Shakespeare was not a full-time writer without other responsibilities, like O’Neill or Williams. But what might look like a distraction for such authors—acting in his own and other people’s plays, coaching fellow players, helping manage the ownership of the troupe’s resources (including its two theaters, the Globe and Blackfriars)—was a strength for Shakespeare, since it made him a day-by-day observer of what the troupe could accomplish, actor by actor. [...]
'According to Pacini,' Julian Budden writes in The Operas of Verdi, 'it was the custom at the San Carlo theatre, Naples, for the composer to turn the pages for the leading cello and double bass players on opening nights.' The composer had to change his score to fit new voices if there were substitutions caused by illness or some other accident. In subsequent performances, he was expected to take out or put in arias for the different houses, transposing keys, changing orchestration. He was not a man of the study but of the theater.
Shakespeare and Verdi in the Theater.
posted by shakespeherian
on Nov 18, 2011 -
48 comments
Original Pronunciation (OP) "...performance brings us as close as possible to how old texts would have sounded. It enables us to hear effects lost when old texts are read in a modern way. It avoids the modern social connotations that arise when we hear old texts read in a present-day accent." The site includes
transcripts of Shakespeare plays and other writings with
IPA notations, indicating how to pronounce them in OP. It also includes some audio
recordings.
[more inside]
posted by grumblebee
on Sep 11, 2011 -
38 comments
"Theatre," says Professor Lorraine Moller, Artistic Director of
Rehabilitation Through the Arts at Sing Sing Correctional Facility, in her foreword to
Laurence Tocci's The Proscenium Cage [pdf], "may well be one of the few antidotes to the de-humanizing climate of prisons." The use of theater in prisons has many forms: from projects designed to let prisoners tell their own stories as shown in the Austrian film "
Gangster Girls" (
trailer in German), to the
elaborate, high-concept costume dramas of Italy's
Compagnia della Fortezza. Some base their work on Boal's
Theatre of the Oppressed, others on Moreno's
Psychodrama, but many programs use a more direct approach: put on classic plays, and let the play do the illuminating. That's the approach of
Shakespeare Behind Bars, the troupe at Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange, Kentucky.
Watch the entirety of Shakespeare Behind Bars,
a compelling 2005 documentary that follows the troupe for a season as they produce a production of
The Tempest.
[more inside]
posted by ocherdraco
on Aug 4, 2009 -
8 comments
