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.
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.
Our 2012 Summer theme was “All in the Family” – Shakespeare’s plays are filled with rich family relationships that our Players explored, through improvisation, movement, voice and text work. We were thrilled to welcome Kila Packett to our faculty – Kila taught Stage Combat, and the hand-to-hand combat scenes that our Players developed over the weeks were a big hit at the Recital!
“Shakespeare in Nature” was the theme for 2011 – in addition to our work in the theater, we took to the Great Outdoors, and created movement pieces, based on “storm” scenes from Pericles and The Tempest. We also explored a number of characters from those two plays, through improvisation, voice and movement work, and finally applying our work to Shakespeare’s text.
We’ve always refused to be limited by the expectations of what Shakespeare plays are “appropriate” for young performers, and this season, we really pushed the envelope. “Merchant of Venice” remained true to its tradition, and stirred up a little controversy – we received emails questioning why we would expose young people to the themes of this complex play – but our Players faced those themes with thoughtfulness and insight.
In what has come to be known as our “Rare Gem” series, we took on “Cymbeline” – our older students loved exploring the villains and heroes of this epic romance, and many audience members commented on how exciting it was to discover an unfamiliar play.
Due to the growing number of “Drama Club addicts,” we expanded, once again, to offer a third class. Our two 1st to 4th grade classes tackled the comedy and word play of “Much Ado About Nothing” and the rarely performed “Timon of Athens.” Our new class, made up of 4th through 8th graders performed “The Winter’s Tale” (our first evening performances, and first intermission!!)
The challenges of “The Winter’s Tale” took advantage of our older Players’ experience and maturity – they tackled the challenging emotions and epic scope with grace, and audience members were truly moved. Our “Much Ado” cast, led by a few of our Drama Club veterans, were applauded for the clarity with which they told the story. And our “Timon” cast enhanced what is often said to be an “unfinished” play with their insights into money and friendship, and enchanted the audience with their bacchanalian revels.
The Players in our second summer program worked intensively for two weeks on material that reflected our theme “Shakespeare Goes to Greece.” We explored characters in the plays that were inspired by or taken from Greek and Roman history and mythology, including The Tempest, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar, Troilus and Cressida, Comedy of Errors and Timon of Athens. We discussed the importance of myth and storytelling in our lives, and developed our own recounting of the myth of Pandora. We learned about various types of theaters, and created our own theaters and sets. 
For our first foray into the rich world of Shakespeare’s History plays, the group enthusiastically leapt into discussions about rebelling when you feel like you’ve been treated unfairly, having a parent who doesn’t understand you, hanging out with friends that your parents don’t like, and what happens (or doesn’t happen) to people who lie to get what they want … and suddenly life in 15th Century England doesn’t seem so far away.