Tag Archives: BFC15

A Special Note from Sarah Enloe

You know, I don’t have a lot of time to think about things during conference week.  Especially the first day, Cass, Kim, and I put out a lot of (minor) fires and get into a groove. Then, things ease up a little. But, as I sat down (computer open, head set on to catch emergencies and deal with all the things), in the room where we get to work, and as I listened to some of the top scholars in the field, surrounded by the other 250 people who will be participating as presenters and auditors of this beast that we call the Blackfriars Conference, I took the time to breathe. And see. And hear. And I am so grateful.

Don’t miss our live blogs or our live streaming (even if you catch them late), but know that there is nothing like being in that room, with actors and scholars conversing in the way that I think (or hope) we all wish happened much more often. The merging of pedagogy and practice creates brilliant presentations by thinkers selected only on the merits of their ability to compose a 300 word abstract which goes before a reading committee. We keep the name, institution, and, indeed, position of the author of the abstract a secret from the “blind” committee (as skeptical as some participants are that it it exists — and that it chose them!).  Based only on the merit of their ability to express concisely an idea that engages performance and early modern theatre, we offer them one of 66 plenary slots, each of 10-13 minutes, at the conference.  They can choose to employ actors in their paper to help show their thesis, and this is when things get really interesting.  Watching our acting colleagues (who are contracted for 48 hours a week–not including all of the lines they are memorizing for next season or the additional research and preparation they do) engage with scholars who have questions about process and choices is edifying in the highest degree. And the OCS actors, who engage with the scholars we are honored to have in attendance, even as presenters themselves, make this conference a unique and exceptional experience.

Yesterday was my 10 year anniversary with the American Shakespeare Center. It also marked the beginning of my sixth conference, and the fifth I am honored to manage.  It has been a wonderful ride and I am looking forward to the next few days, and, who knows? the next 10 years, too.  

–Sarah Enloe
OCS Director of Education

Blackfriars Conference 2015 — Plenary Session 1

Welcome to the first plenary session of the 8th Blackfriars Conference! I’m Cass Morris, and I’ll be live-blogging this session from 1pm-2:15pm. OCS Board Chair Mary McDermott is moderating.

Lars Engle, University of Tulsa
Performing Shameless Performativity in Antony and Cleopatra

Engle opens by stating that “Cleopatra is performative”, and then moves to unpacking what, exactly, that means. He questions the definition of performative and performativity, wondering how nearly it means “theatrical”, and connects it to theorists (Butler and Sedgwick) whose work examines the performing of gender and sexuality. He then discusses how performativity connects to ideas of shame, and posits that it is possible that society has now transferred shame from queer sexuality to those who would shame queer sexuality.

Engle moves to discussing how Cleopatra foregrounds the very idea of performing: “Cleopatra, catching but the least noise of this, dies instantly: I have seen her die twenty times upon far poorer moment.” In 3.2 (selections presented by James Keegan and Sarah Fallon), Cleopatra prepares a performance meant for Antony, instructing Charmian in a story to carry to Antony. She adjusts her performance in 1.3 based on her audience — on how Charmian finds Antony and on his entrance. In doing so, she throws off his pre-planned farewell speech.

Engle marks Cleoaptra’s shift from shameless performativity to an apparently genuine moment of self-searching at “Sir, you and I must part, but that’s not it.” Following, she calls attention to the dangers both of performing and of believing in performativity. “This scene, then, both enacts performativity and anatomizes it.” Engle sees a philosophical warning in Cleopatra’s speech.

Alice Dailey, Villanova University
“I See Dead People”: 2 Henry IV and the Corpse of History

Dailey opens by discussing Nashe’s defense of theatre within Piers Penniless, calling upon the dramatic vitality of Shakespeare’s English history plays. Nashe argues that drama is a medium that can grant the figures of the past immortality, and Dailey notes that scholars have pointed to this passage as proof of Shakespeare’s ability to “make the past present.” She wants to look closer at what is made present and how. On stage, the Talbot Nashe describes in 1 Henry VI is “the walking dead”,

Dailey argues that theatrical revivification restores the dead hero as the subject of the dramatic present, but the subject remains bound to the object of his corpse. History plays stage a representational overlap of anterior and imminent death which argues against claims that theatre can create immortality. Dailey then considers the scene in 2 Henry IV where Morton relates the death of Hotspur to his father Northumberland. In doing so, he “constructs a temporal space in which Percy is both perpetually alive and perpetually dead”, never defeated and never undefeated. The text places the corpse prominently in the speech, with a dual meaning of both Hotspur’s body and the defeated body of the whole army. His metaphors of frozen fish and other motionless objects present a “compressed illustration of how the present of historical theatre unfolds” as a reminder of both deaths that have been and deaths that will be.

Dailey then presents a photo of Lewis Payne shortly before his 1865 execution, noting that, as we see the picture, he is both dead and going to die, and she connects this with the image Morton paints of Hotspur alive and a Hotspur who will die. “The heroes of the past do not transcend the corpse of history but are continually scripted to it.” Theatrical space then represents the “is”, the “was”, and the “will be” of the corpse all at once. Contextualizing Shakespeare’s play alongside photography highlights this temporal merging.

(Moderator notes that it’s always a relief to her when, at the end of history plays, everyone stands back up again).

Richard Preiss, University of Utah
The Alchemical Lavatory

“If you like reckless anachronism, I’ve got more for you. … In the first scene of Pulp Fiction…” Preiss describes a brief shot of a main character at the start of the movie, only revealed at the end of the movie when it becomes clear that the first scene is actually the last. The shot can only be caught, however, on repeat watching. Preiss notes that movies are now designed for “infinite instant replay”. He suggests that early modern theatre’s similar design was not in print, but in performance.

Preiss notes that the “notion of repertory as inventory is an abstraction”, considering the company in aggregate but not the individual plays. While a play may initially have occurred in repertory, we consider it a single thing. But — what if the form of the repertory permeated their content? He clarifies that he means the very fact of multiple performances, in that every play preceded and followed itself, whether or not immediately. Preiss then shares data about multiple performances in the early modern period, with some plays enjoying multiple-day runs and others running multiple times within a given period, though not consecutively.

“Does a play mean the same the second time it’s watched? How about the tenth?” Preiss suggests we experience plays as textual and singular, and that key moments are always described as though for the first time. Plays are considered self-contained and proceed without reference to earlier performances; “what we know by act five is all there is to know”. Early modern theatre, however, had to expect audiences for whom act one was also act six, as many may have seen the same production of the same show more than once, possibly within just a few days. Preiss suggests that playwrights may have written with this expectation in mind, and uses a scene from The Alchemist (performed by MBC students Joshua Williams, Aubrey Whitlock, and Shane Sczepankowski) to demonstrate. Immediate repetition seems to augment the humor for the audience in the theatre.

Theatre “feeds us ourselves” and “does so brazenly…. not made, but merely recycled.” Preiss employs many metaphors of ingesting, defecating, and sewage to underscore his point.

Amy W. Grubbs, Father Ryan High School
Rogues, Vagabonds, and Common Players: Late Elizabethan Playing Companies as a Stabilizing Force in Suburban London

Grubbs begins with a picture of early modern London as a desperate and impoverished place and foregrounds her intention to discuss the playhouses and their companies as a stabilizing force in an era when downward social mobility was high. She discusses three ways parishes might respond to the unsettled: charity, employment, and punishment. The general idea was that those who could work should do so, those who could not should be cared for, and those who could but did not should be whipped and marked out as “not part of a community, and therefore dangerous”.

At the turn of the 17th century, London’s theatrical suburbs were full of people who “did not belong”. Grubbs then shares early modern testimony suggesting that theatre companies, far from contributing to vagrancy, were known to be charitable and encouraged the employment of the unsettled. She cites the apprenticing program of bringing young boys into the companies, which could become a familial and therefore stabilizing dynamic. Grubbs also notes the relationship of the theatres to the watermen of the Thames, helping to create other economic opportunities in their neighborhoods.

To the third response, punishment, Grubbs notes that pickpockets in the theatre were treated similarly to adulterous women, forced to acknowledge their faults and ask forgiveness, positing the theatre as a community similar to that of a parish church. Grubbs suggests that, while these communities may have been temporary, citizens sought them out. The cheap price of entry encouraged this, as even the unsettled and poor could afford to attend as groundlings. “Something about the Globe was, evidently, important enough to the King’s Men” that they rebuilt even at cost, thus enabling them to continue offering cheap entertainment, even though by that time they had a more lucrative operation at the Blackfriars. “Their actions… show that the playing companies did engage in a stabilizing relationship with London’s unsettled.”

Grubbs finished by stating her hope that this research might inform the performance of plays with unsettled characters as well as the production of plays in our own unsettled and poor neighborhoods.

Tiffany Stern, Oxford University
Dumbshows, Revision, and Authorship

Stern opens by noting that she’s been thinking about stage directions and dumbshows: “Dumbshows: Why are they so weird?” She puts the 1604 version of the Hamlet dumbshow on the projector, followed by the 1623 Folio version, noting that the dumbshow is verbally different, but describes the same actions, in both dumbshows. She wonders, then, why did the dumbshow get changed? Where did the new words come from? “Why rewrite words that will never be spoken?” She then presents the two overlaid with each other, to illustrate some “pointless revisions”.

Next, Stern shares a segment from John Lyly’s 1591 Endimion, followed by the same play printed in 1632. By 1632, a dumbshow has been added to the selection, though the text of the plays are entirely the same. The songs and dumbshows added, she suggests, traveled differently from the rest of the text — but why? Stern shares examples of texts where both songs and dumbshows appear collected together at the start or end of a play. For songs, this is easily explained, but she questions why the same thing would be true for an unspoken dumbshow.

“This might help us think about it,” she notes, showing the frontispiece of Locrine, with a note on it illustrating that dumbshows were not necessarily written by the same person who wrote the play. Like songs, Stern suggests that many dumbshows may have been lost or moved due to the simple fact that they were on different paper, which might fall out or get reassembled. She also suggests that they may have had separate rehearsals.

Stern finishes by stating that this was a way of helping her explore stage directions, of which dumbshows are one kind, and she notes that the term “stage direction” does not occur until the 18th century. As such, when we think of stage directions, we may be imposing something onto the term which does not necessarily exist. The first use occurs in Lewis Theobald’s 1733 version of The Works of Shakespeare, and Theobald uses it to say “this is a really rubbish thing” regarding the dumbshow in Hamlet.

James Keegan, OCS & University of Delaware
Macbeth and PTSD: Combat Trauma and the (Un)Doing of a Character

Keegan speaks of his own creation of Macbeth, for whom “doing and undoing” is central. The title of the piece, and a key component of his character work, stems from Shay’s work on soldiers with PTSD after combat. He notes that Shay used Lady Percy’s description of Hotspur from 1 Henry IV as a diagnosis of combat trauma; Sarah Fallon presents the speech with Keegan interjecting the symptoms Shay identified. He notes that Macbeth and Lady Macbeth suffer many of the same symptoms – insomnia, traumatic dreams, hallucination, a sense of the dead being more present than the living, social withdrawal, isolation, lack of capacity for intimacy, depression, loss of ability to experience pleasure – and Keegan and Fallon enact examples from Macbeth.

Keegan notes that while it might not be unusual for a man who murders a houseguest king to suffer PTSD over the act, he is arguing that Macbeth was actually suffering PTSD before the murder, which in fact made him more susceptible to committing it. He aligns the early description of Macbeth in combat as a “berserk combatant”, and notes that Macbeth suffered two of the triggers Shay identifies for causing a soldier to enter such a state. Drawing from this, Keegan states that it made it easier for him to consider the witches as a sort of hallucination; he admits that the matter is complicated by the fact that Banquo sees them too, but he notes that Banquo has come from a similar berserker state. The 2014 casting of three muscular men in the roles of the witches “had a martial aspect that resonated” with the described scenes of battle. Patrick Midgley, in fact, doubled as the bloody captain and quick-changed into a witch.

Macbeth, fresh from the brutality of war and the predictions of the witches, can be seen as similar to Achilles in the Iliad, though Keegan notes that Macbeth has less reason to believe himself betrayed than Achilles. Keegan describes the scene where Duncan names his successor — not the warrior he has admitted deserves the honor, but his son, who had to be protected in battle. Keegan argues that Macbeth might see this as a betrayal of what is right, even though it was not a betrayal of anything promised.

Keegan notes that his examination of the character in this light is not to excuse his actions, but to explore where his decisions to act came from. Lady Macbeth attacks the essential component of his martial aspect, his courage. Killing Duncan brings those martial aspects into the domestic sphere, ultimately upending the rest of Macbeth’s life. Keegan notes the use of this concept in other productions, quoting Michael Fassbender about his role preparation and speaking of a production which tried to add in battle scenes to assist the audience in their understanding.

–Cass Morris
Academic Resources Manager

Blackfriars Conference 2015 – Colloquy #5: Asides and Villainy

Good morning! I’m Cass Morris, and I’ll be liveblogging one of this morning’s six colloquy sessions: “Asides and Villainy”.

Chairs: Laury Magnus and Walter Cannon

Participants: Julia Griffin, Alan Hickman, Arthur Kinney, Caroline Latta, David Loehr, Ashley Pierce, Deb Streusand

Magnus and Cannon open the introductions, then have the participants introduce themselves and their favorite villains. Loehr’s is Richard III, Streusand’s is Mendoza, but favorite in Shakespeare is Claudius. Pierce says she loves them all, but claims Tybalt as a “twist my arm” top choice. Kinney’s is Iago, as is Hickman’s; Latta has chosen the Queen from Cymbeline.

Magnus notes that, for villains, asides are both secretive and attention-getters. She goes on to discuss several different types or purposes of asides as used by villains, including letting the audience in on their plans. She also notes, quoting Jim Hirsch, that villains can also deliver “asides” which are actually staged for the benefit of other on-stage characters, as with Edmund in King Lear. She adds that while there are comic villains who use asides, their use as a purposeful strategem seems more characteristic of dramatic villains.

By way of defining villains, via Charney: they “establish a network of evil”, they like to kill, they are arbitrary & irrational, they lack belief in anything greater than themselves, they try to present selves as plain and unadorned speakers, and soliloquies and asides are important to them.

Latta shares thoughts from an actor on soliloquies as discussions with the audience, then says she “began to obsess over how many different kinds of asides I could identify”. She shares a “taxonomy of asides”, with designations including: shared asides, conversational asides/solo asides, partial asides (by way of adlib/improv/impromptu remarks), whispered asides, shared onstage asides, visual/gestural asides, withdrawal asides/”fauxversations”, rapt soliloquy, cOCSading asides.

Streusand worked on The Malcontent, wherein the hero and villain “get more or less an equal amount of soliloquies”. She frames this as a competition for the audience’s interest and attention. Mendoza does not pretend to be a plain speaker, setting him apart from the typical Shakespearean mold.

Loehr worked on Richard III, noting that he is “an actor in life”, taking on various roles for his own self-interest. Throughout the play, he acts for everyone around him, showing his true self only to the audience and sometimes to his accomplice Buckingham. Loehr, Streusand, and Pierce read through a scene wherein Richard has examples of both overheard and non-overheard asides; the overheard aside forces Richard to adapt to the immediate circumstance. Loehr also notes that Richard takes a comic joy in his own villainy, demonstrated in the jokes he shares with the audience.

Kinney begins by saying, “We’re all trying to work out how villains make asides, and I’m trying to figure out how asides make villains.” He is looking at Thomas Heywood’s A Woman Killed with Kindness, which lacks a clear villain.

Pierce has looked at both Tybalt and Iago. Though a small speaking role, Tybalt often still receives treatment as the villain of Romeo and Juliet. He has no prescribed asides, but there are two moments where performatively he is “alone” on stage, and they are the only moments when he speaks in rhyming couplets. “When Tybalt is wanting to kill and cannot kill, he speaks in rhymes to himself.” Iago not only uses asides, but uses them to his advantage. Pierce gives an example from 3.2, in which he comments on Desdemona and Cassio in earshot of Othello, but plays it off as an aside. Pierce claims that “[Iago] is fully aware of the impact of asides”. Magnus wonders if there are often verbal markers like “O” or “Ha” to villains’ asides.

Hickman is looking at Malvolio, often deemed a comedic villain in tragic circumstances. He notes that modern productions tend to “pile on the pathos”. Hickman theorizes that Malvolio does not begin the play as a villain but is one by the end: “Some are born villainous, some achieve villainous, others have villainy thrust upon them.”

Latta, working on the Queen in Cymbeline, distinguishes her from Charney’s definition of villainy — she is a careful plotter rather than irrational; she is capable of murder but does not treat it as a game; her interest is more for her son than for her own self. So, in considering her as a villain, “she is, but on her own terms.” She then uses student Glenn Thompson and Loehr to illustrate an instance of the “fauxversation” between Cymbeline and the Queen while Cloten talks elsewhere.

An auditor questions the use of asides taken to particular portions of the audience; colloquy members note that at the Blackfriars Playhouse, the gallant stools are often used in that way. Another auditor mentions that prologues often point out different sections of the audience.

Auditor Thompson questions the categorization of Malvolio as villain, and if it’s possible under Charney’s definition to identify Toby, Maria, et al as the real villains, particularly since Malvolio is generally acted upon rather than acting. Hickman notes that, “Malvolio drives Sir Toby to marriage, so he’s a villain.” Another auditor points out what Shakespeare chose to name the character, which literally means “evil wishes”.

In the last few minutes, Magnus redirects the focus to the performers in the room about the demands that asides place on an actor. Latta suggests that the specification of audience members is advantageous to bringing the audience in but also a challenge, since it requires making decisions swiftly in the moment. Loehr describes it as “making that person your scene partner”. Streusand comments that the audience member’s response also affects how the actor can deliver the aside. Pierce notes the “close connection” with the audience as one of the biggest advantages of acting at the Blackfriars Playhouse.

Cannon closes by posing a curiosity about the definition of villains and villainy and if it’s substantial or adequate, and offers a thought experiment regarding the character of Hal/Henry V.

–Cass Morris
OCS Academic Resources Manager

Blackfriars Conference 2015 — Colloquy Session VI: Shakespeare’s Life and Times: Contributing Context

Welcome to the 2015 Blackfriars Conference Colloquy, “Shakespeare’s Life and Times: Contributing Context.”   Kate McPherson of Utah Valley University and Kate Moncrief of Washington College chaired the colloquy session.  Dwight Tanner of UNC-Chapel Hill, William Jones, Associate Professor of English at Murray State University and Karoline Szatek-Tudor of Curry College presented their papers as part of the colloquy.

Internet Shakespeare Editions has been operating now for fifteen years. The website,http://internetshakespeare.uvic.ca/,  includes a section covering Shakespeare’s ‘Life and Times’.  Michael Best originally created ISE as a CD-ROM in the late 1990s, and today the website receives 250,000 internet hits per month.  The idea behind the website’s organization has been for the user to be able to read its contents as a book, from the beginning of an article to the end of another.  Now, in a three- to five year-project, the site design is being overhauled, converting it into more of an encyclopedia format.  The website’s bibliographies have not been revised in over ten years, Professor Moncrief disclosed, but the ISE intends to update all of them as part of the site’s overhaul.

The Internet Shakespeare Editions site is designed to be user-friendly to high school students, and in keeping with this intended purpose, articles are limited to a length not exceeding one thousand words.  Footnotes are presented in the form of pop-up boxes.  Each page of the website includes one or two relevant images.

Ongoing pedagogical projects will allow educators and researchers to update and revise the information on the ISE website. Edition editors will be able to click on individual topics and make suggestions.  Today’s colloquy session is devoted to discussion of International Shakespeare Edition’s website, in particular the section entitled “life and Times,” as well as the discussion of five brief articles which the site’s continuing updating project generated.

The five authors named above presented their papers, beginning with Professor Jones who talked about his web-piece, “Shakespeare and Satire,” and he distributed copies of his paper, “A 1599 Poem in Praise of Shakespeare?”  He read aloud the subject of his paper, the 1599 John Weever poem to Shakespeare, “Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare” (“To William Shakespeare”) which in his view criticizes the playwright’s “Ovidian passion.”  Professor Jones uses this poem in his classroom, he told attendees, as a discussion topic for his students, presenting them with an opportunity to weigh in on the ironic tone and the satirical object of Weever’s poem. “Ad Gulielmum Shakespeare” demonstrates, as Professor Jones put it, the passive/aggressive attitude that Puritans leveled against playwrights and Shakespeare in particular.  A contemporary of Shakespeare, Weever was an aspiring poet and would-be playwright as well as a churchman.  Shakespeare may have used Weever as at least partial inspiration when he created the part of Sir Andrew Aguecheek in his play “Twelfth Night.”

UNC-Chapel Hill graduate student Dwight Tanner discussed his piece, “The Plague.”  Tanner’s article explores contagion, treatment, bureaucracy, and the plague’s impact on Early Modern Theater, particularly the impact it had upon theater owners.  The piece examines quarantine practices of the period and includes an example of a plague-victim, a man named ‘Decker.’  During the discussion, Professor Moncrief tried a site search to see how easily users can navigate to Tanner’s piece.  Eight years ago, Moncrief explained, the site managers integrated a rudimentary mobile app, and she wanted to see if it still functions and how it could be improved.

Professor Szatek-Tudor discussed as well as distributed copies of her paper, “The Twitters and Tweets of Shakespeare’s Birds in his Early Modern Plays.”  Shakespeare cited fifty-nine species of birds in his plays, though his bird allusions diminish in number in his later works, Szatek-Tudor claimed.  Shakespeare wrote about birds of prey as well as birdsas prey.  Professor Szatek-Tudor also talked about Shakespeare’s use of birds as verbs, giving as an example how Shakespeare wrote that Falstaff “quails” in fear.  She mentioned she is working on the History Plays and at the moment is looking for editing help with this.  The Professor distributed to attendees copies of an “Ornithological Chart of Some Birds in Shakespeare’s Plays” in addition to her paper.  Her chart classifies twenty-one different species of birds while grouping them under six separate classes, including “Land Birds” and “Water Bird.”  The Quail, for example, appears listed beneath the class of birds called, “Galliformes.”

Professor Moncrief discussed her article, “Childbirth.”  In the Early Modern period, a woman typically had six to ten children, she informed listeners.  Moncrief read a Jane Sharp quote from her paper and described the rest of its contents, including her paper’s references to Shakespeare’s plays, “Pericles” and “The Winter’s Tale.”  Most women spent their lives, she went on to tell attendees, pregnant or recovering from their pregnancies.  Her article explores the social impact of the culture’s views of morality and how that culture judged women, often disparagingly, by their pregnancies and childbirth.  The Professor discussed mortality rates in the session when she was asked about that, but she informed her listeners that she took that topic out of her piece over concerns of exceeding her article’s 1000-word length.

Lastly, Professor McPherson talked of her piece, “Early Modern Anatomy,” which explores anatomy as both subject of learning as well as spectacle.  She distributed to each attendee a copy of an illustration of The Anatomy Theatre at Leiden, circa 1540, which depicts the dissection of a human cadaver in an Early Modern operating theater.  Cadavers for dissection and study came from the gibbets and from other public executions.  The fOCSination with anatomy in that time period affected the depiction of dead bodies onstage to suit audiences’ demands for greater realism, she explained.

Blog posted by Bill Leavy, M.Litt. student, Mary Baldwin College graduate program in Shakespeare and Performance.

Introducing the BFConf15 Blogging Team

As we did in 2011 and 2013, OCS Education will be live-blogging throughout the Blackfriars Conference. Every plenary session (as well as the majority of our colloquies, staging sessions, wake-up workshops, lunch meet-ups, and assorted other events) will have a devoted post here on the blog, updated in real-time, so that those of you who can’t join us in Staunton next week will still be able to follow along with the proceedings. I am pleased and proud to introduce the following individuals who will be helping me to document the 8th Blackfriars Conference from start to finish:

Elizabeth “Liz” Bernardo is a first year student in the Mary Baldwin Shakespeare and Performance program. Liz hopes to receive her Master of Letters and a Master of Fine Arts with a concentration in Directing. She is excited to assist with live-blogging and live-tweeting for her first Blackfriars Conference and cannot wait to share insights from the speakers and presentations throughout the week.

Whitney Egbert has been a theatre actor for 20 years.  She has been based in NYC for 4 years, adding work in the midwest and east coast to her west coast beginnings.  She is currently the Managing Director for The Shakespeare Forum in NYC. She has been a teaching artist with Shakesperience Productions, Inc., Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival, The Shakespeare Forum, South Dakota Shakespeare Festival, and LaGuardia Community College.  Theatre credits include: A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Love’s Labour’s Lost (The Shakespeare Forum); As You Like It (South Dakota Shakespeare Festival); Platonov (Columbia Stages); Romeo and Juliet (Pennsylvania Shakespeare Festival); Much Ado About Nothing, Othello (Hip to Hip Theatre); Romeo and Juliet, Julius Caesar (Shakesperience Productions); Fat Pig, It’s A Wonderful Life: A Radio Play (Salem Repertory). B.A.: University of Portland. www.whitneyjegbert.com

Mary Finch is a first year M.Litt student in Mary Baldwin College’s Shakespeare and Performance program. When not in the midst of academics, she writes for Shakespeare Magazine as their US Staff Writer. She also dabbles in acting and enjoys spreading the love of Shakespearean theatre through education.

Bill Leavy is a first year M.Litt student with Mary Baldwin College’s Shakespeare and Performance program. He holds an MA in Liberal Arts from St. John’s College Graduate Institute and he earned his BA in Theater at the University of Albany. He entered the acting profession twenty years ago and is a proud member of Actors Equity and the Screen Actors Guild. Among his favorite stage roles are Bob Cratchit in A Christmas Carol and Lucius in a staged reading of Titus Andronicus with the Orlando Shakespeare Company. Bill’s paper on Shakespeare’s Richard II is available online at http://www.academia.edu. He is excited to be attending his first Blackfriars Conference and looks forward to attending many more in the future.

Merlyn Sell is currently a third year MFA student in Mary Baldwin College’s Shakespeare and Performance program.  Prior to her stint at MBC, Merlyn could be found on and behind stages in California’s Wine Country.  Merlyn is the publicity lead for Sweet Wag Shakespeare and will be directing their As You Like It this December.  Her future hopes include beginning a Shakespeare theatre in her home town of Deadwood, South Dakota.

Molly Beth Seremet is currently an M.Litt Candidate in Shakespeare and Performance at Mary Baldwin College.  She holds an M.Res with Distinction in Performance and Creative Research from London’s University of Roehampton.  She has worked professionally in Europe and the United States as an actor, dancer, and deviser.  Her writing has been published in Activate and Platform e-journals and Praxis Magazine. She works frequently with her own company, the New York City-based Morse Code Theatre.

I’m also pleased to announce that we will be livestreaming select keynotes and the Thursday morning, Wednesday afternoon, and Saturday morning sessions. Look for links on the OCS Twitter feed: @shakespearectr, and be sure to follow the official conference hashtag, #BFConf15, for other tidbits!

Check out the schedule of events on the OCS website, and come back here starting Wednesday, October 28th, at 8am, for all of our real-time updates.

–Cass Morris
Academic Resources Manager

Blackfriars Conference 2015: Call for Papers and Registration

Dear Friends,

1479469_10151906077508347_1988637814_nOn odd numbered years since the first October the Blackfriars Playhouse opened, scholars from around the world have gathered in Staunton, during the height of the Shenandoah Valley’s Fall colors, to hear lectures, see plays, and explore early modern theatre. In 2015, the American Shakespeare Center’s Education and Research Department will once again host Shakespeareans, scholars and practitioners, to share ideas about Shakespeare in the study and Shakespeare on the stage and to find ways that these two worlds – sometime in collision – can collaborate.

The majority of events – papers, plays, workshops – take place in the world’s only re-creation of Shakespeare’s indoor theatre, the Blackfriars Playhouse. This conference distinguishes itself from saner conferences in a variety of other ways. First, to model the kind of collaboration we think possible we encourage presenters to feature actors as partners in the demonstration of their theses. For instance, in 2009, Gary Taylor’s keynote presentation “Lyrical Middleton” featured OCS actors singing and dancing to the songs in Middleton’s plays. Second, we limit each paper session to six short papers (10 minutes for solo presentations, 13 minutes for presentations with actors). Third, we enforce this rule by ursine fiat – a bear chases from the stage those speakers who go over their allotted time.

Delegates also attend all of the plays in the OCS 2015 Fall Season – Antony & Cleopatra, The Winter’s Tale, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and Henry VI, Part I – and, for the past several conferences, bonus plays written by Shakespearean colleagues and performed by actors in the Mary Baldwin College MFA in Shakespeare in Performance program. The spirit of fun that imbues the conference manifests itself in the annual Truancy Award, for the sensible conferee who – visiting the Shenandoah Valley at the height of Fall – has the good sense to miss the most sessions.

1468685_10151906081453347_1341082796_nThe 2015 gathering will honor Barbara Mowat and will include keynote addresses from Lena Orlin, Ayanna Thompson, Tim Carroll, and Gina Bloom.

OCS Education and Research extends this call for papers on any matters to do with the performance of early modern drama (historical, architectural, political, dramatical, sartorial, medical, linguistical, comical, pastoral) to all interested parties for our biennial conference to be held at the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia, 28 October – 1 November 2015.

As in past years, participants may submit an abstract for consideration in one of 11 plenary sessions, each of which features only 6-7 papers. The deadline to submit an abstract for consideration in the plenary sessions is 10 April 2015 (notification and announcement by 4 May). Our colloquies will be different in 2015 than at past conferences, as we are soliciting proposals to lead these sessions (deadline 10 April). We will post the 11 selected topics by May 4th, and those who wish to register to participate in a session will be able to do so after notifications regarding plenary selections go out. Registration for participation in colloquies and workshops will end 1 June. Participation in a colloquy session will be mutually exclusive from presenting in a plenary session.

What is a colloquy? Colloquy, from the Latin Colloquium, is “A talking together; a conversation, dialogue. Also, a written dialogue, as Erasmus’s Colloquies.” Using the broad definition from the OED as our guide, this gathering can be as formal or informal as the leader and participants choose. In the past, some colloquies have encouraged participants to submit papers to one another on a topic. In these situations, participants have read one another’s papers in advance of the meeting, and discussed them during the convening. Other colloquies have functioned more like panels, or round-tables, with 5-6 interested parties presenting short papers on a topic, and the floor opening for discussion following the presentations. Other Colloquies have included sharing best practices (in pedagogy, or theatre practice for instance), both through discussion and demonstration.

Submit an Abstract or a Colloquy Proposal for consideration; Deadline: 10 April 2015. Conference registration is also now open.

For more information, please email Sarah Enloe, Director of Education, at .