Alicia Grega-Pikul
It’s an actor’s job to make performing look so easy you forget they’re doing it. That kind of carefree ease requires more than just weeks working out the challenges in a script. It generally requires years in training re-learning how to walk and talk and listen. Scranton’s
Electric Theatre Company boasts some of the best training in town but will throw all caution to the wind Monday with a program featuring a cast of untrained actors, amateurs and professionals meeting onstage together to present
As You Like It with no advance preparations.
No kidding. It’s titled "Unrehearsed Shakespeare."
Sound like a trainwreck? It might be, admits ETC company member Heather Stuart, who has organized the theatrical event, but if so, it will be a fun one. Still, her hopes are high that something much more magical might occur.
There are no costumes. Stuart asked only that the actors dress comfortably. The cast of 25 will be handed their roles an hour before the show, which is scheduled to begin at 7:30 p.m. Each cue script is customized per actor with only the last line of the actor speaking before them and their subsequent lines.
“It’s how they supposedly did it in Shakespeare’s day,” Stuart explained. “They got their role, which was literally their part, rolled, and they would unroll it as the play went on. … It takes a lot of listening. And there’s a whole school of thought by Patrick Tucker on this — if you use the
First Folio, about how you can basically perform a Shakespearean play without any rehearsal, fairly clearly, following some basic rules.”
Stuart has asked her cast follow only three of those: walk to the person you are talking to, do what you say or is said about you (e.g. I
kneel here before you), and if you are confronted with a long speech of verse, just keep driving through to the end even if don’t know what you are saying. And, it will all work out in the end.
Stuart excluded herself from the cast, mainly because she wants to watch. Those who will be performing include Brian Langan, Patrice Wilding, Andrea Talarico, Heather Davis, Dan Brennan, Stacy Giovannucci, Conor O'Brien, and John Beck in addition to ETC company members and its Griffin Conservatory staff and students.
The production is part of ETC’s new Out on a Limb series, which launched last month with a cabaret of obscure songs by David Hunisch and a public reading of Nancy Hasty’s play
Lawnchairs to be staged by the company in March. It allows The Griffin Conservatory Theatre Lab members to work on projects of personal interest outside the realm of mainstage production.
“The whole idea was to have a place where we can develop work and ideas,” Stuart explained. “I wanted to do something that involved many different kinds of people, not just actors. And from all different parts of the community.
“I’m really thrilled about the people who said they would do it and I’m hoping it goes well because I’d like to do more. They’re easy to do,” she said.
The Out on a Limb series continues every second and fourth Monday indefinitely. A donation of $5 to the conservatory will be collected at the door. Reservations are not required. Refreshments will be served. Upcoming programs include the first peek at a new musical titled
The Scarecrow, staged readings of new One Act plays
Audience and
The Other Shoe. Visit
www.electrictheatre.org or call 558-1515 for more information.
UPDATE: A video of highlights from the show. Added 11/11/2009.
Out on a Limb presents Unrehearsed Shakespeare from Alicia Grega on Vimeo.