Grassroots: The UK experience!

Grassroots... hmm... where to start? Well I suppose a lot of fun would be a good way to describe the whole experience for me. From start to finish, I have enjoyed this exciting and vital approach to Shakespeare. I was a tad worried from the outset about not having the usual guidance of a director and his or her 'vision'. However, the absence of a director made the experience much more rewarding. Each member of the ensemble had a creative stake in the piece and we all stumbled together towards the creation of our production. My friend put the question to me that maybe a modern day theatre goer demands more than that of the Elizabethan audience. Perhaps that might be true but this kind of theatre is unburdened by saying something or anything in particular. It is about being as engaging and entertaining as possible, a very valid concept in my opinion.

Of course this is all very good in theory and I can't deny that I was little bit petrified about performing Romeo and Juliet on the Saturday considering we hadn't even cast the play on Monday morning! Nevertheless it actually made it much more exciting because we didn't have time to agonise over decisions and we simply had to jump straight in. There was no preamble and we had to throw it on the stage, literally.

This has helped me to more properly appreciate the wonder that it is the Ensemble! We came together as a unit from Romeo and Juliet through to All's Well That Ends Well, working seamlessly together for the greater theatrical good..... or at least that's what we tried to do. I think the more we worked together, the more we established our own tone. It makes it easier to understand how an Elizabethan troupe could just turn over so many shows in such a short period of time. They knew each other so well, they could always jump straight in, take risks, experiment, and simply go for it! During one moment of All's Well, Melissa and I realised that due to the doubling up of characters, two actors would have to leave the stage, get dressed and then return; leaving a small intermission.

We took it upon ourselves to fill this small interval with some impromptu kazooing followed by a food fight involving Murray mints and Werthers originals. This sort of improvisational hoohah(for lack of a better word) would be unacceptable in a 'polished' play but it is the true vitality and improvised nature of this work which is so exciting. Anything can and probably will happen! Someone might forget to enter a scene, someone might say 'Get you to Manchester', Someone might forget which character they're supposed to be but hey that's Grassroots for you!

Once More Unto the Breach, Dear Friends!

Enrollment now open for
Henry V: Play-in-a-Day
Join us onstage as we rehearse and perform Shakespeare's beloved history!
If you can commit to memorize a scene or two, we'll send you a script and give you a part in what may prove to be the merriest and most entertaining Battle at Agincourt you'll ever see!

To sign up, send us an e-mail at:
Workshops@GrassrootsShakespeare.com

or head over to our flashy new online sign-up form at
GrassrootsShakespeare.com

Once upon a time....

Once upon a time in a large, smoky metropolis, there sat a young, enthusiastic actress at a laptop.

"Dearest Google-on-the-wall, I've been cast in a show at something called the Exeter Fringe Festival. Tell me more about these festivities."

Well Google, being the swift dutiful little oracle that it is, promptly returned with a list full of exciting information.

"Hmm", said the actress, "the Bike Shed Theatre. That's where the revelries will be taking place. I wonder what else will be happening there?"

And as she looked over the names of productions happening in this shed of theatricality, one in particular stood out. Romeo and Juliet. Actually, in her eyes it stood out rather more like ROMEO AND JULIET. She stopped right there, as she particularly loved The Bard.

"How wonderful!", she exclaimed, "This festival must be of particularly good taste if one of our greatest plays is being performed. It's being produced by a company called Grassroots Shakespeare. I must find out more!"

So back she went to Google, who led her to a wonderful site, telling her all about the marvellous values of this wonderful troupe of actors, who dedicated themselves to performing Shakespearian works as the great man himself would have seen.

"Well this sounds fantastic! Just my sort of thing! I wonder if I could get involved..."

And this is how she ended up sending an electronic letter to the players and found herself, one Saturday morning, far away from the big city, across the country in an ancient town called Exeter, with a group of people she had never met before, prompting them on their Shakespeare.


It would appear that any great, fortuitous encounter requires a mythical backdrop and that is rather how I feel about the great luck I've had in finding Grassroots Shakespeare. From a personal perspective, I feel like I'm on a lifelong learning journey about Shakespeare, but there was something about Grassroots that instantly appealed to me. There was, and is, something breathtakingly genuine about a group of people who were committing themselves to a challengingly short rehearsal time in order to give the audience as authentic an experience as possible. The RSC have great long rehearsal periods, where you're encouraged not to know the text in advance and you spend weeks working on movement and text, but here were actors, throwing modern convention to the wind in order to get back to basics. That is admirable. Learning pages and pages of lines in only a few days is in my opinion nothing short of miraculous, and yet Grassroots achieve this, seemingly with ease.

I've seen some great onstage moments, with "Get thee to Manchester" (instead of Mantua) being one of my favourites. You could almost hear the audience saying "Oh, they've updated it to modern Britain! How clever!", while we were all trying to stiffle giggles, but being true professionals, soldiered on! I loved the casting of Lord Capulet as a woman and Lady Capulet as a man, as it brought so much out of the text I hadn't considered before, particularly what an abusive household poor Juliet had been raised in. It was truly horrible watching Lord Capulet trying to restrain herself from beating her daughter. It has also been amazing to see what can be achieved with little money for props or costumes, and the fact that it really doesn't make a difference to an audience's enjoyment. After all, it is the stage, and imagination is what it is all about.

I've now completed my second show with Grassroots, All's Well That Ends Well, and I can say I've loved every action-filled minute of it. As the on-stage prompter (a common feature of the Elizabethan stage, you know), I get to see all the action and to admire the actors, their decisions, their accents, their passion, their triumphs and their difficulties. I get to see how wholeheartedly they throw themselves into every moment on stage and how they strive to produce the best performances possible, not because they long for fame or huge pay cheques like many who aspire to our profession do, but because they long to reach the audiences, to produce something beautiful, memorable and moving. This for me is the highest aim for an actor and something that Grassroots embodies.

I've made some great friends through Grassroots and I loved being involved with their work. May Grassroots live long and prosper :)




Siobhan studied at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and King's College London. She has performed in a number of roles from Sister Sarah in Guys and Dolls to Daphne Bridges in ITV's The Battle of Britain. She has sung at the Dominion Theatre, the Theatre Royal Drury Lane and the Palace Theatre and worked as a backing singer, including for ITV's The X Factor. She performs regularly with the BBC’s Radio Theatre Group, recently creating the role of Fliss in the new work ‘Flying Solo’ and Eliza in 'Cupidity'. She acts, directs and produces and has recently been presenting red carpet interviews for an online entertainment website.

The Two Noble Comedies of Errors

Several weeks ago, my wife Stephanie and I went to Regent's Park in London to see some Open Air Theatre.  Their production of Comedy of Errors was big - like, a cast of 21 people on a huge stage in front of a gigantic billboard welcoming us to Ephesus big. That big.

A week later, we found ourselves in a park in Taunton, seeing Shakespeare's Globe on Tour, also performing Comedy of Errors, and their production was really small.  Like, a cast of 8 people on a tiny stage in front of a shabby-looking tent small.  That small.

While both productions were well-acted and full of comic moments, the Regent's Park show felt a bit lumbering at times.  Its pace was just a bit too slow, and as a result, nearly every joke fell flat.  And I honestly think it had something to do with the scale of the production, because where the Regent's Park version struggled, the Globe's pared-down version soared.

Ralph Alan Cohen, founder of the American Shakespeare Center (and my friend on Facebook!), argues that original practices can free actors from the fetters of modern theatrical conventions.  In his view, all those fancy lighting cues, concepts, set pieces, and so forth, can actually detract from the storytelling process.  Think about it - these plays were written for a particular kind of theatrical experience - one in open-air, with natural light, surrounding a small and sparsely-decorated cadre of performers on a simple scaffold.  Perhaps the plays actually work better under these original conditions?

Well, I found that such is the case, at least with these two productions.  The Globe's touring version is every bit as vibrant and memorable as Regent's Park's behemoth, but it has something more.  It has the life and energy of original practices - the fast pace, the genuine audience interaction, the lightness and freedom of play.

Take-home message: smaller can be better!

And that's the aesthetic that the Grassroots Shakespeare Company was born to embrace.  The small, simple, and unpretentious feel of an Elizabethan touring company. Simply a group of actors who come together and offer what they've got, creating something that lives most vividly in the collective imagination of the audience, the actors, and the playwright.

How Grassroots Workshops Began: Throw a few cue scripts out and see what happens

Who in their right mind wouldn't want a crack at playing Hamlet?

Last summer, during our tour of Much Ado About Nothing we found ourselves with an open week in the middle of June. Several of our cast members had committed to other projects and were unavailable to perform and we had all this great momentum coming off our first two weeks of shows. We were so excited about the response Grassroots was receiving, and we wanted to keep the excitement up in any way we could.
The following is a gChat brainstorm between Mark Oram and myself where we discuss how to get the word out about Grassroots during our week without shows.

6/10/09
8:27 PM
mark: i want to organize some kind of advertising blitz. see if we can get fans to help spread the word... so if you think of any ideas along those lines, let's talk about them. i was thinking maybe another event, uploading some posters and flyers to the blog, and urging people to help us get our name out...a grassroots campaign, if you will. thoughts?

alex: hmmm.

an event this week is out--unless we combine it with one of the shows at one of the fests...

we could have some sort of non-performing event next week...?

mark: oh, i just meant a facebook event, but a bbq or something for the fans could potentially be fun, although probably not cost effective.

unless we made it a fundraiser too...

alex: what if we held some sort of workshop for people who were interested

mark: ooooooh, that's a cool idea!

alex: I've had a lot of people come up to me at shows saying "I want in, how can I get involved?"

mark: yeah! same. we could totally do something like that... throw a few cue scripts at them and see what happens...

alex: yeah, that could be super fun to try out another one hour cutting via cue scripts...

really time intensive to prepare, but it could be a blast

and could help us fill that dead week

mark: right. right.

alex: and cast attendance would of course be voluntary

mark: yes. (totally unrelated ps)\ - did you watch this yet? http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tS6G1vkhc9Y&feature=player_embedded

it's hilarious.

anyway, i think we should do this. totally.

alex: what if: we get a list of people who would be committed to participating, and divvy-ed up the script and had each person only memorize one scene--switch out roles every scene.

(watching)

that's a riot

mark: it would be easier to hand out cue scripts at the event, but it would be more fun if we had committed people who could come memorized... do you think we could get such people?

alex: if they only had to memorize one scene--yes

mark: okay, let's try it.

alex: but for that to work, we need to either a) get a LOT of committed people so that we'll have enough for everyone to play one scene or

(more likely) b) we'll have them memorize some of the more exciting/memorable scenes from the play and just fill in the others on book.

by the by--if you have any down time at work, there's a book you've GOT to read

it's worth ordering off amazon

Peter Brook's 'The Empty Space'

just brilliant, you'd love it.

he's a former RSC director and the book is a collection of lectures he gave on the nature of theatre--really incredible insights

mark: thanks for the recommendation, i'll look it up!

also, b) sounds like a good mix.

alex: yeah, I think that could work.

I think it could be fun to pick a tragedy

mark: i was thinking the same thing.

alex: awesome. I knew there was a reason we were friends.

mark: hamlet, othello, lear?

alex: what about a week from thursday, in the evening. 6-10

mark: let me check that date...

Yep, June 18th looks good for me.

alex: just thinking out loud--a week day could be better than a friday or saturday evening because no one wants to give up date nights

mark: yeah, i think you're right.

alex: and good luck doing anything with a large group of people on sat afternoon--it's the default scheduling landfill of the week

selection...hmmm

what about trying a lesser known

there's so many that I've never even seen before

I'd love to expand the repertoire

and workshop could be a good time to do it

mark: sure, but we don't want to spend all our time untangling a plot at the expense of fun characters...

alex: true true

so true

mark: so histories are out.

alex: for sure

what about winter's tale?

on second thought--hamlet could be a great draw

who in their right mind wouldn't want a crack at playing one scene as hamlet

in fact what if we only gave out hamlet's lines to memorize?

everyone else plays auxillary lines on book

mark: that sounds GREAT. also, gender-blind okay with you?

alex: absolutely! that's what would make it fun!

mark: fantastic.

alex: also, what if we ask Chris Clark if we could have permission to use the Young Company cutting of hamlet?

mark: good call, that would save untold hours.

alex: so we can spend our time on cue scripts versus cutting

mark: yeah. 

alex: I'll bet we can get all the c-web kids in on this

fading flower cast members too.

mark: Absolutely. Yes. Oh, this is going to be good.

alex: we should try to extend individual invitations too before we send out an e-blast

could help our attendance

mark: for sure.

alex: ring. "Hello?" "hi! we want you to play hamlet!"

who wouldn't bite on that?

mark: agreed. it's a great draw. i'll get that script from Chris and start the cue scripts cooking. tonight we could get cast members calling around, and then this weekend we could create that e-vite to get everyone else...

alex: SO

let's start calling/messaging peeps and see what kind of a response we get

then we'll distribute cue scripts on monday(?) to give everyone enough time to memorize a scene for thursday

mark: hopefully i can get them out before then, but yeah, monday is a good deadline.

alex: and on second thought, perhaps we should try to get entire scenes memorized--I mean all the parts--it would work so much better for a workshop format

that way we can actually block and tweak some scenes

AND get through the whole play

mark: it would definitely work better. are we supposed to cast it, then?

alex: let's see who we can drum up--and then draw names out of a hat

I don't know

mark: :) casting is always the best part.

alex: yeah--let's cast it

we know we want to.

mark: alright, and depending on interest, we have a different cast for each scene? or at least different principles?

alex: yes--I think that's a great idea

mark: alright. let's get our list of takers, divvy up the parts, and make it happen.

alex: done and done.

now to figure out how to sell it...
9:16 PM

And that was the beginnings of our workshop experiences. Hamlet turned out to be such a great success that we kept on doing workshops all year long, following with A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Winter's Tale, Macbeth, Romeo and Juliet, Twelfth Night, and Julius Caesar.
Last week we opened enrollment for our eighth Play-in-a-Day production by revisiting A Midsummer Night's Dream in a new workshop cutting--which will rehearse and perform on Saturday July 31st.
Participation is, as always, open to all.
Come play with us!

Check out details for A Midsummer Night's Dream on Facebook, then sign-up here to participate as an actor!

Grassroots grows in England!

This royal throne of kings, this scepter'd isle,

This earth of majesty, this seat of Mars, 

This other Eden, demi-paradise, 

This fortress built by Nature for herself 

Against infection and the hand of war, 

This happy breed of men, this little world, 

This precious stone set in the silver sea, 

Which serves it in the office of a wall, 

Or as a moat defensive to a house, 

Against the envy of less happier lands, 

This blessed plot, this earth, this realm, this England!

     

-William Shakespeare (Richard II; 2.1) 

It's official.  The Grassroots Shakespeare Company, Utah's only free outdoor Shakespeare troupe offering "original practices" theatre, has started a new troupe in Exeter, England.  We couldn't be more thrilled!


See, I'm across the pond studying Shakespeare at the University of Exeter, and during my summer break I wanted to see if the Grassroots seeds we sewed last May in Orem would grow here on the Bard's home turf as well.  So, on a bit of a whim, I contacted the Bike Shed Theatre and arranged to perform as part of the first-ever Exeter Fringe Festival.  They were delighted.

As the festival grew near, we assembled a cast, picked a play, and began rehearsals.  This was on a Wednesday - our first performance was to be that Saturday.  You can see where this is going.


After four short rehearsals, Romeo & Juliet opened in Exeter.  Of course, the Grassroots troupe in Utah had been performing the same play... but ours was a bit different.  Juliet/Mercutio, for example, was played by Tom:

This, and other experiments with gender-blind casting, gave the show a very playful feel.  And with only a few hours of rehearsal, our performances stayed nice and loose as well - just the way we like it.


We had a successful run, with highlights including the words "live long and prosper," and "Isengard" being seamlessly integrated into Friar Lawrence's torrents of bad advice.

We also had some pretty legit fight choreography, courtesy of a couple local professionals who generously donated their time and talent on our behalf.

And finally, we had an onstage Prompter, played by our lovely RADA grad Siobhan, who kept the audience apprised of scene changes, entrances, and in one particularly awkward moment - exits as well.

Happily, our audiences took the journey with us.  The show was funny, unpredictable, and always fresh.  As we vacated the stage after our first performance, someone in the audience offered the first review of Grassroots in the UK: "That was the weirdest Shakespeare show I've ever seen."


Much obliged.  :)


As a result of our first show in the UK, we've been invited to perform an outdoor comedy in Kingsbridge later this month, and to produce a Grassroots version of King Lear for Exeter College in September!  Look for it!

Can Grassroots grow in England?

Forsooth, we can!

An Actor's Dream: or, How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love The Bard

It's the classic actor's nightmare--the performance is about to start, you've never been to a rehearsal, and you don't know your lines. Most actors I know have had it. I certainly have. Last night I lived it.

I showed up at the Castle to watch Romeo and Juliet, and, roughly thirty seconds after setting foot in the amphitheater, Alex asked me if I wanted to play Lord Montague. This is what I love about Grassroots. I said yes. Of course I did.

Ten minutes to the scheduled performance--Robbie, still dizzy from blacking out and vomiting during the last show (but still sticking it stalwartly through to curtain call), walks me through his blocking. My blocking. I write all my lines down on a little piece of paper, strategically folding it up into segments arranged by scene. And I laugh at how ridiculous this all is. And awesome.

Robbie gives me a hat, a belt, and a little strip of red cloth that acts as a tie for my costume--I put this on over my street clothes. A hammer is my weapon. A hammer. OK, I'm starting to get a feel for this Montague guy. "I play him kind of like a viking," says Robbie. OK. A viking. Great.

I'm still backstage--scribbling my lines as fast as I can while Robbie dictates--when the rest of the troupe starts playing music, doing dances, juggling, singing the alphabet, anything to give us the couple minutes more we need before the play starts. Prolonging the inevitable. Bless them.

And, before I know it, I'm onstage, in front of an audience, performing Shakespeare.

When you do a bit of performing, it's easy to lose that butterfly-in-the-stomach feeling--that sense of nervous, giddy anticipation, just before walking out on stage, like the moment when you reach the top of a roller coaster and realize just what it is you've gotten yourself into, and maybe wonder what you were thinking. But it's that excitement--that hope, that prayer that you're going to make someone smile or laugh or cry or simply feel something, that you're not going to make a complete imbecile out of yourself--for me, that's what performing is all about. The hope that tonight, somehow, is going to be magical.

Well, that feeling's here right now. In droves. I hope I don't look too ridiculous. But if I do--well, at least I won't go down without a fight.

Onstage, I try to be in the moment. I watch the other actors, I listen, I respond. They're the only clues I've got, and I'm desperate. Offstage, I read the lines on my paper, over and over again, trying to split my attention between not missing a cue and drilling these words into my head--there aren't too many of them, but the clock's ticking. Little snippets of dialogue drift through. "Palm to palm is holy palmer's kiss." "Wherefore art thou Romeo?" "Holy St. Francis!" It's a little surreal.

And I've never experienced anything like it. Memorizing all my lines, trying to create a character, and performing it for an audience, all within the space of an hour and a half, the time chopped up into entrances and exits--and, of course, the moments between. It was an entire rehearsal and run--a process that normally takes months--in less than two hours. To say it was exhilarating would be an understatement. To say it was daunting would be self-explanatory. To say it was one of the most thrilling experiences I've ever had as an actor would be pointless. Well duh it was.

It's hours later, and I still can't sleep from the adrenaline. I love all the members of this cast that I got to be a part of, even if it was only for a night. I was able to work with people I both respect adore, in a show I didn't think I'd be able to be a part of, reciting some of the most immortal words ever committed to paper, taking part in one of the craziest and most imediate performative processes imaginable.

Nightmare? It was a dream.

And I guarantee that it's the sort of dream that could only happen with Grassroots.