A Note from the Director: Pronunciations

Friday, May 31^st:

Shakespeare had a lot of Italian influences when writing “Taming of the Shrew”. In fact, it is hypothesized he just adapted an old commedia stock character play called “The Shrew” into something he could call his own with his own twists on the action.

As director for this particular show, I chose to draw upon my experience working with singing opera (one of these days I’ll have to illustrate this more in a different show!) in figuring out how we could cohesively as a cast pronounce everyone’s Italian names!

Now, some of them go against the grain of how you would actually pronounce these names if you were speaking Italian correctly, but it’s a comedy! We strive to break convention and distort expectations – some of the names are pronounced for the comedy, not for the correctness. (Yes, we did it for the LOLZ…)

Here’s what we came up with:

Basic Name pronunciations:
Bianca = Bee-ahn-kah (round ‘a’s’)
Baptista = Bap-teese-tah (flat ‘a’ in ‘bap’; round ‘a’ in ‘tah’)
Grumio = Groom-ee-oh
Vincentio = Vihn-sent-ee-oh
Lucentio = Loo-sent-ee-oh
Tranio = Tranny-oh (Sorry, Tranio…)
Gremio = Grehm-ee-oh
Katherina = Kat-er-ee-nah (flat ‘a’ in ‘kat’; round ‘a’ in ‘nah’)
Hortensio = Whore-ten-see-oh
Petruchio = Peh-true-key-oh

 

It has been a real challenge making all of these names sounds natural in our mouths, in rehearsal, I know I have been having slips of the tongue and reminding myself that it’s “Pet-ru-key-o” like “Pinocchio”! But it has been lots of fun figuring out who everyone is and how they would talk to each other!

We’ll see you next time!

 

PS: BONUS MATERIAL – I saw this article on Cracked.com today: http://www.cracked.com/article_20452_the-5-most-incredible-things-ever-done-purely-out-spite_p2.html

“Inside the Palazzo Comunale, where it is possible to visit the historic rooms, we are welcomed by one of the symbols of the city: the Secchia Rapita, a simple wooden bucket ennobled by the mock heroic poem of the same name which, written by the Modenese Alessandro Tassoni in 624, draws inspiration from facts which really happened. During the battle of Zappolino in 1325, the Modenese routed the Bolognese, chasing them right back inside their city, and when they stopped to slake their thirst by drinking from a well, they stole its bucket as a war trophy to bear witness to their exploits. Since then it has been kept in Modena with all honours.”

And I thought… man, that sums up so much about the style of this show.

 

Just think of 10 people acting really funny and confrontational – and I think you pretty much got our first draft of “Shrew” blocking and performances.

See you here again on Monday! When the show will be fully blocked and ready for fine tuning before performances at the end of the month!

A Note from the Director: Character Inspirations

Wednesday, May 29^th:

After getting through music selections, I found it useful to give actors a reference they could research or already know about in getting a model for their characters. Since we are going full-on comedy with “Taming of the Shrew” I tried to draw on major comedic or cartoon characters that actors could try to get a feeling for, and maybe where appropriate, emulate in building their stage characters.

 

Here are the inspirations where we all started from:

 

Christopher Sly / Gremio ……………………………………… Robert Smith

Inspiration: Harpo Marx

Hostess / Bianca …………………………..…………… Samantha Bergeron

Inspiration: Jessica Rabbit from “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?”

 

Lord ……………………………………………………………… Cillian Evans

Inspiration: Remy Buxaplenty from “Fairly Odd Parents”

Baptista …………………………………………………………… Jarret Clarke

Inspiration: Groucho Marx

Lead Player / Lucentio ……………………………………………. Cyrus Pynn

Inspiration: David Bowie in “Labyrinth”, or Ben Vereen in “Pippin”

    OR     

 

Second Player / Tranio …………………………………………. Kayla Smith

Inspiration: Velma Dinkley from “Scooby Doo”

Third Player / Hortensio / Pedant ………………………… C. Glen Williams

Inspiration: The Smothers Brothers

Grumio / Vincentio / Widow ………………………………………. Jay Huckle

Inspiration: Pick a Python… probably John Cleese or Graham Chapman

Katherina ………………………………………………… Samantha Turlington

Inspiration: Jennifer Lawrence in “Silver Linings Playbook”

Petruchio ……………………………………………………….. Eric Wollmann

Inspiration: Nathan Fillion in “Dr. Horrible”

 

Since these inspirations, during rehearsals, we have been developing many of these characters either away or towards the initial inspirations based on how they best serve the action of the play. Maybe not every time, but we have found this tool useful in working the play because we rely so much on broader history of acting and comedy instead of direct human interaction and reaction.

 

This version of “Taming of the Shrew” features what happens when a group of actors come together to perform in a show together, along with all of their failings, foibles, and egos – more so than a love story between Kate and Petruchio. Therefore, starting from character inspirations was helpful for our troupe as we are working on playing characters larger than life!

We’ll see you next time!

A Note from the Director: Music, Part 1

Monday, May 27^th:

Hello! And Welcome to the first blog in a series featuring Open Air Shakespeare’s “Taming of the Shrew”! Obviously, the amount of exclamation points in this welcome indicates how excited we are to have you here and learning more about the show. Hopefully getting excited with us for performances this late June/July!

I’m Gabrielle, the director. (Shown here with one of my favorite coffee mugs.)

 

Okay, here’s a real headshot (I need a new one, this is a few years old):

 

Let’s start at the beginning, editing the text. Shakespeare wrote for a time where going to the theatre was a highly boisterous and distractable event during a lengthy evening. Groundings would be eating, drinking, gambling, shouting, and… let’s just say, “making love” during the play. Because of this a lot of plot points may have been verbally repeated several times in a script, just in case no one was paying attention. There were also a lot of classic and current-day references that modern audience simply do not find as funny as Shakespearean audiences would have.

To try and adapt Shakespeare for a modern audience, I like to start with creating a playlist of songs that exemplify themes of the show while I edit – to keep my mind in tune (pun intended) with the play and keeping a common thread throughout the entire performance.

Here’s what I came up with for how I wanted the show to feel musically and emotionally to the players and the audience using modern music:

 

Currently, the actors are also selecting music that they think exemplifies their characters and scenes in the play. Some actors have already submitted some great choices from The Proclaimers and Suessical the Musical!

Music, beats, and timing all play an important role in theatre – musicals, comedy, or otherwise. How a play runs relies heavily on a certain internal timing created by the cast through working and acting together. Sometimes music can aide in getting that process started, whether in editing a text or working through blocking.

We’ll see you next time!

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Samantha Eberhardt as Dogberry in “Much Ado About Nothing” -Open Air Shakespeare NRV, 2012

Who doesn’t like a bearded actor performing the Bard?!

 

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Radford Theatre Will Stay Open!!

Open Air Shakespeare NRV is happy to announce that the Radford Theatre will not be closing after all! Four gentlemen have purchased the business are are currently prepping the building for reopening mid June! Check out this story. And check them out on facebook at www.facebook.com/RadfordTheatre. Also, don’t forget to like us on facebook at www.facebook.com/openairshakespearenrv and on @ShakespeareNRV

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