Shakespeare & Company

When Action is Eloquence

Bella Merlin, Tina Packer

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2020
• eBook ISBN:
  9781000047271
• Topic: Media & Performing Arts
• Subtopic: Shakespeare Drama

Shakespeare Company: When Action is Eloquence is the first comprehensive insight into this internationally acclaimed company founded in 1978 in Lenox, Massachusetts, by actor-director Tina Packer and voice pioneer Kristin Linklater, with the transformative power of Shakespeare's language at its heart. Why act Shakespeare? What's his relevance in the twenty-first century? Compelling answers to these questions lie at the center of this highly accessible journey into Shakespeare & Company's aesthetics and practice. Drawing on hitherto unpublished material – including notebooks, lectures, interviews, rehearsal diaries – and the Company's newly collated archive, this book provides insight into a working theatre company and sheds light on the role Shakespeare plays in our modern world. It also details: Shakespeare Company's founding and early history, Its aesthetic based on the Elizabethan theatre's principles of the Art of Rhetoric; Structure of the Verse; Voice and Movement; Clown; Fight; and Actor/Audience Relationship, Vocational components of its Training, Intensives, Practical pedagogy of its Educatio programs, Insights into its unique approaches to Performance, Impact and legacy of its three lifetime founding members: Dennis Krausnick (Director of Training), Kevin G. Coleman (Director of Education) and Tina Packer (founding artistic director). Actors, directors, students, educators, scholars and theatre-lovers alike will find practical acting strategies, inspirational approaches to theatre making and lively insights into the sustaining of a unique and robust theatre company that has been thriving for over 40 years.

APPENDIX 1: AN ABRIDGED PERFORMANCE HISTORY

See www.shakespeare.org/about/performance-history for more details. Throughout the Company’s history an original DibbleDance has been staged most years from 1987 onward, along with performances by STI, SSI, SPI, PIP and/or Shakespeare & Young Company Conservatories, and – from 1990 – the Fall Festival. There are also the annual Northeast Regional Tours and winter playreading festivals.

Tina Packer, Artistic Director

1978

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mainstage)

Three Voices of Edith Wharton (Salon)

1979

An Afternoon with Edith Wharton (Salon)

The Winter’s Tale (Mainstage)

Romeo and Juliet (Mainstage)

1980

A Very Special Afternoon (Salon)

The Tempest (Mainstage)

1981

A Very Special Evening (Salon)

As You Like It (Mainstage)

Duet with Variations (Salon)

Twelfth Night (Mainstage, Toronto Theatre Festival)

1982

Edith: An Intimate Portrait (Salon)

Macbeth (Mainstage)

Twelfth Night (Mainstage, Brooklyn’s Prospect Park)

1983

The Comedy of Errors (Mainstage)

The Mount: A Turning Point (Salon)

1984

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mainstage/Tour)

The Custom of the Country (Salon)

Romeo and Juliet (Mainstage/Tour)

Songs from the Heart (Salon)

1985

The Comedy of Errors (Mainstage)

In One Door and Out the Other (Salon)

Much Ado About Nothing (Terrace)

Songs from the Heart (Salon)

1986

Antony and Cleopatra (Mainstage, co-produced with Cleveland Playhouse)

Roman Fever (Terrace)

1987

A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Mainstage)

All’s Well That Ends Well: (Mainstage)

Autres Temps (Terrace)

Othello (Tour)

The Other Two (Terrace)

1988

Afterward (Salon)

As You Like It (Mainstage)

Confession (Salon)

Hamlet (Tour)

1989

Duet with Variations (Salon)

Expiation (Salon)

Julius Caesar (Tour)

Roman Fever (Salon)

The Temperate Zone (Salon)

The Tempest (Mainstage)

1990

The Aspern Papers (Salon)

As You Like It (Mainstage)

Daisy Miller (Salon)

The Descent of Man (Salon)

Duet with Variations (Salon)

Edith: An Intimate Portrait (Salon)

The Legend (Salon)

The Old Maid (Salon)

Roman Fever (Salon)

Romeo and Juliet (Tour)

Songs from the Heart (Salon)

Women of Will 1: From Violence to Negotiation (Stables)

1991

The Aspern Papers (Salon)

The Descent of Man (Salon)

Hamlet (Salon)

The La...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Dedication
• Table of Contents
• List of figures
• Foreword – Allyn Burrows
• Preface
• Acknowledgments
• Abbreviations
• Prologue: ‘To unpath’d waters, undream’d shores’
• Act I History and roots
• Act II Training
• Act III Education
• Act IV Performance
• Epilogue: ‘On such a full sea are we now afloat’
• Appendix 1: An abridged performance history
• Appendix 2: An abridged dramatis personae
• Appendix 3: A potted plot of Cymbeline
• Index