https://asf.net/project/the-tempest/

Artistic Director Geoffrey Sherman’s final Shakespeare production at ASF, The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s last plays, crafted with themes of magic, illusion and music. PS: The Alabama Shakespeare Festival had the guts to actually mount the first "translation" of Timon of Athens undertaken at the start of this OSF translation project. I saw it. It had ambiguities and subtlety intact. It was a wonderful production and the audience was delighted with the evening. The "translator" Kenneth Cavender, whose work I observed while I was member of the Royal Shakespeare Company when they were "translating" The Greeks with John Barton, is a genius and didn't exclude the uninteresting. He has just "translated" The Tempest which is currently in rehearsal at ASF. While we all mourn the passing of the era of being able to show off our super scholarly devotion to and reverence for Shakespeare, I have to say that I recently realized while sitting dumbfounded at a production of Pericles with the most fantastic sea storm enactments I have ever witnessed, that Shakespeare really dashed this all off and the plots are quite flimsy! In fact, if you ever directed A Midsummer Night's Dream in it's entirety with no cuts you can figure out that it plays like a brilliant night of vaudeville! Since he stole almost all the plot pieces, the main thing he had going for him, having a gifted ear to the ground and being totally a man of his time, was the language and the political intrigue. You all know that. I love touching core with Shakespeare in every way, Damned if it wasn't the reason I lived in England for ten years and became a member of the RSC and see the world through the agricultural, fairyland, treacherous fantastical lense of Bill and am writing my heart out on crappy old Facebook! https://asf.net/project/the-tempest/

55 to 70 years old, female. Duchess of Cornwall, 60s; must have some resemblance to living Camilla; actor of great complexity; an older but equally ambitious Lady Macbeth; reserved; able to say a lot based on the position of her spine; classical actor with impeccable chops; reserved until necessarily prompted to act; deeply in love with Charles and willing to sacrifice all to ensure they remain together.

Circus Barker

Kathy, this is why, after 12 years, I recognize a down draft/tornado about to happen. http://harvardpolitics.com/culture/the-alabamafication-of-america/ You may feel that anything from Harvard is somehow slanted, but it sums up what we have been witness to. I have thought a lot about it on my own, away from commentators. Our local newspaper is slanted to protect these guys. I really respect that you enter into exchange about all our worries. We are all surely worried. I want you to know that, since the day Trump got elected, it has not been about wanting Hillary instead. She lost. It's over. For me it's about protesting a force that endangers my hard won rights and those of my family. For example family planning. Alice got a gynecological exam and birth control pills from Planned Parenthood in LA while she was working here in AL because Alabama would not permit her any. Also when I was in college, girls died from infections following backstreet abortions. Nobody likes abortion, but it is a godsend to have safe, legal abortion in our country. I always argued with Penny that there were alternative abortions happening in the streets when unwanted babies grew up into young black men murdered on some parking lot. I have believed this for almost 50 years and watched unwanted babies shoot each other all over the country, everywhere I've lived, for every one of those years. For my part, I had the National Health in England. Dr Helena M. Reckless who referred me to the Migraine Center where I found out birth control pills were giving me crippling migraines. I had to use another form of birth control. Thank god for the National Health. So those are two things I respect that are targeted to be dismantled.

I WITNESS WOMEN'S MARCH

At least 200 people were there. Believe me, I can count a crowd/audience. Our theatre holds almost 800. I've seen 3,800 at the Met. What I saw was a hundred times a full house at our theatre: 80,000 to view. 80,000 in front of me, 80,000 behind me when we were at a standstill for the rally watching a big screen that was blocked by a tree and thousands of pink wool hats. 80,000 anyway I could see. We were packed in tighter than we had been on the Metro getting there. Any request to find a friend or go over the concrete barriers or hold onto a child seemed unreasonable. But all requests were accommodated. We broke down and helped, even if it meant budging off your good spot. Some stood on the concrete protection barriers which had a slim ledge at the top giving about a three foot vantage. Some sat determinedly on that ledge with a water bottle beside them. I thought those standing were like contestants on "Survivor" trying to endure and maintain balance. The sight of the vast crowd sustained balance. We suddenly heard that a four year old boy with a pink bandana was lost in the thick throng. The word was passed from ahead of us and shouted back and back again and again. Then fingers pointed to where he was found. A crest of pointing fingers followed his movement forward to his parent. A doctor near us was called for in two directions. Her first visit was away from us. All was well. Then there was a call of "doctor" near us. When she was assisted over the barrier near us and up into the hedge we were proud to help her, just to see her. It was the picture of universal health care.
A speaker told us that "in a few hours" we would march to demonstrate peacefully. The thought caused a visible shrinking in listeners. We had been there since 8:30, three hours already. Amazingly more people were wriggling into the pack all the time. How could the group thicken anymore? The Pre-March Rally opened with a piercing Native American chant swelling with bravery and touching emotion. It was a moment of beauty clarified. She had no mike for her drum but, thank god, did not wait for technical adjustment. The arrow of her voice fell straight into our hearts. Then America Ferrera was so clean in her introduction of the march. No ego.There was a song, a kind of rap corridos, which I could not hear well.Then Charlie welcoming us and then the organizer of the march with her new baby and then Gloria Steinam. After Gloria Steinem we could not stay still. We had to find Alice's friend Stephanie for whom we had been waiting since 8:30 at the FedEx Office on 10th and Independence. And we had to find answers for the call of Nature. We tried to edge through the sardine pack, back to the Hirshorn where a bank of toilets was. There were slipstreams to join, one moving horizontally across the crowd, two haphazardly parallel down the street. NOT ONE CAT FIGHT!!!! In an ocean of woman for eight hours, and yes, there was edginess in the bathroom line, but never a scratching, never a hissing, hackle-raised moment. No fashion competition. Something about those hats. Like taking the veil, there was a higher purpose than what we wore. Herding cats meant something different than stampeding horses. The symbol of the day was sinew clothed in softness. Image may contain: 1 person, smiling, standing, sky and outdoor

PROCESS AND TEXT

I'm an actor and a theatre director. I love watching my actors come away from the pages into their performance. As an actor it is tougher for me because I want to be word perfect. I over respect the script. You can't embody the text without being on your feet. While you are working the text into your being, you carry the text around. Then you start dropping it down all over the place. Some actors keep carrying it down their shirt or in their back pocket or up a sleeve or in their belt. This idea that you are not an actor unless you start rehearsal off text is a being inhibitor! They ain't kidding when they say "It's a mystery." Some keep their mystery to themselves, some are show offs, some only live when the audience shines on them. Demanding actors be "off script" at first blocking rehearsal seems inorganic and exclusive. There are all types of brilliant actors and they have many differing ways of reaching their performances. It can annoy you how they do it. You may feel they are not cooperating with the way you are working to fashion your performance or to fashion your show. But once you are actually in the performance with them, you will benefit from the energy and connection they have accessed in their own way. As a director I can appreciate a show that turns out even better than I anticipated.