September 15th, 2015

I'll be joining the ADIRONDACK SHAKESPEARE COMPANY'S Fall season, appearing in their productions of HAMLET and A WINTERS TALE in rep!

While this is my second HAMLET, I will be playing all new characters, including one I've always had on my wish list: Osric. Why Osric? He gets to show up at the very end of the play, make a scene, have all the best lines, and he's one of the few characters who doesn't die. Don't get me wrong, dying on stage can be fun, but it can also be a bit of chore to try and hold your breadth through an act or two of back-to-back monologues as the play finishes up. 

This will be my first experience with A WINTERS TALE, and I couldn't be more excited to finally get a crack at this play. WINTERS TALE used to be one of my least favorite Shakespeare plays because I simply didn't understand how the structure could work. As soon as you become invested in King Leontes and his jealous plot, you're whisked away to Bohemia (by boat, hilariously, since Bohemia sure has hell doesn't have a coast) and introduced to a parade of clowns and fools. However, exploring the play through the eyes of my two characters, Antigonus and Florizel, has shown me the linking thread in the play.

A WINTERS TALE is truly a romance, and quite a good one at that. In few other Shakespeare plays are there so many complex romantic entanglements stretching across a multitude of characters. It also resembles a fairy tale in the amount of time that passes from the play's beginning to its end, which is enough time to allow Perdita to grow from a baby to a young woman. 

Both Antigonus, with his inner bravery and sense of justice, and Florizel, with his un-dauntingly romantic spirit, are fast becoming two of my favorite Shakespearean characters, and I can't wait to explore them in further depth with the talented cast upstate in the Adirondack region. 

The ADIRONDACK SHAKESPEARE COMPANY also does things a little differently in terms of performance, utilizing a "Shakespeare in the raw" approach. What that means, basically, is that everyone arrives upstate off book, we do a few read throughs and physical exercises, but don't actually perform the play all together until opening night. It's a daunting task, but I'm sure one that will infuse our first performances with a raw energy that I haven't felt before. Here's to a few great weeks of Shakespeare up North as the Fall colors turn!