Author: iambic315

This year, we offered six weeks of programming. At Fais Do Do, we offered three weeks of our Shakespeare Intensive – Players explored plays like Twelfth Night, Taming of the Shrew, Cymbeline, King Lear, Hamlet, Much Ado about Nothing, and Midsummer Night’s Dream. We were honored to have poet Hardy Keith Edwards as guest instructor – he worked with the students to explore not only Shakespeare’s poetry, but the works of Maya Angelou, Sojourner Truth and Claude McKay.

At the Lyric Theatre, we offered two weeks of Shakespeare Intensive, and one week of Queen Elinor’s School of Knighthood and Chivalry. Our young knights learned combat from fight masters Kila Packet and Esdras Touissant, horseback-riding from equestrian experts Lorena Orlosky and David James, and archery from Gary Landers at the Rancho Park Archery Range. We also explored the art of storytelling – our Knights interviewed family members, and shared stories of family history. We divided into small groups, and each group created a “family” crest, motto and mission.

A highlight of the summer was our amazing staff of student teacher-directors. Several of our students who are now in or approaching high school mentored the younger Players, and took on coaching, teaching and directing tasks. We are so proud of their excellent work!

Fall 2013 saw the launch of our informal “Subversive Shakespeare” series. Purists, head for the hills. We subverted the established opinions and “schools of thought” on the already controversial “Taming of the Shrew,” turning conventional concepts on their 16th century heads. What happens when Petruchia, a single-minded young woman, determined to marry well, meets Jake, otherwise known as the Shrew … er, that is, the Cur? His younger brother Bianco has all the girls in a tizzy, but thanks to the boys’ stubborn mother, they can’t do anything about it until Jake is married off. We were delighted with the results – and that final monologue that has puzzled and infuriated generations of actresses? It’s a whole different story when a young man speaks it!

We were also thrilled and honored to be named “Community Champions” by PBS SoCal. They sent a documentary crew to Fais Do Do to film our SITC Players as they performed “Shakespeare’s Characters: Speaking Truth to Power.” The troupe embodied characters from the Canon who display elements of courage in the face of corruption, poise under pressure, and who spoke their truth to the powers that be.

The result was two mini-documentaries – one that aired throughout December 2013, and a segment on LaART, PBS SoCal’s original show celebrating the Arts in Los Angeles.

We tripled our programming this Summer, adding two weeks of Shakespeare in the City, and two weeks of our new “Queen Elinor’s School of Knighthood and Chivalry” to our usual Shakespeare Intensive. Our Knights explored Archery, Swordplay and the Equestrian Arts, went on a “Wilderness Quest,” and designed custom Coats of Arms, reflecting their family heritage, while our Shakespeare Intensive and Shakespeare in the City students amazed audiences with recitals at the end of each week. We were thrilled to have a full staff of Artistic Associates assisting us in teaching and directing, including five high schoolers who have grown up with LADC.

Once again, a group of our students elected to spend all year exploring Romeo & Juliet, developing a close-knit ensemble that reveled in their explorations of the relevant themes, and performed some pretty passionate swordplay, under the direction of Fight Choreographer Kila Packett. It was presented it in repertory with a circus-themed As You Like It, where Rosalind and Celia run away to the Circus of Arden, and meet clowns, acrobats, animal tamers, and more! And a new generation of LADC Players made their debuts with Pericles – we’re very excited for the future!

Meanwhile, in West Adams, our Shakespeare in the City troupe presented their first full-length production – in a lively and colorful, music-filled rendition of Timon of Athens – once again, letting audiences see how relevant this rarely-produced play is to contemporary audiences.

It was an Election Year. What will politicians do and say to be in power? Take Macbeth, for example. Our Players pared Macbeth down to reveal these Bad to the Bone characters just as they are – raw, ambitious, political, shadowy, dark.

Three of our Players (two of them female) explored the role of Macbeth, as he unravels, literally passing on the mantle in a ceremonial transition. And our three Lady Macbeths also played the three Weird Sisters, raising all sorts of interesting questions about who was actually driving the action, and what was real and what were figments of the Macbeths’ troubled consciences.

This Fall, we also began a new class – Play-Acting for Social Justice. Our Players worked together for 12 weeks to create their own original theatre pieces – works based on a pedagogy of social justice themes expressed with compassion and solution. They explored  the ISMS (ageism, classicism, racism, lookism, ableism, etc.) and the PHOBIAS (homophobia, xenophobia, etc.) that create conflict and cause damage – from a two-person altercation … to a global catastrophe.

The resulting show – “O Justice, Where Art Thou? Young Voices of Courage” – wove our Players’ pieces together with the words of Sojourner Truth, Martin Luther King, and other visionaries.