Audience Captures Great Performances on Shakespeare Safari

11/2/2020

Jeremy Sweetlamb, Middle School theatre director, and his merry band of players recently pulled off the seemingly impossible: a delightful night of socially distanced live theatre — sans stage and theatre.

In mid-October, Sweetlamb and his dauntless thespians and crew offered two performances of “Shakespeare Safari,” a series of scenes and monologues held at various outdoor areas around campus to a rotating audience that traveled from scene to scene in their vehicles. Below, Sweetlamb explains how the Middle School theatre members prepared for this innovative outdoor production.
_______________________________________________________________________________

I knew having a traditionally seated audience was going to be impossible, whether indoors or outdoors, and I was inspired by an ensemble that was doing “curbside theatre deliveries” to people's homes.

The first several weeks of rehearsal were completely remote, which certainly was a challenge. Our goal was to be as prepared as possible for the time when we could work together in the actual performance spaces. One major limitation the physically spaced format created was that I was not able to see every scene for every performance. I had to relinquish a little bit of directorial control and trust that the actors were going to carry out our shared vision, even if I had to be at another spot on campus.

Using long-range walkie talkies, our stage manager was able to communicate to everyone all at once from her headquarters in the Black Box theatre. She would call for the scenes to start; once they had all reported back in that they were done, she would call for all the cars to shift to the next spot.

Robert Whyburn and Cameron Allen provided the technical icing on the cake, so to speak, adding the element of short-distance radio transmitters. These allowed audience members to stay in their cars and tune to a different station at each scene location on campus. Faculty and staff volunteers were stationed at each spot on campus to help with wayfinding. We also had signs on campus and a map on the back of our program, showing the audience where to go to next.

My students really surprised me while working on this production. They had to deal with some heavy things, but if I am able to find something analogous that the student has experienced, we can talk about amplifying the way it felt. For instance, a youth actor may never have felt the “pangs of despised love,” as Hamlet put it in his “To be or not to be” soliloquy. But everyone has felt rejection in different areas of life — from friends, parents, social groups and the like. If I can get the actor to remember how that felt and readily tap into it, the delivery of the lines will naturally have that feel to it.

In other situations, some actors may hold back or are guarded for whatever reason. The very nature of this performance required several short bursts of the same scene or monologue over and over. I was amazed to see the actors’ joy in that repetition. They were really able to get into a groove. And I was amazed at their energy levels — out there in 90-degree heat, screaming about murder six times in a row would exhaust a grown-up. But they absolutely loved it.

There are so many practical skills that one learns from the process of rehearsing and performing a production. Beyond becoming comfortable speaking in front of strangers, theatre demands trust, hard work, long hours, cooperation, camaraderie, artistic expression, vulnerability, listening, respect.... Yet, nothing compares to the feeling a person gets from putting on an awesome play. It is one of those things you have to do to fully understand — like skydiving, childbirth or eating a whole banana split by yourself.

Photo credit: Claudio Fox

Back