Performing Shakespeare Unrehearsed: A Practical Guide to Acting and Producing Spontaneous Shakespeare

Performing Shakespeare Unrehearsed: A Practical Guide to Acting and Producing Spontaneous Shakespeare outlines how Shakespeare’s plays can be performed effectively without rehearsal, if all the actors understand a set of performance guidelines and put them into practice. Each chapter is devoted to a specific guideline, demonstrating through examples how it can be applied to pieces of text from Shakespeare’s First Folio, how it creates blocking and stage business, and how it enhances story clarity. Once the guidelines have been established, practical means of production are discussed, providing the reader with sufficient step-by-step instruction to prepare for Unrehearsed performances. This book is written for the actor and performer.

Table of Contents:
Acknowledgments Chapter One: Why Unrehearsed? Terminology Reading the Cue Script Other Sources Chapter Two: Meter in Shakespeare Basics of Iambic Pentameter Irregularities Short Lines Expanding –ed Endings Expanding Consecutive Pronounced Vowels Long Lines Shortening Consecutive Pronounced Vowels Unaccented Medial Vowels Shortening Words with Medial V Contracting "The" Overfull Lines Inverted Feet Beginnings of Speeches Within Speeches Summary Chapter Three: This, That, Here, and There Onstage Alone Including the Audience This That There and Here Onstage with Other Characters Identifying Yourself There This Hero’s Blush That Audience as Characters These Monosyllables Audience Confrontation Summary Chapter Four: We, Us, and Our Ophelia’s Flowers and Herbs Rosemary and Pansies Fennel and Columbines Rue Grouping: Collective Words Wearing the Rue More Examples of Singular Versus Collective Othello and Desdemona Valentine, Speed, and the Outlaws Unusual Grouping Scenarios Grouping with Audience Members Kings and Grouping Mark Antony, Brutus, and the Assassins Summary Chapter Five: Thou and You The Effect of Thou on Blocking Thou between King and Subject Thou between Powerful and Powerless Thou between Parent and Child Thou between Lovers Thou between Husband and Wife Thou Overpowering I/Me/My Thou Implied by Verb Form Summary Chapter Six: Following and Throwing Stage Directions Thrown Stage Directions: Blocking Combinations with Written Stage Directions Times When Stage Directions Should Not Be Followed Impractical Abstractions Improvised Dialogue Metaphor Creating Confusion Thrown Directions Requiring Rehearsal Music and Dancing Dead Bodies Combat Throwing Directions to the Audience Summary Chapter Seven: Cross to the Character…. Crosses to Cue-Givers Speaking To and Speaking About Relationship Revelation Intensifying Conflict Exception: Characters in Hiding Summary Chapter Eight: Action to the Word Action to the Verb: Thus Action to the Verb: Will Future Action at a Specific Time Impossible Actions Prevented by Circumstance Prevented by Practicality Prevented by Time Prevented by Dialogue Playable Action on Future Verbs Violent Transformative Romantic Bawdy Combinations of Impossible and Playable Descriptive Action to the Word Descriptive Action to the Word in Context Descriptive Action to the Word: Thus Summary Chapter Nine: Overlapping Speech Short Lines and Overlap Hamlet at Ophelia’s Grave Mark Antony with the Plebeians Simultaneous Speech Repeated Cues Summary Chapter Ten: Preparing for Unrehearsed Performance Cue Scripts Creating Text Documents Building Scrolls Casting and Doubling Developing a Doubling Chart Casting Platts and Prompter Rehearsed Segments: Performance Based Songs Combat Dance Rehearsed Segments: Practicality Based Furniture and Large Props Quaint Devices Costumes and Props Text Sessions Marking the Cue Script Epilogue: In Performance Guideline Summary Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 200 Words Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 100 Words Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 50 Words Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 25 Words Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in 15 Words Unrehearsed Shakespeare Guidelines in Five Words

About the Author :
Bill Kincaid is a Professor of Theatre at Western Illinois University, and founder of Bard in the Barn, an event that has mounted Unrehearsed productions of 17 of Shakespeare’s plays. He has acted in Shakespeare productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the New England Shakespeare Festival, and Chicago’s Vitalist Theatre, and directs regularly at the Crossroads Repertory Theatre in Indiana and New York’s Cortland Repertory Theatre. He is a three-time recipient of the Classical Acting Coach Award from the National Partners— American Theatre, and was presented with the Illinois Theatre Association’s Award of Honor in 2014.