Tag Archives: William Shakespeare

Shakespeare at the Shelter

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shakeatshelterTonight Our House presents “Shakespeare at the Shelter.”  It is a performance of some of William Shakespeare’s most famous scenes presented by residents and alumni of Our House.

Proceeds directly beneift shelter life.  This year Our House is raising money to refurbish the common area at the shelter.  This is where residents eat, receive visitors and spend leisure time.  It is one of hte most used spaces on the Our House campus and is in need of new furniture.

The performance is at 7:30pm.  Tickets are $20 and can be purchased at https://donatenow.networkforgood.org/ourhouse

Our House provides the working homeless – individuals and families – with shelter, housing, job training, education, childcare and summer youth programs, in order to equip them with the skills to be successful in the workforce, the community and their own families.

On Shakespeare’s birthday, a look at Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre events

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AST_logoToday is the traditionally accepted birthday of the Bard of Avon.  He also died on this date in 1616 at the age of 52.  The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre has an event later this week and is preparing for the 2013 season.  In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday, today’s entry looks at some upcoming AST events.

On Wednesday, April 24, Robert Quinlan, who directed Richard III last season for AST, will speak in the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center on the UCA campus (next to Reynolds Performance Hall) at 7 p.m. about his particular process and explorations involved in directing Shakespeare.  The event is sponsored by the UCA Foundation.

Quinlan is a freelance director based in Chicago. His other recent directing credits include the world premiere of The Magic Bicycle, #thisrocks, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Illusion, Iphigenia, Other Daughters, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, and Killer Joe.

He was the assistant director to Tina Landau on productions of Superior Donuts on Broadway and The Tempest at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Internationally, he has directed The Maids and Proof at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore. He holds an MFA in directing from Illinois State University.

The 2013 Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre season will open on June 6 with a production of Much ado About Nothing.  The other productions this summer, which will alternate in rotating repertory, are Oliver!, King Lear and a special one-hour version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

UALR Helping Students Brush Up Their Shakespeare

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william-shakespeareUALR’s Department of English and Department of Theatre Arts and Dance is presenting the 2013 Shakespeare Scene Festival today from 9:30 a.m. to noon, in the University Theatre of the Center for Performing Arts.  The event started yesterday.

The Shakespeare Scene Festival, first held in 1998, brings together students from a variety of Central Arkansas schools to perform scenes from Shakespeare’s plays. A performance of a Shakespearean scene integrates several elements of literacy and literacy education including: intensive study of the English language, cooperative learning, process-based theatre as well as the discipline, creativity, and organization required to rehearse and perform a scene.

“The Shakespeare Scene Festival provides an exciting opportunity for middle and high school students in central Arkansas to come together with the UALR community in celebration of the works of Shakespeare,” says Dr. Kris McAbee, the festival’s director. “The student performers are rewarded for their hard work of grappling with these difficult and profound texts by getting to perform them in University Theatre in front of a large audience of their peers and community members. The festival also reminds us of the universality and timelessness of Shakespeare’s works. They are able to speak to the feelings, experiences, and concerns of Arkansas teenagers some 400 years after they were written.”

Classes from five different area schools are participating in the festival. Over 500 students are expected to attend and participate in 11 different performances. The works presented will include scenes from Macbeth, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Taming of the Shrew, and Richard III, as well as creative adaptations like The Suessification of Romeo and Juliet.  Among the schools participating are Little Rock Central, Little Rock J. A. Fair, Little Rock Dunbar Middle School, Joseph T. Robinson Middle School and North Little Rock High School West.

Admission is free and open to the public. Each performance will last approximately 25 minutes.

For more information, visit ualr.edu/shakespeare or contact Dr. Kris McAbee, assistant professor of English, at kxmcabee@ualr.edu.

Lard and the Bard, or Shakespeare in the South Part II

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schedule~~element27Following the success of last year’s special Shakespeare in the South at Tales from the South, the second edition returns tomorrow night, February 12. (It is Lincoln’s birthday – and he was a fan of Shakespeare, so you can celebrate the 16th President’s birthday by attending.)

Authors Jay Jennings, Hope Coulter and Greg Brownderville will regale the audience with stories centered around finding themselves, others, and even the South in the Bard. The live taping of the radio series will be at Starving Artist Café in the Argenta Arts District. Live music by Shelley King and blues guitarist Mark Simpson.

Doors open at 5pm, dinner is served 5pm-6:30pm and the show starts at 7pm. Tickets are $5 for the show, plus the cost of dinner. Seating is very limited. Tickets can be purchased online at www.talesfromthesouth.com.

“Tales from the South” is recorded on Tuesdays during “Dinner and a Show” at Starving Artist Café. The show airs locally on KUAR Thursdays at 7pm and is syndicated by World Radio Network, a satellite radio distribution service, available to more than 130 million listeners worldwide.

Shows are also distributed nationwide to multiple public radio stations by PRX (Public Radio Exchange). Podcasts are available on ITunes, the NPR website, the KUAR website, the PRX website, and the “Tales from the South” website.

Clinton School presents discussion on Rep’s HENRY V

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Tomorrow, Thursday, September 6, the Clinton School of Public Service will present a panel discussion on the Arkansas Repertory Theatre production of Henry V.

In a panel moderated by The Rep’s producing artistic director Bob Hupp, members of the cast of Henry V will discuss the process of bringing Shakespeare’s characters to life for a modern audience.

This is the latest in a continuing series of panels at the Clinton School which look at Arkansas Rep productions.

The program will take place at 12 noon at Sturgis Hall.

Ark Shakes’ TWELFTH NIGHT at Wildwood

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The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre production of Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night journeys not to Illyria but the Little Rock this weekend.

After being performed at Hendrix College the first two weeks of its run, the production is being performed at Wildwood Park for the Arts this weekend.  Performances continue tonight at 7:30pm and tomorrow at 7:30pm.

Twelfth Night is directed by Rebekah Scallet, the producing artistic director of Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre.   The cast includes Nisi Sturgis, Chad Bradford, Kevin Browne, Ron Thomas, Jordan Coughtry, Heather Dupree, Tim Sailer and Curtis Jackson. Miss Sturgis and Messrs. Browne and Coughtry appear courtesy of Actors Equity Association.

Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre summarizes Twelfth Night thusly:

After a tragic shipwreck, Viola washes up on shore on the unknown island of Illyria.  Believing her brother to be lost, she disguises herself as a boy in order to seek shelter as a servant to the Duke Orsino.  Her plans quickly go awry, however, when she falls in love with the Duke, who is already in love with the Countess Olivia, who falls in love with Viola, whom she thinks is a boy.   Mistaken identities, missed signals, and mischievous mayhem abound in one of the Bard’s most romantic and delightful comedies.

Architeaser – April 24

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Yesterday’s Architeaser was an archway on the facade of the Arkansas Repertory Theatre building.  It was posted on Shakespeare’s birthday; the Rep often produces the Bard including Henry V which will start next year’s season.  The building was originally built as a department store and was transformed into a theatre in the 1980s.  The archway is  no longer over a working doorway but continues as an ornamental decoration on the building.

Today’s Architeaser is below.