Shakespeare in Action: 30 Theatre Makers on their Practice

by Jaq Bessell

Overview

- How do actors prepare a script of a Shakespeare play for performance?
- Where do directors begin?
- What do Shakespeare's plays offer a designer or choreographer?
- How do the cast and creative team work together in rehearsals?

With Shakespeare in Action, Jaq Bessell presents thirty interviews with theatre practitioners from some of the larger producing theatres in the UK and the US, exploring the various processes which bring Shakespeare's plays to the stage. Actors, designers, directors and choreographers, including Eve Best, Bunny Christie, Gregory Doran and Lindsay Kemp, share their collective wisdom and experience, and reveal how training and practice informs productions of Shakespeare plays. These first-hand accounts provide students of Shakespeare in performance and practitioners with a critical toolkit with which to study the plays in performance.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781408171738
Publisher:	Bloomsbury Academic
Publication date:	01/24/2019
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	4.97(w) x 7.88(h) x 0.47(d)

About the Author

Jaq Bessell is the Director of Postgraduate Studies and Programme Leader for MA/MFA Acting at the Guildford School of Acting, University of Surrey, UK. After gaining her PhD, she spent the six years working in the professional theatre, first at the Guthrie Theater in Minneapolis and later as Head of Research at Shakespeare's Globe in London. Later, she taught acting at the Actor Training Program at the University of Utah in Salt Lake City before joining the faculty in the M.Litt/M.F.A. programme in Shakespeare and Renaissance Literature in Performance at Mary Baldwin College in partnership with the American Shakespeare Center. She then became a lecturer and fellow at the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-upon-Avon. Her work with actors is the source, form, and outlet for her ongoing research in Early Modern drama, particularly the plays of Shakespeare.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgements ix

Introduction 1

The Interviews 19

Cast

Jade Anouka 21

Ankur Bahl 24

Eve Best 27

Sandy Grierson 30

John Harrell 36

Alex Hassell 40

Amer Hlehel 46

Colin Hurley 50

T.R. Knight 54

Andrew Long 56

Jonathan McGuinness 61

Pippa Nixon 65

Juliet Rylance 70

Jonathan Slinger 76

Emily Taaffe 82

Yolanda Vazquez 87

Creatives Mike Alfreds 89

Tim Carroll 102

Bunny Christie 109

Geraldine Collinge 111

Michael Corbidge 113

Gregory Doran 117

Polly Findlay 124

Lindsay Kemp 130

Ethan McSweeny 135

Bruce O'Neil 143

Tom Piper 148

Renato Rocha 156

Claire van Kampen 161

Sian Williams 167

Conclusions 175

References 197

Suggested Further Reading 200

About the Author 205

Index 207