April 18, 2008
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Dana Werdmuller: (831) 459-3160
[email protected]
‘SHAKESPEARE TO GO’ COMPANY TO BE CERTIFIED IN SWORDPLAY
PROGRAM TO VISIT 30 LOCAL SCHOOLS PLUS OFFER FREE PUBLIC PERFORMANCES
SANTA CRUZ, CA – This year’s members of Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s educational outreach program Shakespeare to Go will not only be learning their lines, marks and stage directions, but will also be trained in rapier and dagger for stage combat. More than mere training, these UC Santa Cruz Theatre Arts students will walk away from their dual-quarter experience with a weapons certification to add to their growing portfolios.
Shakespeare to Go is a program started by Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 1988 in collaboration with the UCSC Theatre Arts Department. Every year, a Theater Arts faculty member casts and directs a 50-minute version of one of the plays featured by SSC in the upcoming summer season. This year, Shakespeare to Go will be performing Romeo and Juliet, cast and directed by UCSC lecturer and SSC company regular Mike Ryan. Ryan has set this always-relevant story in a contemporary high school environment, complete with a “prep-school punk” attitude, school uniforms and rap-style musical inflences. Winter quarter is spent with the UCSC student actors rehearsing the play and preparing for the spring quarter when Shakespeare to Go tours schools in Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Santa Clara Counties.
The classical weapons training is a valuable added bonus this year. The 2008 season marks the fourth consecutive year that Shakespeare to Go has received funding from the National Endowment for the Arts/Arts Midwest through its Shakespeare In American Communities grant program. In previous years, this funding brought in one professional actor to perform alongside the Theatre Arts students. Mike Ryan was the first professional actor brought in for the 2005 season, directed by SSC alum Tommy Gomez. Now in his third year as Director of Shakespeare to Go, Ryan has chosen to use this funding to bring in professional Fight Choreographer Dave Maier to provide the weapons training needed to make the fight scenes in Romeo and Juliet more authentic and to provide the Theatre Arts students with an advantage in the world of professional theatre. According to Ryan, “It’s a lot like being a CPA in the profession of accounting. Dagger and Rapier Certification guarantees a certain level of quality and skill in the actor you are hiring. It’s a definite advantage and useful for classical theatre roles.”
Also thanks to the NEA grant, workshops have been added in advance of the school performances. Director Ryan travels throughout the tri-county area making iambic pentameter sound interesting to teenagers and pre-teens through a series of exercises and role-playing. Showing the relevance of Shakespeare’s plays in today’s culture is probably the most satisfying to the young Shakespeare to Go cast:
“Taking the performance to the schools is really rewarding: showing students who are not literature majors that Shakespeare can be current and youthful and energized. It’s about bringing relevance to classics that can so often just sound like gobbledy-gook.” – Christine Behrens (Juliet), third-year Theatre Arts student.
“It’s fascinating to see that each kid in each grade responds to something entirely different. It might be the kiss, or the fight, but they find small things in the performance that they latch on to, and it’s always surprising.” – Nika Pappas (Tybalt), third-year Theatre Arts student.
“Our performances are easily the first experience these kids have had with Shakespeare and most of the time, the first time they’ve experienced live theatre of any kind. That’s quite a responsibility to bear, but it makes me happy and excited to be part of something that brings that experience to so many kids.” – Max Baumgarten (Mercutio), fifth-year Theatre Arts student.
In celebration of William Shakespeare’s birthday, Shakespeare to Go will present a FREE public performance of Romeo and Juliet on April 27, 2008.
WHO: Shakespeare Santa Cruz's educational outreach program Shakespeare to Go
WHAT: Public Performance of Romeo and Juliet
WHERE: Santa Cruz County Veteran’s Memorial Building, 836 Front Street, Santa Cruz
WHEN: Sunday, April 27, 2008
TIME: 2:00 PM
COST: FREE
AGES: All ages
INFO: www.shakespearesantacruz.org
ANOTHER PUBLIC PERFORMANCE:
Saturday, May 17, 2:00 PM @ The Boulder Creek Public Library - FREE
Subscriptions for the 2008 professional season of Shakespeare Santa Cruz go on sale in mid-April; single tickets will be available in May. Both the Festival Glen and the Theatre Arts Mainstage are located on the campus of the University of California, Santa Cruz. For more season and ticket information, please visit the SSC web site at http://shakespearesantacruz.org or call the UCSC Ticket Office at (831) 459-2159.
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