renaissance Festivals and Street Faires.

Please go to www.myspace.com/theatricalcombat and contact either Ken (Ken from TCN), Gary (Captain Phillip Graves), or Russ (Russ - Reality Drift Guitarist).  I'm sure they can provide you with some interesting insights.

Good luck with your project!
King Henry Tudor VIII
King of England and Wales
Mid-Michigan Renaissance Festival