Improvised Shakespeare!!!

[acrouch]

Lovely! Would like to be present but will be in town starting mid-october. Do you guys do distance learning?

Reread a couple of your favorite Shakespeare plays. Write a sonnet.

Your distance, Madeline, from here is great.
To count those miles on hands and feet I'd fail.
I know not all that you've got on your plate,
But I bid you have fun without travail.
There are those of us who wish you were here
For projects that you say you'd love to play.
As Andy said in answer to your query,
To participate there's still a way:
Just write a structured poem of 14 lines--
Five downbeats, five up, they'll give you ten.
Use A then B, then A then B for rhymes:
Twelve lines of stanzas three, then two to end.
Still, come be with us in your soonest while,
And we’ll make these, improvisation-style.

passing fair, Jeff. Passing fair.

[madeline]

A monotone tone spreads o’er the ground,
Trite, deadly plain, squeaking squawking grey squall
Hark! My acquaintances, it is the sound
of an Elizabethan casting call.

Greedily consuming caffeine I look
To widen my eyes for one man’s regard,
While all may play make-em-ups by the book,
We play this game by the book of the bard.

As a boat led by a ruthless cockswain
Down a drudging, plebeian thoroughfare:
Brigadier, Red Beard, and Anne Marie Bain -
Unwilling, I’ve arranged your tiring dare.

I sup tonight at the Olive Garden -
Bound with Kenneth Branagh, to my chagrin.

[Jeff]

A monotone tone spreads o’er the ground,
Trite, deadly plain, squeaking squawking grey squall
Hark! My acquaintances, it is the sound
of an Elizabethan casting call.

Greedily consuming caffeine I look
To widen my eyes for one man’s regard,
While all may play make-em-ups by the book,
We play this game by the book of the bard.

As a boat led by a ruthless cockswain
Down a drudging, plebeian thoroughfare:
Brigadier, Red Beard, and Anne Marie Bain -
Unwilling, I’ve arranged your tiring dare.

I sup tonight at the Olive Garden -
Bound with Kenneth Branagh, to my chagrin.

Fuckin' yeah.

[Wesley]

Don't forget, most sonnets of Shakespeares age (and hand) have an initial octave (2 quatrains or 8 lines) that are the proposition (set up or describe the problem) followed by a volta (or turn) in the 9th line that allows the sextet (1 quatrain and 1 couplet or 6 lines) to serve as resolution (answers the problem or question, or if no problem was set up, changes the mood or tone).

Wheels within wheels.

ENGLISH MAJORS FOREVAR!!!!!!1

[kbadr]

Don't forget, most sonnets of Shakespeares age (and hand) have an initial octave (2 quatrains or 8 lines) that are the proposition (set up or describe the problem) followed by a volta (or turn) in the 9th line that allows the sextet (1 quatrain and 1 couplet or 6 lines) to serve as resolution (answers the problem or question, or if no problem was set up, changes the mood or tone).

But, you know, don't get in your head or anything when you're improvising Shakespeare.

Key-rist.

[harperjdav]

I would like to attend

[Brian Boyko]

I had a dream about this last night. Everyone in improv was there, but I was letting everyone down because I was really tired (tired in a dream, heh). Phil Aulie was playing Iago, a talking horse. There were secret passages under the hideout which we used to get around and coach people from below the stage. The odd thing was that the place under the Hideout was a big stage in itself. We just never noticed it because we never tried walking through the walls.

Anyway, I tried to write a sonnet for Iago the horse and feed it to him but I sucked at it. Then I woke up.

I don't know what this dream means. I don't think I want to know.

[sara farr]

I nudge thee.

[Jules]

Lo, I am but nudged.

1:00, this day, at the Hideout. Godspeed.

[nadine]

I nudge thee like the fruit of a coconut, who swayed on the bosom of its tree, until it was swept free by a wisp of wind birthed from a monsoon over the Orient.

That was a very well organized rehearsal. I had fun. Thanks!

[Jules]

It was fun wasn't it? I had a great time! Thanks for being there you guys!

[Asaf]

Rehearsal today kicked ass. Glad to be involved.

[hujhax]

I had fun too!

1. Here's a link to Thirteenth Night, just to prove I wasn't making that up.
2. If anybody wants to borrow Shakespeare's Grammar from me, lemme know.
3. All Shakespeare geeks should check out Slings & Arrows, a TV show about a troubled Shakespeare festival.

[Jeff]

All Shakespeare geeks should check out Slings & Arrows, a TV show about a troubled Shakespeare festival.

Holy crap! Mark McKinney! Thanks for the heads up.

[sara farr]

I had fun with the material, and I had a great time playing with all yoose guys. Thank you, Andy & Julie, for organizing this!!

FYI, my father has been collecting movie versions of Shakespeare plays. I've seen a bunch. My favorites are:

Taming of the Shrew (1967 - Richard Burton & Elizabeth Taylor)
Baptista (Michael Hordern), a rich Paduan merchant, announces that his fair young daughter, Bianca (Natasha Pyne), will remain unwed until her older sister, Katharina (Elizabeth Taylor), a hellish shrew, has wed. Lucentio (Michael York), a student and the son of a wealthy Pisan merchant, has fallen in love with Bianca. He poses as a tutor of music and poetry to gain entrance to the Baptista household and to be near Bianca. Meanwhile, Petruchio (Richard Burton), a fortune-hunting scoundrel from Verona, arrives in Padua, hoping to capture a wealthy wife. Hortensio (Victor Spinetti), another suitor of Bianca, directs Petruchio's attention to Katharina. When Hortensio warns him about Katharina's scolding tongue and fiery temper, Petruchio is challenged and resolves to capture her love. Hortensio and another suitor of Bianca, Gremio (Cyril Cusack), agree to cover Petruchio's costs as he pursues Katharina.

Romeo & Juliet (1968)
Two families of Verona, the Montagues and the Capulets, have been feuding with each other for years. Young Romeo Montague goes out with his friends to make trouble at a party the Capulets are hosting, but while there he spies the Capulet's daughter Juliet, and falls hopelessly in love with her. She returns his affections, but they both know that their families will never allow them to follow their hearts.

Much Ado About Nothing (1993 - Emma Thompson & Kenneth Branagh)
Young lovers Hero and Claudio are to be married in one week. To pass the time, they conspire with Don Pedro to set a "lover's trap" for Benedick, an arrogant confirmed bachelor, and Beatrice, his favorite sparring partner. Meanwhile, the evil Don Jon conspires to break up the wedding by accusing Hero of infidelity. In the end, though, it all turns out to be "much ado about nothing."

Twelfth Night (1996 - Helena Bonham Carter as Olivia)
Brother and sister Viola and Sebastian, who are not only very close but look a great deal alike, are in a shipwreck, and both think the other dead. When she lands in a foreign country, Viola dresses as her brother and adopts the name Cesario, becoming a trusted friend and confidante to the Count Orsino. Orsino is madly in love with the lady Olivia, who is in mourning due to her brother's recent death, which she uses as an excuse to avoid seeing the count, whom she does not love. He sends Cesario to do his wooing, and Olivia falls in love with the disguised maiden. Things get more complicated in this bittersweet Shakespeare comedy when a moronic nobleman, Sir Andrew Aguecheek, and a self-important servant, Malvolio, get caught up in the schemes of Olivia's cousin, the obese, alcoholic Sir Toby, who leads each to believe Olivia loves him. As well, Sebastian surfaces in the area, and of course there is Feste, the wise fool, around to keep everything in perspective and to marvel, like we the audience, at the amazing things happening all around.

Hamlet (1996 - Kenneth Branagh, Richard Attenborough, Judi Dench, Billy Crystal and Kate Winslet)
Hamlet, son of the king of Denmark, is summoned home for his father's funeral and his mother's wedding to his uncle. In a supernatural episode, he discovers that his uncle, whom he hates anyway, murdered his father. In an incredibly convoluted plot--the most complicated and most interesting in all literature--he manages to (impossible to put this in exact order) feign (or perhaps not to feign) madness, murder the "prime minister," love and then unlove an innocent whom he drives to madness, plot and then unplot against the uncle, direct a play within a play, successfully conspire against the lives of two well-meaning friends, and finally take his revenge on the uncle, but only at the cost of almost every life on stage, including his own and his mother's.

Othello (1995 - Laurence Fishburne & Kenneth Branagh)
Iago (Kenneth Branagh) convinces Othello, The Moor of Venice (Lawrence Fishburne) that his wife, Desdemona has been unfaithful. Iago is an evil, manipulative character with his own agenda. A plot of jealousy and rage transpires in this classic Shakespearean tale.

A Midsummer Night's Dream (1995 - Kevin Kline & Michelle Pfeiffer)
Demetrius and Lysander both want Hermia but she only has eyes for Lysander. Bad news is, Hermia's father wants Demetrius for a son-in-law. On the outside is Helena, whose unreturned love burns hot for Demetrius. Hermia and Lysander plan to flee from the city under cover of darkness but are pursued by an enraged Demetrius (who is himself pursued by an enraptured Helena). In the forest, unbeknownst to the mortals, Oberon and Titania (King and Queen of the faeries) are having a spat over a servant boy. The plot twists up when Oberon's head mischief-maker, Puck, runs loose with a flower which causes people to fall in love with the first thing they see upon waking. Throw in a group of labourers preparing a play for the Duke's wedding (one of whom is given a donkey's head and Titania for a lover by Puck) and the complications become fantastically funny.