The Utah Shakespeare Festival presents life-affirming classic and contemporary plays in repertory, with Shakespeare as our cornerstone. These plays are enhanced by interactive festival experiences which entertain, enrich, and educate.
My 89-year-old mother and I (67) were greatly moved by this play. It has stayed with us and I have told many about it's power and beauty. Thank you for providing such a unique perspective on MLK Jr.'s life and his place in our history and our hearts. He was humanized in a unique way which gave insight into the burden he carried. This brought forth a palpable emotional response from the audience. The acting was excellent and I applaud everyone involved in this production. 🎉 Thank you❤ BRAVO!
Let's be honest. This show never works, regardless of adaptation. Dumas' episodic was originally written as an excuse for swashbuckling adventure. To accommodate the readers' need for gratuitous violence, Dumas wrote the characters as helpless swordsmen who fight continually, every page and a half, like a sexual fetish. We've seen it all before. On stage, fight choreography is always stagey and unrealistic, and it gets tiresome after about two minutes. In the real world, sword fights resulted in almost immediate injury or death, but these silly mop-heads unsheath every 20 seconds without any injury. Such a premise is neither logical nor comedic. The ubiquitous fighting without consequences just lowers the stakes-- it's contrived, predictable, unlikely, and meritless. What would make this play interesting would be some pause to reveal the detail about the relationship between the three men-- heartfelt, vulnerable, revealing interplay. But that never happens in the show-- we can barely tell the musketeers apart. There's nary a moment of contemplation about their relationships, about their obsession with combat, about their fixation with fashion or self-image. The characters are reduced to being choreographed animatronics, shouting bon mots and preparing for the next contract strike, resulting in no pain, reaction, change in tone or progression of plot. After about 25 altercations with no dramatic advancement in plot, you'd think these characters would find an alternate method. I'd much rather see a Sam Peckinpah stage version of The Three Musketeers. But because these fight-based shows are usually driven by hyper-masculine fight choreographers who are sportsmen and who also happen to be in the theatre, the male characters never suffer true humiliation. The fight choreographers are fixated on their self-image as strong, unflappable men. The fight choreographers never want to be humiliated in rehearsal, themselves, so the characters never are. Why can't we see one of the men's wigs get plucked off by a sword and bandied about the room and mocked as pubic hair before it's placed back on the captor's head? Let's see one of the musketeers in a headlock and mock-sodomized with a sword. Let's see one of the sheathes penetrate the mouth of a captor. Let's go down the list of humiliating torture of a captive swordsmen of the day. That would certainly spice up the show. But that's not what the author did, and that's not what these small-minded macho choreographers do. The resulting display is a theme park show-- clever, safe and metronomic and completely devoid of meaning or any realistic stakes.
Theres a version of this called "Freeze!" Start with everyone in a circle. Two people go into the middle and start acting out anything they want with each other. At any point, someone from the circle can yell, "Freeze!" which makes the two actors freeze in place in the middle of whatever they are doing. The person who yelled now steps in and takes the place of one of the performers, including whatever posture they were standing in. (tap one on the shoulder to tell them you want to replace them) Once the replaced performer goes back out to the circle, the new scene begins starting with whatever the new person creates from the postures they are frozen in. Example: The first two people act out rock climbing side by side. They are discussing, "Boy, this cliff is steeper than I thought! Are your ropes secure?" Person 3 from the circle yells freeze. Both performers are stuck with one leg bent upward and the alternate arm stretched upward. Person 3 takes one of their places and assumes the same posture. Person 3 then begins moving and verbalizing a new scene, perhaps, "boy, this disco is full tonight! I love how you're dancing!" And the two performers begin acting out dancing, until someone else yells out "freeze" , steps in, and starts a new scene from the postures they are in. have fun!
The learning intention behind the "Foursquare" (or "Revolver") improv game extends beyond just an improvisational technique. It encompasses several educational and developmental objectives for actors and participants. Here are the key learning intentions: ### 1. **Character Development and Differentiation:** - **Objective:** Learn how to quickly create and switch between distinct characters. - **Benefit:** Helps actors develop versatility and avoid blending characters, enhancing their ability to portray multiple roles convincingly. ### 2. **Scene Work and Relationship Building:** - **Objective:** Practice establishing and maintaining relationships within scenes. - **Benefit:** Enhances understanding of how relationships drive scenes and character interactions, crucial for creating believable and engaging narratives. ### 3. **Adaptability and Quick Thinking:** - **Objective:** Improve the ability to adapt to new scenarios and directions on the fly. - **Benefit:** Sharpens improvisational skills and prepares actors for unexpected changes in live performances or rehearsals. ### 4. **Spatial Awareness and Blocking:** - **Objective:** Develop an understanding of stage positioning and movement. - **Benefit:** Teaches actors to be mindful of their physical presence and the importance of blocking in scene transitions. ### 5. **Listening and Reacting:** - **Objective:** Enhance active listening and appropriate reacting to scene partners. - **Benefit:** Fosters better communication and collaboration among actors, leading to more cohesive and dynamic performances. ### 6. **Creativity and Innovation:** - **Objective:** Encourage creative thinking to fill in the gaps and build on minimal prompts. - **Benefit:** Stimulates imagination and innovation, essential for bringing fresh and unique elements to performances. ### 7. **Understanding Time Progression:** - **Objective:** Learn how to portray the passage of time and its impact on characters and scenes. - **Benefit:** Helps actors develop narrative continuity and understand how time affects character development and plot progression. ### 8. **Emotional Range and Expression:** - **Objective:** Practice expressing a range of emotions in different scenarios. - **Benefit:** Expands emotional expressiveness, allowing actors to convincingly portray a wide variety of feelings and reactions. ### 9. **Teamwork and Ensemble Building:** - **Objective:** Strengthen teamwork and ensemble cohesion. - **Benefit:** Builds trust and rapport among actors, which is crucial for successful collaborative performances. ### 10. **Focus and Concentration:** - **Objective:** Improve focus and concentration by switching between scenes and characters quickly. - **Benefit:** Enhances the ability to stay present and engaged, even during rapid changes. ### Overall Learning Intention: While the "Foursquare" game is an improv technique, its broader purpose is to develop a range of skills that are essential for effective acting and performance. By practicing this game, actors learn to be more flexible, creative, and responsive, all while maintaining strong character differentiation and scene integrity. These skills are vital for both improvised and scripted performances, making "Foursquare" a valuable exercise in any actor's training repertoire.
Committing: It looks like they were laughing and really committing. They were always agreeing with other peoples ideas and fulfilling it into a reality. 10/10 Lisenting: They took other peoples ideas and agrread with it. They were reacting better then they were acting. 8.5/10 Supporting: They sometimes didnt like there previous act but they did still supported the idea. For exmaple on the skydiving one, you could tell she didnt like the idea, but still acted like she did. She reacted very well. 8/10 Offering: There was lots of offering in these scenes. They were offering many ideas and they took them without a doubt, and they gave back an idea that got better each time. 10/10 Accepting: This was the best skill they demonstrated. They said yes to everything, and had no doubts. Even if they didnt want to do the particular scene they still did, just to show how commited they are. 10/10 Advancing: With the information they got, sometimes they tried to conect a story with one of the scenes. They tried to advance with a scene to create something more intresintg and more captivating. I felt more into the story with some of the scenes. 9/10 Risking: You could tell that when they were trying to come up with something very quickly they werent thinking it all the way through and they were taking a risk to just say something random. It turned out that the risk they took was acutally good and it made most of the scenes even better. Risking is a very important part of improv. 9/10 Simplifying: Since they didnt have lots of time to think about the next move, or act, since this game you have to think fast, they were kind of forced to simplify. Natrully they were very good at this, and didnt show much struggle. 8.5/10 Misbehaving: At one point they were screaming, and making funny faces. It seems that everyone turned on a smile with it. Mis behaving is a good part of drama since it makes the scene more real and more engaing. 10/10 Playing: Sometimes they werent taking it seriously and making side jokes on the side. It is funny to watch that the more you play with the scne the more fun it is to watch and to do the scene is. 9/10
As a former student (UW-M) of Jeff's, I want to tell him that I supplied patterns for "Shakespeare Under the Bridge" San Francisco Bay area. Jeff, you inspired me to be a better designer! (and- opened up a whole new world of costume designing for me).
The best thing about this exceptional show was Kevin Kantor's extraordinary performance as Paroles. Truly breathtaking and haunting. A role that in lesser capable hands is just comedy relief, they really made it the heart and soul of the play.
Michael Doherty is one of my favorite actors at USF! I've purchased my tickets for 2023, and hope to see him there (and he'd make a great artistic director).
