Shakespeare Feat. Dessa

The one brain worm from earning two graduate degrees in Shakespeare I really can’t cure myself of is the compulsion to pair up songs with Shakespeare plays. and on a drive home I was struck with the idea that surely there is a perfect Dessa song for every one of Shakespeare’s plays.

So I assigned each play a different song (no repeats, or hesitations) and honestly, they aren’t too bad. Some of the histories are a bit of a stretch, but overall I feel very confident in these pairings.

COMEDIES (Link to Playlist)

• All’s Well That Ends Well feat. DIXON’S GIRL
  “You’ve got to be big to treat pretty girls bad”
  One of my favorite songs by Dessa, DIXON’S GIRL is about rooting for the scorned woman, which if that isn’t a plot summary for All’s Well I don’t know what is.
• As You Like It feat. BOMBS AWAY
  “Thew myself with the coin / If this thing works / I’ll land first / Live to tell”
  Rosalind-the-Overthinker’s struggle to let go is a core theme of the play (at least in the ways I like to think about), so a song about going all in without knowing the results for sure just fits.
• Comedy of Errors feat. CHILDREN’S WORK
  “My father was a paper plane / My mother was a windswept tree / My little brother’s nearly twice my age / He taught me how to meditate / I taught him how to read”
  This song really captures what it is like to have a sibling, so of course it goes with the sibling play!
• Love’s Labour’s Lost feat. I ALREADY LIKE YOU
  “Don’t be shy / I already like you / Don’t care what you drive / I’m attracted to the IQ” I love this song so much and hate this play, but they fit together really well, and honestly it would be a very fun lively way to start the show.
• Measure for Measure feat. FIRE DRILLS
  “‘By definition you can’t make a difference / If the big ambition / Is simply standing sentry to your innocence / That’s not a way to live / That can’t be what a woman is / That gives her nothing to aspire to / What that is / Is just a life of running fire drills”
  No Comment Needed
• Merchant of Venice feat. SOUND THE BELLS
  “Put all your paper maps away / Mercator here can’t help.”
  Something about the inevitable feeling in this song pairs with the way bad luck for the characters of the play just looms in the background.
• Merry Wives of Windsor feat. JUMPROPE
  “Don’t let ’em talk that down / It’s still jumprope now”
  Something about the female camaraderie and playfulness of this song makes it a really lovely fit for the Merry Wives.
• Midsummer Night’s Dream feat. GOOD FOR YOU
  “I don’t bring this up lightly / Do you think that I might be / Someone you can’t forget” I just really need to see a confident and bold Helena sing this.
• Much Ado about Nothing feat. MATCHES TO PAPER DOLLS
  “I still get chills when you talk to me / But the years pass by now in twos and threes / These thrills ain’t as cheap as they used to be”
• Taming of the Shrew feat. THE BULLPEN
  “In the room with thugs and rap veterans / Why am I the only one who’s acting like a gentlemen?”
  A song calling out men for policing and judging women? For talking a big game and not delivering? Yes, I am going to make Kate sing the hell out of that.
• Tempest feat. THE CHACONNE
  “Safe in your study / Going grey / You’re at your best / When you’re alone / Above the fray / With your chaconne”
  It’s a play about obsession, so it gets a song about obsession!
• Twelfth Night feat. SHRIMP
  “Always a bridesmaid / Never an Astronaut” just fits Viola’s vibes.
• Two Gentlemen of Verona feat. BLUSH
  “You liked me in theory / I liked you back in practice” is so Julia coded it HURTS
• Winter’s Tale feat. MINESHAFT II
  “He knows how bad he acted / Knows he can’t have you back / But the fact is he can’t be happy when you’re angry / And you’re so angry”
  The way this song talks about the price of forgiveness and bitterness captures the heart of Winter’s Tale.

I have the other ones assigned, but don’t have them all typed up and out. But, I am really proud of the match for HENRY V, so stay tuned.

Jobs I’ve Worked: Shakespeare Magazine

This one stretches the definition of “job” because I never received any compensation. However, this gig is directly responsible for me ending up in Staunton, so it certainly is worth a mention.

I got this job through twitter, circa 2014 back when the character limit was still 140. Ah the good old days. Through a series of retweets, a call for stories of seeing David Tennant do Shakespeare came across my feed and I happened to have a very unlucky series of events leading up to my best friend and I getting to a screening of his Richard II with the RSC. I submitted, the editor liked it, published it, and asked if I wanted to do any more writing. Reader, I said yes.

Over the next year or so I used my status as the US Staff Writer for Shakespeare Magazine to score press tickets to shows and to conduct interviews with creatives, not all of which went to print. Regardless, it was an amazing experience. I also wrote copy for “news” stories about current Shakespeare events, most which also didn’t make it to print. Regardless, the editor gave me lots of feedback, and new British slang, like “stroppy” (it means pissy).

I got an advanced copy of Juliet’s Nurse and interviewed the author. The book was a big stepping stone on my journey to loving Romeo & Juliet.

I saw both parts of the Shakespeate Theatre Company’s Henry IV productions with Matthew Amendt as Hal and got to interview Amendt. I was working at my undergrad library over the summer and used a lunch break and the abandoned writing center offices to conduct the interview. My favorite was as soon as Amendt realized I had seen the shows he wanted to know what I thought. Really lovely.

I saw STC’s As You Like It directed by Michael Attenborough and staring Zoe Waites. I wept like a baby during the final scene. I interviewed Michael Attenborough at approximately midnight his time and he held the camera phone at a very low angle as he lounged at his house and answered all of my silly Shakespeare questions. I sent Zoe Waites a series of interview questions and she recorded her answers while waiting to board a flight somewhere.

I saw Hudson Valley Shakespeare’s productions of Winter’s Tale and A Midsummer Night’s Dream and interviewed the cast. The five person Midsummer is too this day the best small scale show I have ever seen. It dramatically altered my idea of what Shakespeare looked like. About 30 percent of the audience walked out of the show the night I was there. The cast called it “Not Shakespeare over your head, but Shakespeare between your legs.” Winter’s Tale was good too.

And of course, I saw the American Shakespeare Center’s production of Macbeth with James Keegan as the title role. I came to town and interviewed the artistic director and the founder Ralph Alan Cohen. I fell in love with the town and I came back less than a year later for grad school and I haven’t left yet.

Once in grad school, I didn’t have the time to set up interviews and revise articles, so my work with Shakespeare Mag fell to the wayside. But it was an incredible experience and deeply formative not only in exposing me to lots of good theatre, but also in that it taught me how to think about theatre critically and trust my gut reaction. And it made me a better writer.

After earning an English degree, I was very much bogged down in weighty mediocre MLA style writing. Learning how to write like a journalist made me more concise and precise in my writing.

And finally, it taught me that Shakespeare People are overwhelmingly Good People. Every person I interviewed and interacted with was so kind, generous, and thrilled about theatre, that I knew studying and continuing to work with Shakespeare would be a good thing. And it was.

Jobs I’ve Worked: ASCTC

I am feeling incredibly nostalgic for my stints directing at the American Shakespeare Center’s Theatre Camp these days. Maybe because in the Before Times this was the time of the year I would have sent off my application and would be anxiously waiting to hear back. Maybe its because I’m starting to desperately miss the theatre and the people of the theatre.

Directing at ASCTC just might be the most perfect combination of all my passions and expertise. I get to work with kids, in theatre, as a director, on Early Modern Works. What more could I ask? Oh, also working in the only replica of the Blackfriar’s Playhouse? Yeah, I guess you could throw that in there too!

So, about that job. As a director I got to prepare my script, cast my show, and, well, direct it over the course of three weeks. Both times I worked with the pariah plays, the ones not by Shakespeare, and I wouldn’t have had it any other way. Trimming the tome of Volpone down to a tight 60 minute version is still one of my proudest accomplishments.

Campers ranged in ages and experience, but they were all full of vim and vigor.

Working with them I felt young and alive and quite literally like I could change their lives. If I could teach them to be proud of their bodies and to have joy in discovering how they move and work; if I could teach them they deserve to feel safe and respected; if I could teach them that kindness, generosity and good faith are some of the most important tools to bring into a collaboration; if I could teach they deserve to take up space and to have their stories told loudly and proudly; then I could change their lives.

We never had a bad day of rehearsal. I mean, yes cue-to-cues were tedious and sometimes frustrating, but I never once felt like it was a bad day. They are some of the hardest working actors I have ever worked with, who will just put their nose to the ground and do everything they can to make what I want happen. What more could a director dream of?

The first year I directed Volpone and set it in the Wild West. I taught those kids how to saunter with cowboy boots and had them sing a ridiculously perfect Eurovision song to open it. We worked on furniture management, hat choreography, and how to stage a sexual assault in a way that told the story, but also protected both the audience and actors from undo trauma.

The second year I directed Gallathea, a very gay ensemble play with gods and goddesses abounding. We practiced acting with our thighs (trademarked “Thacting”), learned how to properly draw a bow, and staged a parent disowning their child for their choice of a partner.

ASCTC has been hands down some of the most fulfilling work I have ever done.

Here’s to hoping we all get back there again some day.

(Stay home, social distance, wear a mask, be kind.)

Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries Pitches

I’m not a fiction writer. I even struggle with blogging (see how infrequently things get published on here). And I am certainly not a playwright.

But none of that means I am not full of questionable ideas for what would be a good Shakespeare’s New Contemporaries Play. So, here are some ideas:

• Into the Woods — every woman who disguises herself as a man in the canon ends up in the same woods trying to figure out performative masculinity, where they meet Galathea and Phillida who teach them the ways. Puck/Cupid is also around causing mischief. It is all very sapphic
• The Adventures of Roland Wood — Since Roland de Bois translates to Roland Wood, we are gonna run with the similarity and tell the prequel to AYLI with Orlando’s dad as a Robin Hood adjacent renegade, which will include how Orlando is a bastard child (a headcannon of mine), the story of Duke Senior’s take over, and Rosalind’s choice to stay at the castle. It will be a drama-tragedy.
• The Calm — Years after Prospero has left the island, we find Ariel and Caliban on the island which is dying due to loss of a Magician to tend it. Together, they put aside their differences and scour the island for Prospero’s books and staff, so they can restore its music, in the process unlearning the prejudice that Prospero brought with him. Heavy handed environmentalism and Garden of Eden tropes abound.
• Living with Bread — As the first British monarch to facilitate a royal cook book, Richard II takes the audience through the basics of cooking and general table manners. As the cooking show progresses, a growing tumult can be heard without and the servants facilitating the show become more and more frazzled. At the end, Bolingbroke storms the kitchen and kills Richard. There are lots of bread and baking puns.
• The Comedy of Terrors — A rewriting of The Comedy of Errors but solely focusing on Antipholus of Ephesus, set in the 1950s America, with a classic horror/psychological thriller twist as some unknown doppleganger usurps him in his life, driving him mad and out of his own home.
• Killing Claudio — Hero has died of shame and someone is out for revenge. This revenge tragedy follows Beatrice’s vigilante path for retribution, and it is a path strewn with bodies. With Count of Monte Cristo precision, she plans revenge on all who have wronged her fallen cousin, including every man on the island.
• Original Practices my Ass — The King’s Men are preparing to open Pericles which means rehearsing at breakneck paces. Enter the 21st century academic who insists upon correcting anything the troop does that doesn’t meld with their modern sensibilities of Original Practices. Haphazard re-writes, threats of duels, and likely a murder ensues. The play becomes increasing anachronistic as it goes along. As the show opens, the play ends.

I think that’s all I have for now. I’ll likely add more as I think of them.

Wanna run with one of my ideas? Let me know–I can’t write fiction but I sure can edit it.

(Re)Search Update

Hello Friends!

I am learning exciting things and while I am proud to that I am documenting them in a properly-MLA-formatted annotated bibliography, I wanted to document them here for anyone who might be curious about textbook printing practices in America at the start of the 20th century and how it pertains to Shakespeare.

Beginning the (Re)search

I find the term “research” odd. I’m not doing something a second time, so why the “re” prefix? I’m searching for the first time. I know full well the OED has a perfectly adequate etymological explanation, but I question the term not only for its surface inaccuracy, but also because I find the term “search” more exciting. It lets me feel like Indiana Jones.

Not only does conceptualizing this as a search allow me more agency, the title alludes to my mildly alarming lack of direction. In the three months I have been working on this thesis–working be a very generous term for my accomplishments last month–I have developed three different abstracts, not merely in form but in content. And I highly doubt that I have settled on to the content that will remain constant through the year.

Despite that uncertainty, the past week of delving into my topic–the form of early paperback printings of Shakespeare’s individual plays in America–has been positively electrifying. I’ve chased many rabbits, most of them resulting only in metaphorical dirty boots and literal wasted time, but I’ve found a few gems along the way.

I’ve looked through dozens of articles, checked out books from three libraries, and given the poor people at the ILL offices their fair share of work for the week. I’ve even bought myself some copies of a 1911 paperback printing of Shakespeare’s plays.

I’ve learned more about paperback printing and cover design in the early 20th century than I ever thought I would know, and it is simultaneously thrilling and terrifying to think that I have just scratched the surface.

Basically, it’s going to be a wild ride and I cannot wait to see where it takes me.

Year (D)one.

This morning, I finished the last of the requirements for my first year of graduate school;  such an event should, probably, be marked with some self-reflection.

The year has been good. Challenging, and frustrating, and confusing, but very very good. Challenges were met, frustrations were overcome, and confusions were clarified. Naturally, new ones spring up immediately, but the obstacles make the journey interesting, so I won’t complain.

When you love something, someplace, or even someone, there’s a natural hesitance to get to know it better, at least for me there is. A year ago (to the day actually), I was ending my time at Messiah–a school I grew to love, but my time there did not start that way–and looking towards starting my time at MBC–a town and school I loved from my first google search. So, when the time came to move and start classes, I felt scared to get up close and personal with something, someplace, I adored from a distance.

My fears were unfounded.

Not to say everything here is perfect–there are plenty of quirks and issues–but the issues that we face are superficial, not integral. The actualities of the program and company might be imperfect, but the people working with and through them are good people attempting to do good things.

Reflecting on this year, the number of amazing opportunities I have had astounds me.

Within a month of starting classes, I performed on the Blackfriars Stage in a staged reading of The False One.

Over the course of a weekend, I heard more brilliant thoughts and met more brilliant scholars than ever before.

In my first semester, I performed as Hamlet, the Gravedigger, and Beatrice.

In the span of two weeks, I helped mount of a full production of The City Nightcap with Sweet Wag Shakespeare.

In my second semester, I directed one of my favorite scenes from one of my favorite shows with some my favorite people.

In the course of the year, I have seen dozens of performances at the American Shakespeare Center, all of which make me laugh or cry, or frequently both.

Over a semester, I delved deeply into Macbeth and mounted a pretty freaking awesome production with my classmates.

In ten rehearsals, under the direction of my mentor I took on my biggest (full) role to date, and not only ended up with a decent performance, but had a blast doing so and learned a ton.

Looking back on all of this, I don’t know what I did to be so lucky to be doing what I love, where I love, with people I love. I am humbled and confused and incandescently happy.

Let’s do it again next year, eh?

 

ASC: The Winter’s Tale

To commemorate the lovely productions from this season, I’m going to be documenting my thoughts for each of the shows (hopefully). Here is the first:

In staging William Shakespeare’s genre-defying play The Winter’s Tale, companies face three main obstacles: the bear, the time, and the statue. If the production successfully addresses those problems with a coherent and committed cast, the production flourishes. Luckily for audiences at the American Shakespeare Center, guest director Jenny Bennett crafted a heartwarming and heartbreaking fairy-tale, that barely flinched at the imposing challenges.

Believe None of Us

There were so many things potentially working against the performance: the late hour, the minimal rehearsal time, not to mention the madly ambitious attempt to stage three texts of Hamlet at once. But none of that could damper the power within Jemma Levy’s Believe None of Us.

Consummatum Est: Blackfriars Conference 2015

My room is a mess. I need a shower. All my clothes are dirty. I’m avoiding homework like the plague. Blackfriars Conference is over.