"Curtain Up" is a series of articles providing a behind-the-scenes look at the makings of a Boston College theater production. This semester the theater department will produce Dreaming Shakespeare, which The Heights will follow from auditions to opening night.
Last Saturday night, the JumboTron in Alumni Stadium reported that 44,500 fans were in attendance, cheering on our beloved football team to an amazing win over Penn State. Many of those fans were students, made apparent by a sea of golden Superfan T-shirts. Indeed, a huge percentage of the Boston College community is very vocal about their support for our sports teams and relatively aware of what it's like for an athlete.
Not many BC students really understand what goes on behind the scenes of Robsham Theater, however. There are no rosters for those who act, and there isn't a devoted following of people all around Boston - and the United States for that matter - who are following the production schedule of theatrical productions at BC.
And so, for those who are clueless as to what happens at auditions, during the rehearsals, and backstage during the final production, this is for you.
This is the first installment of a series of articles that will run over the next few months chronicling the development of Dreaming Shakespeare, a play to be performed later this fall, directed by theater professor John Houchin.
Dreaming Shakespeare, however, is not your typical play. Instead of following a pre-written script, it joins together different monologues, dialogues, and scenes from numerous Shakespearian plays to create a Shakespearian collage of sorts.
The actors, through improvisational exercises in rehearsals, will help determine the blocking of the play. It will be a challenge to all involved to create this piece from scratch, but they'll be receiving some help from Karen Kopryanski, a graduate of the American Repertory Theatre's professional training program, who will serve as vocal director. Pam Newton will also help with stage movement and choreography. Richard Lawson, A&S '05, will be the stage manager for the play.
The audition process seemed to reflect the challenging nature of the play itself. It wasn't the typical read-a-scene-with-a-partner audition that you might remember from middle school plays. For the audition, everyone started by performing a Shakespearian monologue, followed by a "movement audition." Not to be confused with a dance audition, it didn't have to do as much with dance steps as it did with gestures and movements.
Once making it through the preliminary auditions, actors were called back and asked to perform their monologues again, this time either performing it as an entirely different character or restructuring the language of it to take on a different meaning. In the explanation the director provided while describing the play to those auditioning, he said those cast in the play would have to be "fiercely independent, fearlessly zany, and scrupulously dependable." Obviously, the demanding audition process ensured that those that made it through were just that.
Where many people were probably scared off by the lack of structure, however, others saw it as freeing, and they're up to the challenge. Laura Murphy, A&S '08, who attended callbacks for Dreaming Shakespeare, explained.
"I was interested in Dreaming Shakespeare because I love Shakespeare and am always looking to learn more. No matter how many varying [interpretations there] are, Shakespeare still manages to hit that universal core."
"Dreaming Shakespeare seemed to me to be a project interested in just that: exploring Shakespeare in every possible way and, in doing so, really finding the truth in the text and within ourselves," she said.
And so, as the actors cast in Dreaming Shakespeare will be exploring the subtle nuances of Shakespearian texts and finding out what's really going on, so too The Heights will be exploring what goes on behind the scenes at Robsham Theater.
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