This performance has

This performance has

nine lives

Yes, as part of the training to become a professional actor and see what this world really entails, the RRC actors are expected to commit to nine performances as well as a two week schedule of daily rehearsals. This follows attendance at classes three times each week that began in March. Being in the theatre is a wonderful experience, but it means more then showing up a few days before a single performance. The RRC actors will find out what it feels like to garner the necessary energy for each and every one of the nine performances. Regardless of how few or many people there will be in the audience, they must give their all. And we may discover that some of our actors don’t want to maintain that kind of rigor. That’s fine, but it is better to learn now with a realistic dose of theatre, than later after choosing it as a career path. It’s not only the first blush of excitement that makes an actor. It is hours and hours of hard work and that’s what RRC is all about. Of course it’s fun, it’s a “play but these young actors will learn to derive their play from their work.

“Forgive Us

Shakespeare”

As Austen Cloud, one of the young actors who plays Romeo, Henry V, and Oberon continuously needles me, “You’re tampering with Shakespeare.” Well, my hope is that by using snippets from the plays and giving young women, as well as young men, the opportunity to play some of the finest roles in history, Shakespeare will chuckle instead of roll over in his grave. For Mairead McLouglin, to have the opportunity to give the St. Crispin Day speech, and Georgie Nun berg to play one of the traditionally male Mechanicals (Local Workmen) twists the Bard’s work a bit, but I think to good purpose. These young actors are dipping into more of the classics then would be possible by taking just one play or a children’s version of the original. And to set Austen’s mind and that of other scholars at rest, we are going to choose a play next year, perhaps “Love’s Labours Lost,” and present it in the most accurate, Arden Edition, verseversion possible.

As of Monday, June 4 when we “move in” (begin building the set and rehearsing in Cliff Miller’s Sperryville School House), there will be 31 actors playing 76 parts, not including the fairies and forest folk who are yet to be incorporated into the play. Anyone who might tike to drop off healthy snacks for “alwayB-hungry-after-school actors’ at 4:00 any weekday will be welcomed with open arms and invited to observe a rehearsal in progress. That is, if your nerves can stand the endless bursts of youthful energy. “Pay What You Like”

Another innovative aspect of this production of the “Shakespearean Pageant” will be that we will not have a set