Dan Stearns, assistant professor of acting, discusses our spring-season production POP-UP SHAKESPEARE, which he is directing, as well as his background in Shakespearean performance.
Dan Stearns, assistant professor of acting, discusses our spring-season production Pop-Up Shakespeare, which he is directing, as well as his background in Shakespearean performance.
To learn more about Dan and his work, visit his website http://www.danstearns.net/ or his IMDb page https://www.imdb.com/name/nm2111108/
To keep up with announcements of dates and locations for our Pop-Up Shakespeare performances, follow us on Facebook, Instagram, or Twitter @theatrefilmatum
The Department of Theatre & Film is grateful for its patrons and corporate sponsors. As a department we are committed to the high quality instruction that our students receive. Investing in the students’ education and these quality productions helps us move toward our common goal of graduating successful, creative adults who are lifelong learners. If you are interested in contributing to these efforts, please visit https://umfoundation.givingfuel.com/theatreandfilm.
From The Department of Theatre and Film at the University of Mississippi, this is Stage & Screen.
Katherine Stewart
Hi everyone, welcome back to Stage & Screen.
Katherine Stewart
I'm your host, Katherine Stewart and my guest today is Dan Stearns.
Katherine Stewart
Dan is an assistant professor of acting and he's here to tell us all about Pop-Up Shakespeare, which he is directing as part of our spring 2021 season and it just so happens that Shakespeare is one of Dan's areas of specialization, so he had a lot of interesting things to say not just about this production but about Shakespeare in general. So without further ado, here's Dan.
Katherine Stewart
Hi Dan, welcome, thanks for joining us today.
Dan Stearns
Thanks very much, great to be here.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, thank you.
Katherine Stewart
OK, so you are directing one of our two productions for the spring semester.
Katherine Stewart
A series of pop-up Shakespeare performances
Dan Stearns
I am.
Katherine Stewart
How did this idea come about?
Katherine Stewart
And what's your vision for?
Yeah.
Dan Stearns
Well there are.
Dan Stearns
Sort of two things that that happened.
Dan Stearns
One was.
Dan Stearns
I've in the past been involved in something that people who do a call a bootleg Shakespeare where one month ahead of a given date, a bunch of people are assigned roles in a Shakespeare play.
Dan Stearns
They don't meet.
Dan Stearns
They don't rehearse, they make all their own decisions about their characters about costume ING, or if they need some individual props.
Dan Stearns
And they learn their lines.
Dan Stearns
And they meet all all in one day and rehearsed during the day and put on the show at night.
Dan Stearns
And I did a bootleg Shakespeare also several years ago.
Dan Stearns
Now with some friends of mine in Richmond, VA and.
Dan Stearns
And so there was that idea rolling around in my head and I thought of doing something like that, but then a couple of years ago, not long after we had moved here.
Dan Stearns
We were down in Water Valley and walking around with the kids.
Dan Stearns
It happened to see there's an empty lot and there was a built onto the building that abutted that empty lot was a small wooden stage.
Dan Stearns
I thought it would be fun to just come down.
Dan Stearns
Do a Pop-up Shakespeare on that stage and bring students and so it was part of looking for something to do out in the world to bring our students out into the world and do some performance and something that would be fun and different.
Dan Stearns
So when we began to look at what the possibilities were and thinking about the pandemic world that we're living in right now, and the difficulty of having an audience.
Dan Stearns
In a theater in the difficulty of working with masks as actors, I thought, well, well, if we can stage something outside, maybe now is the time to do it, and that doesn't mean that takes care of all of our safety concerns, but the hope was that there might be opportunities to perform in public spaces around town at various times various locations, and then.
Dan Stearns
As you know, we began to look for.
Dan Stearns
Some sponsorship partners and we began to look for locations and.
Dan Stearns
I'm hopeful the students seem excited about it. It's it's a. It's a interesting challenge for them taking on Shakespeare number one and #2 thinking about performing in a space where there might be passersby where there might be distractions where there might be.
Dan Stearns
People who are not.
Dan Stearns
So surly theater goers and.
Dan Stearns
See if see if maybe we can turn them on to Shakespeare.
Katherine Stewart
And you've got quite a background in Shakespearean.
Katherine Stewart
Acting yourself.
Katherine Stewart
Is that right?
Dan Stearns
Well that was my that was always my interest.
Dan Stearns
I've always loved Shakespeare.
Dan Stearns
In fact, one of my memories of.
Dan Stearns
High School English class was when we read Macbeth course Public high school.
Dan Stearns
They handed out the books to US and I took it home the first night.
Dan Stearns
I think it was Monday night and I read the whole thing not.
Dan Stearns
I had to do with the intention to read it, but I started reading it and found it riveting.
Dan Stearns
And then had to.
Dan Stearns
Sit through class while everybody else tried to puzzle out what it meant.
Dan Stearns
And of course it wasn't as though you couldn't figure out what it meant because the language is a challenge for high school student, but the book has a gloss.
Dan Stearns
You know it helps you understand what it, what it means, and I just I just loved it.
Dan Stearns
And was part of some Shakespeare productions in college and then as an actor I was in and out of the business for a long time. I was always around theater. I did a lot of work in technical production and I was doing some outdoor Shakespeare in the summer, but decided I really wanted more advanced training and so in the 2008 2009.
Dan Stearns
And.
Dan Stearns
Nine school year I had applied for and was admitted to the one year intensive MFA and Classical Acting program that is run by the Shakespeare Theater in Washington DC and hosted by George Washington University.
Dan Stearns
And completed that program and then at the time I was living in Chicago, came back to Chicago and kept working.
Dan Stearns
It worked some at Chicago Shakespeare Theater, and so it's been.
Dan Stearns
It's been a longstanding interest of mine.
Dan Stearns
And I'm glad to be able to put that to use here.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, so.
Katherine Stewart
So why is Shakespeare relevant today?
Katherine Stewart
Or why performant here?
Dan Stearns
That's a good question.
Dan Stearns
I think there are a lot of you know there's an interesting movement right now.
Dan Stearns
Oregon Shakespeare Festival, for example, has been has commissioned a series of what you would call adaptations of Shakespeare into more contemporary speech, and there's going to be a time that that has to happen.
Yeah.
Dan Stearns
Right, for example, if we want to read Chaucer, we need to translate Chaucer.
Dan Stearns
It's more than just an ad.
Dan Stearns
Notation.
Dan Stearns
Of course, what's interesting too is that someone in Shakespeare's Day would have found Chaucer pretty much as difficult to read in the original as we do. English changed tremendously into the early modern period, much more so than it has since then in the last 400 something years.
Dan Stearns
But certainly there's a lot that we miss in in reading Shakespeare.
Dan Stearns
That's one thing to say, but I think there's a value.
You
Dan Stearns
In in trying to.
Dan Stearns
Work with Shakespeare and deal with his language.
Dan Stearns
Deal with the way he uses.
Dan Stearns
First deal with heightened language as we call it.
Dan Stearns
Even if some of the vocabulary is unfamiliar.
Dan Stearns
It's a challenge for the actor to say OK.
Dan Stearns
I've looked up what that word means that word, but I never heard before until I read this play.
Dan Stearns
Now how do I?
Dan Stearns
Through my physicality, through my use of voice through Jess.
Dan Stearns
Sure, through how I use the.
Dan Stearns
Word to my scene partner.
Dan Stearns
How do I carry across the meaning of that word or the meaning of that word in context of the line or the meaning of the word in context of the whole thought.
Dan Stearns
So I think it provides valuable challenges for the actor.
Dan Stearns
That's one thing, because my first thought is actor training.
Dan Stearns
And that if you could, I think if you can play the classics, you can play anything.
Dan Stearns
You know the principles are.
Dan Stearns
Are are the same and the challenge is so great that once you if you can master it, everything else seems, I guess relatively easy.
Dan Stearns
So I it's hard because I'm I'm not.
Dan Stearns
I am not among what what people call the bar dollars.
Dan Stearns
I mean I love Shakespeare.
Dan Stearns
I think he's a great playwright.
Dan Stearns
You see, the greatest playwright in in English literature could be.
Dan Stearns
I'm not interested in.
Dan Stearns
I'm not interested in making greatest.
Dan Stearns
Listen.
Dan Stearns
If you want to make a list of the greatest playwrights and post on BuzzFeed, go right ahead.
Dan Stearns
I'm not interested in that competitive game, sure.
Dan Stearns
He's an amazing writer.
Dan Stearns
That doesn't mean that everything he did is perfect.
Dan Stearns
Yeah, the way Shakespeare gets taught in English classes all too often is that he he must be a genius.
Dan Stearns
He must be perfect.
Dan Stearns
There's nothing you know and I just.
Dan Stearns
I don't think that's true.
Dan Stearns
And actually, if you begin to learn anything about it, begin to study anything about the conditions of theatrical production, the.
Dan Stearns
Conditions of dramaturgy and playwriting in the Elizabethan Jacobean.
Dan Stearns
The tutor era you begin.
Dan Stearns
In to see that it's you know this isn't the romantic image.
Dan Stearns
It's really since the romantic era, their romantic image of the lone genius writing, you know, writing these brilliant plays at one at 1 go is not what was happening.
Dan Stearns
There were multiple people involved in any given production, and while Shakespeare certainly wrote them, I'm sure that the actors had input he was writing for specific actors that he knew.
Dan Stearns
Huh, and and that would.
Dan Stearns
He would assume that someone so would always play the clown role and so and so would play the lover role and so and so would play.
Dan Stearns
So he was writing for actors that he knew using often archetypes.
Dan Stearns
So I I guess I'm digressing a little bit from the initial question, but I think that there's there's to me this value in in treating him as a great player, right?
Dan Stearns
But also trying to expose.
Dan Stearns
Is the rough truth of what his language is like.
Dan Stearns
You know that it's full of dirty jokes and it's fully right.
Dan Stearns
Someone, someone who believes that he's he is an Immaculate genius is going to be surprised at all of The Dirty jokes, for example, or unwilling to acknowledge them.
Dan Stearns
So that's part of it is to try to give students.
Dan Stearns
Opportunity to.
Dan Stearns
Deal in an immediate way.
Dan Stearns
Develop a personal connection with this text, and I think if the students are student, actors can develop a personal connection to the text.
Dan Stearns
Then it will come across to an audience that there is a life and a vitality.
Dan Stearns
In this.
Dan Stearns
If you only ever encounter Shakespeare in a book, not to say he doesn't read well.
Dan Stearns
But if you only ever encounter Shakespeare in a book.
Dan Stearns
You don't really get the full effect.
Dan Stearns
And the way that he portrayed the great breadth of humanity and the real kinds of of moral and political problems that we struggle with.
Dan Stearns
I want to resist making.
Dan Stearns
Either any easy.
Dan Stearns
Comparison to say, our politics of the moment or.
Dan Stearns
Or making enormous claims about by Shakespeare's importance, but I do think it is true that.
Dan Stearns
If you really engage with Shakespeare.
Dan Stearns
Anyone can find things in their lives or in in public lives that have resonances.
Dan Stearns
They don't have to be earth shattering.
Dan Stearns
Sometimes they could be small, but I I think there's always.
Dan Stearns
There's always there always residences to be found, and I don't think it's in the sense of.
Dan Stearns
An answer I don't think it's the sense of.
Dan Stearns
Oh, here's the truth of something.
Dan Stearns
I think what he does really well is he presents complicated problems.
Dan Stearns
In that regard.
Dan Stearns
It is my opinion and my belief that pretty much nothing in life has an easy answer.
Dan Stearns
Nothing in life has an easy answer.
Dan Stearns
Everything is a complicated situation.
Dan Stearns
Just about some more complicated and that is some less complicated than with this.
Dan Stearns
But I I think that's what he does in.
Dan Stearns
The in in the moral.
Dan Stearns
Problems that he gives his characters in the situations he places.
Dan Stearns
Them in and I think.
Dan Stearns
The way any good piece of literature can help us grapple with problems.
Dan Stearns
He can do that, although I don't think he gives easy answers, so I think that's where the relevance comes from.
Dan Stearns
And as I say, I'm not going.
Dan Stearns
To make any kind of.
Dan Stearns
Castle analogy to say our contemporary politics or something like that and say, oh, you know, our current president is clearly this character.
Dan Stearns
Our former president is clearly this character I I don't.
Dan Stearns
I don't think that helps.
Katherine Stewart
So Speaking of engaging with Shakespeare and Shakespeare in performance in particular, and then specifically this production, what exactly does Pop-up mean?
Katherine Stewart
What what can the audience, unsuspecting or otherwise expect?
Dan Stearns
Well, that's that's a good question in my imagination.
Dan Stearns
When I first conceived of this, I thought, wouldn't it be fun if a bunch of students just ran up?
Dan Stearns
To some location and said we're doing Shakespeare and pulled out some costumes and some hand props and started acting.
Dan Stearns
But clearly we can't do exactly that.
Dan Stearns
We need to make some plans and look at safety concerns and other kinds of things.
Dan Stearns
So we'll try to some extent to mimic that, but it will be a well planned.
Dan Stearns
It will be a well planned event wherever we do it, but the hope is.
Dan Stearns
The feeling we.
Dan Stearns
Will get as an audience.
Dan Stearns
Is that, oh look, these students just went and rummaged around in their costume storage and in prop storage, and grabbed a few things.
Dan Stearns
They were just excited about.
Dan Stearns
Putting on these scenes and I selected scenes that are, you know, it's kind of a Shakespeare's greatest hits and they just want to put them on and so.
Dan Stearns
Wherever we are.
Dan Stearns
We framed the we framed the event in two different ways.
Dan Stearns
One, there will probably be some performance times where the entire group of scenes is performed in roughly an hour, and there will be other times where we may do one scene every half an hour over the course of a few hours.
Dan Stearns
So that will be an opportunity for people to come and go.
Dan Stearns
Or an opportunity for us to capture new pedestrians.
Dan Stearns
And I don't want to talk too much about the possible locations until we have them nailed down, but we're talking about locations in and around the square and Oxford.
Dan Stearns
We're talking about locations in and around campus.
Dan Stearns
We'll see, and that's what the idea would be.
Dan Stearns
2 versions of it.
Dan Stearns
1 The whole the whole group together, presented in a way that it's almost fits as a complete show, and then individual scenes going here and there.
Dan Stearns
So that it still should have the feeling of.
Dan Stearns
Something appearing out of nowhere that people just jumped up and said.
Dan Stearns
Here's some Shakespeare.
Dan Stearns
And we hope that people.
Dan Stearns
Won't run away.
Dan Stearns
But we know we hope that people who are interested in this and and and see our publicity will come and we hope that people who are caught unawares will be.
Dan Stearns
Excited by it.
Katherine Stewart
It sounds like there's a sense of spontaneity and fun and whimsy.
Dan Stearns
Yeah, I think that's that's the idea I want to and this relates to my earlier answer.
Dan Stearns
I I I want to remove some of the heaviness indebtness.
Dan Stearns
Certainly plenty of people who I think could enjoy Shakespeare and maybe just for the the, you know, the fart jokes for example.
Dan Stearns
But who might not be 'cause there's?
Dan Stearns
Because there's this.
Dan Stearns
Heaviness, that sometimes goes with the OO Shakespeare, who that long hair stuff, or who?
Dan Stearns
Shakespeare that's hard, you know?
Dan Stearns
Or who Shakespeare?
Dan Stearns
Who cares about that?
Dan Stearns
Yeah.
Dan Stearns
It's you know, it's about.
Dan Stearns
It's it's stories of people who resemble real people struggling with real problems.
Katherine Stewart
And this this ties in to what you're just saying and something you were saying earlier.
Katherine Stewart
How?
Katherine Stewart
How did you choose the scenes that will be performed?
Dan Stearns
Well, partly I thought about the students I had I I addition and the number of students.
Dan Stearns
All of our BFA students are required to audition for every performance and then some other students auditioned as well.
Dan Stearns
And.
Dan Stearns
I simply looked at the students who I thought either.
Dan Stearns
As I watched them said, oh that's someone who should play.
Dan Stearns
Some particular role.
Dan Stearns
Or I just watched them and said.
Dan Stearns
Great, they already have some grasp of the language or some ability to speak the verse, or they don't look completely overwhelmed then of a deer in the headlights.
Dan Stearns
Regarding trying to do this difficult language or they're really using their voices well already and articulating clearly.
Dan Stearns
And then went and looked, and basically what I did is I I looked back to every other kind of.
Dan Stearns
A situation I've been involved in where scenes have been selected as individual scenes, but that's training workshops that I've taken or my graduate program and then looked and said well which the ones that I like and where the where the actors that I thought might fit these, and so it was just to kind of mix and match.
Dan Stearns
And then I also then.
Dan Stearns
Had.
Dan Stearns
So I I tried it, I tried to make it such that every actor and there are 10 has one good role and then I also have them either covering some small roles or we also have what are called internal understudies.
Dan Stearns
That is to say the understudies for the scenes are from within the cast itself and that was a tricky matrix to try to figure out.
Dan Stearns
How to get people to understudy the scenes and then also make sure that there is time for.
Dan Stearns
Costume changes and shifts in between each of the scenes.
Dan Stearns
But most of them, most of them are two person scenes.
Dan Stearns
We have two scenes that require larger groups, which are the so-called scenes involving the so called Rude Mechanicals from Midsummer Night's Dream and then.
Dan Stearns
And then some other two person scenes.
Dan Stearns
Some of the classics.
Dan Stearns
I don't know where should I reveal those now?
Dan Stearns
Or is that?
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, I was gonna ask are are you trying to keep the actual?
Dan Stearns
That's secret.
Katherine Stewart
Plays or scenes a surprise?
Katherine Stewart
Or do you want to share?
Dan Stearns
There had.
Dan Stearns
That's a good question.
Dan Stearns
I don't know.
Dan Stearns
I I hadn't thought of that.
Dan Stearns
Well, let me, I'll tell you what they are.
Dan Stearns
And then if you decide you want to edit that out and you can edit that out.
Dan Stearns
Or maybe I'll tell you the place.
Dan Stearns
One of them is one thing.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, how about just the just the plays but not the scenes?
Katherine Stewart
How about that?
Katherine Stewart
A little mystery preserved.
Dan Stearns
We have yeah, we have a scene from Romeo and Juliet.
Dan Stearns
That's a scene that anyone who knows anything about Shakespeare will.
Dan Stearns
Recognize at least part of we have seen from measure for measure for Much Ado about nothing.
Dan Stearns
Anne from 12th night and I also you know also mentioned the others from the other two.
Dan Stearns
From Midsummer Night's Dream.
Katherine Stewart
And do you have a favorite play of Shakespeare's or or even a favorite character?
Dan Stearns
Well, I I have a personal allergy to favourites.
Dan Stearns
I think in the same way I said I don't want to make a greatest list but but everybody makes lists we can't help it.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah.
Dan Stearns
But I the only reason I don't choose a favorite is because I find that the one I like the most changes.
Dan Stearns
As I change as a person, I think for a long time.
Dan Stearns
I liked The Tempest and then for a number of years I thought Winter's tale was just the best I I will.
Dan Stearns
I will say I do like the romances, The Tempest in the winter's tale usually classed among the romances by modern editors.
Dan Stearns
But I think the so called problem plays are really interesting to measure from.
Dan Stearns
Measures are really powerful play.
Dan Stearns
And I love them all.
Dan Stearns
I think loves.
Dan Stearns
Labours lost is unfairly.
Dan Stearns
Harshly judge.
Dan Stearns
Judged, I think it's a really beautiful play, even though it's it's very wordy and he was, he was messing around with some ideas there, clearly growing as a playwright, but I think it's a really.
Dan Stearns
I think there's some really beautiful moments in in loves labours lost.
Dan Stearns
So I I will say the water that I still struggle with mental is probably more than one.
Dan Stearns
And it may have to do with my age is that I.
Dan Stearns
Know even Shakespeare wrote this play when he was.
Dan Stearns
After do some math to see how old it was, but maybe you know a little younger than me, but it's King Lear.
Dan Stearns
I I've performed scenes from it not as clear, but I've never been in a full production, but I've certainly seen several full productions and I've read it and thought about it and I still I still struggle with it.
Dan Stearns
It's one that just does not resonate with me the way some of the other ones do, but I again I think that that really has to do with how.
Dan Stearns
How the players can speak to us at different ages of life?
Dan Stearns
Not perhaps some.
Dan Stearns
You know.
Dan Stearns
Perhaps you've had the experience when you come back.
Dan Stearns
To a novel.
Dan Stearns
10 years after you first read it, and suddenly it feels different to you is because you're a different.
Dan Stearns
The book didn't change, so I think there's something there's something about that about the place that I I don't want to pick one favorite.
Dan Stearns
Say oh, this is only it because.
Dan Stearns
It's going to come and go.
Dan Stearns
It's going to depend on what?
Dan Stearns
You know who I am and what my life is like at the moment.
Katherine Stewart
Uhm?
Katherine Stewart
Changing tack a little bit what?
Katherine Stewart
What are some of the logistical considerations when planning this type of production?
Katherine Stewart
What's what's going into all of this?
Dan Stearns
Yeah, well, the first thing that comes to mind is if they have.
Dan Stearns
Donald Rumsfeld and that we have several unknown unknowns.
Dan Stearns
I it's possible that I was a little naive in my vision for this that we would just run in and throw some stuff out there and do a scene.
Dan Stearns
We have to secure locations and if those are public locations, it has to involve.
Dan Stearns
Permitting
Dan Stearns
It's going to have to involve some concern with public safety and adherence because it would be. It would be University event. We're going to have to follow the university's rules on coronavirus safety.
Dan Stearns
And in fact.
Dan Stearns
This won't just be a collection of scenes, there will be some themes that Unite them, and I'm hoping to do some kind of.
Dan Stearns
Commentary on our on our current situation.
Dan Stearns
So non partisan commentary on our on our situation with masks and vaccination and safety requirement.
Dan Stearns
Because it's actually worth remembering that during Shakespeare's lifetime.
Dan Stearns
The theaters in London were closed several times due to plague, so it's not that.
Dan Stearns
It's not that.
Dan Stearns
Out of context, so to speak, because that was.
Dan Stearns
The black plague.
Dan Stearns
We're not talking about coronavirus, but.
Dan Stearns
The idea that an illness would.
Dan Stearns
Would wreak havoc on society for a period of a year or two.
Dan Stearns
Was completely familiar to Shakespeare and his audiences, and and it put actors out of work just like this.
Dan Stearns
Coronavirus has hit actors particularly hard because we work in an industry that requires the public together.
Dan Stearns
So that's that's one of our issues.
Dan Stearns
Logistically, we'll have to figure out how we get from place to place.
Dan Stearns
We will have to figure out how we move.
Dan Stearns
Whatever props we have in costumes and that's part of the thinking of the staging.
Dan Stearns
Is trying to make it seem very.
Dan Stearns
Ordinary very everyday and yet have some items that are useful.
Dan Stearns
I don't want it to look as though as I said, some of it will look as though it was pulled out of our scenery stock in our constant stock.
Dan Stearns
But I also want the actors just to have some things that they might have found in their homes or but they'll be carefully chosen.
Dan Stearns
Then it will be designed.
Dan Stearns
It's not as though I've actually sang to the actors.
Dan Stearns
Some of them may wear their own garments for a base costume layer, but will probably probably outfit them with everything.
Dan Stearns
Just make them look like constant.
Dan Stearns
Rather make them look like college students, and indeed, part of my idea is that they they are college students, but they aren't themselves they will play.
Dan Stearns
A heightened version of themselves, let's say as part of the.
Dan Stearns
The the comic environments that I want to create.
Dan Stearns
The dramatic environment.
Dan Stearns
If you rather say that that I want to create about them appearing.
Dan Stearns
To do this, show other logistics issues will include whether or not we can get to.
Dan Stearns
These spaces beforehand.
Dan Stearns
And try to adjust the staging.
Dan Stearns
We can certainly rehearse in our studio or in in full Chapel.
Dan Stearns
We can make all kinds of plans, but any of those things could have to be thrown out at the last minute when we arrive and we discover, oh, look, there's something in the way, or there's something we can't move, or people are sitting where we'd like to be working, or any number of things.
Dan Stearns
So I'm.
Dan Stearns
I'm hopeful that we'll be able to.
Dan Stearns
Maybe sneakily?
Dan Stearns
Walk through the scenes in these locations and that might even serve as an interesting little preview 'cause I'm sure if we start doing that someone will come around and say hey what's going on, but we'll have to.
Dan Stearns
We'll have to spend some time getting to know the spaces, but I think there will be unforeseen challenges in arriving and trying to put on these shows.
Dan Stearns
And I think that is in fact, part of the fun of it.
Dan Stearns
And I think for the actors.
Dan Stearns
That's one of the challenges and from an educational standpoint, a valuable one 'cause there will be times that they perform.
Dan Stearns
Weather in theater or even when they're trying to do something filmed where things will go wrong or things will go in an unexpected way, and the ability of the actor to adapt and continue is pretty important.
Katherine Stewart
So I'm sure they're being prepared in the rehearsal process.
Katherine Stewart
For the eventuality that they may have to think on their feet, or.
Dan Stearns
I'm trying I'm trying we're just getting started now, but one of the things I'm starting with them from the beginning is the idea that they must take the audience into account, and that's not only true be cause of this particular.
Dan Stearns
Sure.
Dan Stearns
Staging idea, but it's true for Shakespeare's text.
Dan Stearns
The Theatre that Shakespeare was writing for was not our modern Theatre of silent audiences in the dark.
Dan Stearns
The plays were produced.
Dan Stearns
In daylight, and even when they the players that were written to be performed in the indoor Blackfriars Theater, they would burn candles, and in fact, that's there's a lot of speculation that the reason that the later players have act breaks in them, whereas the early plays did not have act breaks was because they had to trim the candles so they would take an act break so that the chandeliers could be lowered and the candles could be.
Katherine Stewart
Uh huh.
Dan Stearns
Trimmed.
Dan Stearns
So he was writing for a theater where the patrons can be seen.
Dan Stearns
There's no suggestion that we have this modern idea of the 4th wall that separates 4th Wall.
Dan Stearns
If you don't know what that means, being the idea that there is a room represented on the stage, and it is as though the 4th wall.
Dan Stearns
The one that faces the audience has been removed and the audience is given this privileged view of what's happening inside this room.
Dan Stearns
The the the.
Dan Stearns
Actors were talking to the audience and there's many times in the place which if you were to read them sitting in with a book in hand, you.
Dan Stearns
Would think you might think.
Dan Stearns
Why is this guy asking questions to himself?
Dan Stearns
Why is this guy asking questions to the air?
Dan Stearns
Well, he's not.
Dan Stearns
He's thinking through his problem and.
Dan Stearns
Asking the people who are there and the people who happen to be there are the audience.
Dan Stearns
Maybe they answer, maybe they don't.
Dan Stearns
Maybe he just acts as though they did.
Dan Stearns
Right, but there's.
Dan Stearns
No pretense that the people aren't there, so from the beginning I'm working with that as.
Dan Stearns
As a typical.
Dan Stearns
Given understanding of the way Shakespeare's dramaturgy works.
Dan Stearns
Then we'll have to talk about the whole.
Dan Stearns
Or additional problem and I may not say too much but what about hecklers?
Dan Stearns
What about passersby make noise?
Dan Stearns
What do we do when a truck comes by?
Dan Stearns
But I've performed outdoor Shakespeare, for example, an airplane goes overhead and we just stop and sometimes just pause, or sometimes just stop.
Dan Stearns
It looks shocked because.
Dan Stearns
Why is there this this strange object passing over us in the midst of this world?
Dan Stearns
You know we're.
Dan Stearns
Doing Julius Caesar and we're in ancient Rome, but somehow there's this massive thing flying through the air so.
Dan Stearns
And there's no.
Dan Stearns
Reason not to not.
Dan Stearns
To do that I mean yes, if you're in the middle of the most tense dramatic scene in the play, you might not want to do that.
Dan Stearns
But how do we deal with these kinds of interruptions that are just part of the deal when we're in?
Dan Stearns
We're working in public.
Dan Stearns
So we'll work on that, but I think.
Dan Stearns
There's only there's only so much that can be done.
Dan Stearns
To prepare for that, and I hope that the actors can.
Dan Stearns
Think on their feet.
Katherine Stewart
An if if audiences do want to engage with these performances, it sounds like they'll have quite a few opportunities.
Katherine Stewart
Do you?
Katherine Stewart
Do you know approximately how many shows there might be?
Dan Stearns
Well, we're still working that out.
Dan Stearns
I'm hoping at least six, but.
Great.
Dan Stearns
More than that would be better.
Dan Stearns
We're looking at some park locations in addition to places around the square, and I hope when we when we finally get it together, I hope some of the ones that that occur around the square will be able to do on a weekend when there might be foot traffic and.
Dan Stearns
And.
Dan Stearns
People will be able to.
Dan Stearns
To stop and stop and see what's happening and just come for the whole thing or just.
Dan Stearns
Listen to a couple of minutes.
Dan Stearns
You know there will be.
Dan Stearns
It will be.
Dan Stearns
I'm hopeful that it will be easy enough for people to pass by and listen in the same way you might pass by a street busker.
Dan Stearns
And, you know, listen to someone fiddling for a few minutes and then and then pass on.
Dan Stearns
You don't have to listen to the whole song, you can just listen for a minute and keep going.
Dan Stearns
Just add to the add to the arts ambience of an R&R D town.
Katherine Stewart
Now it's just going to say it sounds like an awful lot of fun, and it sounds like exactly the kind of thing.
Katherine Stewart
This town would enjoy.
Dan Stearns
I hope I hope, yeah.
Katherine Stewart
Great, well thank you so much.
Dan Stearns
Glad to be here.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah, appreciate all right.
Katherine Stewart
Yeah.
Katherine Stewart
Once again that was assistant Professor Dan Stearns telling us all about Pop-Up Shakespeare.
Katherine Stewart
When we get closer to the event, we will be announcing dates and locations where you can see these semi spontaneous performances will be announcing those on social media. So do look for us on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter. Our handle on all three is theater film at UM all one word.
Katherine Stewart
I will include more information about Dan and about Pop-Up Shakespeare in the show notes, so do check those out as well and until next time this is Stage & Screen.