asc

It occurs to me that I should probably document this in some form.

I am currently attending the 2011 Blackfriars Conference, put on by the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA.  You may remember that I nearly decided to spend three years of my life here, in their MLitt/MFA program.  Although I eventually chose Exeter instead, I still deeply admire the work they do here, so much so that I co-founded the Grassroots Shakespeare Company in direct response to their inspiring productions.

And that's how I came to be here, as a presenter, at one of the most legit Shakespeare conferences in existence.  They were keen to hear more about Grassroots - our processes, our challenges, our successes - and we were really keen to come out and see their current season, and learn new stuff from brilliant Shakespeare scholars.  Thankfully, UVU was keen to foot the bill.

The conference has been illuminating, intimidating, expansive, and so very rewarding.  I have such respect for the ASC actors.  Their performances are almost impossibly detailed.  The texture and nuance involved in their approach to the language of Shakespeare's plays brings layers of meaning to the surface in a way that seems almost effortless.  They make the plays extraordinarily accessible, not by dumbing them down, but by dexterously uncovering their inherent rhetorical richness.  It's been a joy to see a different show each night.  The Tempest, Hamlet, and Henry V were each strong, unique, and surprising.  How this company achieves such a genuinely fun sense of play, while so closely attending to the demands of the text, is magical to behold.

Coming back here has reminded me what a debt of gratitude Grassroots owes to the ASC's inspirational productions.  We have so much work ahead of us if we're going to bring our shows up to scratch in terms of textual detail, but I think we often achieve an atmosphere of vibrant anarchic play in our productions that somehow evokes the experience of seeing the ASC in action.

I have just one more day here before heading back to Utah, where I'll see the final evening of Grassroots' latest production, Macbeth.  As I stand at the edge of our renaissance touring stage, and hear some of Shakespeare's most chilling verse cut through the frosty Autumn air, I expect I'll be thinking how lucky we've been to share this idea with an ever-expanding audience, and how thankful I am for the pioneering work of the American Shakespeare Center, breathing new life into some of the best plays ever written. 


It's been a great ride so far, and we're just getting started.