Whatever Experience You Bring to Arcadia, It Illuminates

We are all Thomasina Coverly, in our own way.    

In her innocence and youth, she embodies the persistence of curiosity, the puzzled determination in finding answers, and the explosive excitement of wanting to be the first to have ever thought a specific thought.  Arcadia’s budding intellectual, played so delightfully by apprentice Alex Wiles, (whose blogs on the process of creating her character have been in this space over the last month) brings wonder to all that unfolds in front of her. Though we may be older than 13, we remember Thomasina and carry her with us.  

Thomasina’s tutor, Septimus Hodge inspires plenty of laughs, and in his eyes one easily sees the ebbing of youth: he is challenged and provoked by his younger pupil.  We laugh because we experience ourselves, as parents or teachers or older siblings, within him.  

The rigorous and independent scholar in Arcadia, (Hannah Jarvis), strongly played by Jennie Meharg, evades introspection and delightfully misses her primary subject: herself.  The splashy rock-star scholar, brought to life by Adrian Rieder, makes glaring errors in his research that we find funny----his gut-reactions blind him to the facts.  

And on and on.  We find parts of ourselves in each of the characters.  

Director Foster Solomon and his company of actors, crew, and designers have created a beautifully haunting, delicious romp between two time periods.  Becky Cairns is designing in her favorite period, and it shows.  The costumes reflect her brilliance and excitement.  Brian Barker (Sound of Music, others) has crafted an elegant set---designing each piece to fit through a barely-six-foot-wide door into the Gottwald.  Some are as high as 16’ and complete an arc across that expanse, but in sections. No mean feat. Gregg Hillmar’s lights include sunrises and sunsets, echoes of fireworks, chandeliers and wall lamps that flicker so believably you’d swear they were gas.  Our volunteers gave time, effort, and (sometimes back-breaking) work.  I want to say thank you to all of them.  I have been (and am) thrilled with the work of every single artist on Arcadia, and proud to be associated with them.

Light, love, life and energy flow out of all their work, (and Stoppard’s) in which

“…the unpredictable and the predetermined unfold together to make everything the way it is.  It’s how nature creates itself, on every scale, the snowflake and the snowstorm.”

…And human beings.  “It’s wanting to know that makes us matter.”

It’s for this reason that Richmond Shakespeare is performing Arcadia. It’s why I selected the play, and why our artists, staff, board and volunteers struggled to bring it to you---to our audiences.  It’s the closest to Shakespeare we’re likely to find for many years to come.   Daniel Hannan from the London Telegraph gives his thoughts on Shakespeare and Stoppard:

“I’ve made this observation before about the greatest writer of them all – whom Stoppard rather sweetly refers to as “The Champ”. Not many authors in the intervening 400 years achieve the same effect – which is perhaps the highest compliment I can offer our chief living playwright.”

 Hannan describes:

“I recalled, in particular, staggering out of a performance of Arcadia 15 years ago, convinced that it was the supreme theatrical work of our era. Whatever experience you bring to it, it illuminates your experience more than your experience illuminates it.” [emphasis mine]

Watching Arcadia, we see how elements combine, how time periods intertwine, how people and aspects of human nature interact.  Sometimes they are quiet and clear, sometimes producing tension or explosions.  This play is music and gunfire.  It contains Byron’s poetry, Newton’s science, sex, travel, nature, and religion.  These are not what this play is about, but merely elements used to demonstrate Stoppard’s reaching out to teach the Thomasina in each of us.

“When we have found all the mysteries, and lost all the meaning, we will be alone, on an empty shore.”

Come see this play.  Bring your experiences.  Find yourself surrounded in childlike wonder at finding the meaning within.  

Grant Mudge
October 27, 2010

Dear Friends...an Appeal from Grant

Dear Friends,

I’d like to take a moment to encourage you to see Arcadia.  Bring your spouse, your love, your partner, a date. Grab a friend.  Join us.

Beyond my usual enthusiasm for RS’ work, this is a play so lovely, inspiring, funny, and important that I just want to share it with as many of our devoted audiences as possible.  Arcadia is about the very core of who we are, the stuff of which we’re made.  It’s a rare chance to hear Stoppard’s brilliant language, laugh at his comedy, and realize more of the world.  It absolutely will affect your perspective. 

If you’ve already seen it, come back.  There is so much to ponder, uncover and enjoy that the play is even more enjoyable on subsequent viewings.  The actors's, designerr's and crew team's work is really outstanding.  It's our best set-and-lights work ever.  Becky's costumes are fantastic. (As of Sunday, she's a two-time critics' circle award winner)

There are outstanding seats still available; at every performance the front two rows are just $18+$2.   The best seats are $36+$2 and still-fabulous-seats (it's only 135 seats, after all) for $24+$2.  Students pay just $15.  If you haven’t yet seen our beautiful new Gottwald Playhouse, you owe it to yourself to come on out, and participate in the conversation.

Why the “+$2?”   I want our audiences to understand some of the expense of operating: $1 of that fee goes directly toward operating CenterStage.  Not part of that fee, but out of each ticket, RS also pays rent, security, housekeeping and front of house staff.  The other $1 goes to the Community Development Authority (CDA), which has been responsible for street, sidewalk and parking improvements in the neighborhood.  At the theatre door, you pay no other fees.  Online or on the phone, there’s a small convenience fee, and that way on a sold-out night you know your tickets are already set. (And that advance fee is much less than last year.)  Of course, our subscribers never pay any fees at all.

You only have a few chances before all the energy of Arcadia is dispersed back into the ether---its final performance takes the stage OCTOBER 30.  So please, pick up a ticket at the company’s website, or phone us at 804-232-4000.  You’ll be glad you did.

Don’t miss this show.  Here's the link for tickets.

Yours truly,

-Grant Mudge

Artistic Director

Richmond Shakespeare

The Rehearsal Process: Arcadia (Installment 4)

Well, we've reached opening night of Arcadia! and thus the final installment in Alex Wiles blog of glimpses behind-the-scenes.  Now, you must come to see the performance, which runs only through October 30. Alex is a marvel, and the entire cast is truly outstanding.  I hope you will join us.  Grab tickets here. -GM

I guess you could say acting is a way of taking a walk in someone else’s shoes, only they more than likely don’t exist in reality, and if you’re doing it right, they’re kind of your shoes, too.

A few weeks ago as we began to have final costume fittings, Liz Blake White (playing Chloe) told me how excited she was to get her shoes for the show and start wearing them in rehearsal: “They just add something special to getting into character!”

She’s quite right--and it’s not just the shoes, either.  While the clothes don’t make the man (or woman), they certainly help you craft your character’s movement vocabulary, particularly in a period play.  Grant teased me one day in rehearsal that I moved as though I live in jeans.

Well, I do.

For the past four days or so, I’ve been living in long, airy Regency-period dresses with big pouffy sleeves in lovely, feminine fabrics.

While corsets weren’t typical of the period (the Regency empire waist freed ladies up for era from full-torso corsets for a little over a decade), a little foundational structure helps remind me of the extent to which my movement is constrained, but not so much that I can’t aim for the physicality of a 13-year-old girl.

After a few hours of wearing dresses that fit rather closely to the upper body, I get to change into my nightgown, which is equally lovely, though far more billowy.  It’s dreamy and ethereal, and ridiculously comfortable.  (Also, it is what my four-year-old self would have termed “a good twirler.”  This is particularly important, and if you see the show, you’ll know why.)

Everyone’s costumes are incredible.  Rebecca Cairns and Annie Hoskins have outdone themselves again!  Their work is beautiful, functional, and informs so much of the work we do as actors.

The funny thing is that this applies to the 1993 cast as well!  As a child of the early 90s, I didn’t pay much attention to fashion in the first place.  Little Mermaid shoes went with everything, even a white and black polka-dotted ruffle dress with matching bolero jacket trimmed with yellow ric-rac. (Oh yes, it was quite a sight, especially when topped off with that 90s classic, the bowl cut.)

I suppose it never really occurred to me that there was a style in the 90s.  

Oh, but there was.

Turtlenecks.  Big sweaters.  Pants that come up to your ribcage.  Pleats--everywhere.  “The Rachel” was becoming a singular trend in ladies’ hairstyling. It’s all here! 

It’s so wonderful to be working in, on, and around the gorgeous set (designed by Brian Barker) in these delightful costumes, juggling so many fabulous props against a backdrop of music and light.  If you pause and look around in the quiet of backstage, you think, “hey, this looks like a show.”

I am so pleased and honored to be a part of a production that is coming together so brilliantly.  

With that, I believe it’s time to review some dialect notes and go to bed.  We preview tomorrow and open on Friday!  Please join us--and stick around afterward to say hello!  For now, enjoy a teaser of the phenomenal hair design--here’s the first trial of Thomasina’s Hair, Look #2 of 3.

Richmond Shakespeare Opens Gottwald Playhouse

We knew opening night was approaching quickly when the company's name and that of the play went up in lights on the big marquee.

On Saturday night, Richmond Shakespeare entered its second quarter-century.

By all accounts it was a sparkling, delightful evening, filled with love, warmth, hugs and laughter. Our new home, The Gottwald Playhouse at Richmond CenterStage, will be shared by several small companies including our dear friends at African American Repertory Theatre, and we couldn't be more delighted with it. Situated on the east half of the block, in the part of the building called Dorothy Pauley Square (facing Grace Street and bounded by 6^th and 7^th) the Gottwald Playhouse is an intimate space—seating under 200 and offering outstanding acoustics: I've often told the story of the first music rehearsal in which James Wingo, our composer for Much Ado About Nothing, brought his guitar into the space and began to play: I shushed everyone so we could hear—and he stopped! ("No, you—please, keep playing!") We began to realize that the designers and architects of the Gottwald have created a phenomenal space for sound, be it the spoken word of Shakespeare, a jazz band or a string quartet. We felt as if we were seated inside the sound chamber of that guitar. It was amazing; I hope you'll come and hear a play in this remarkable venue.

"How much better is it to weep at joy, than to joy at weeping!" Leonato, Much Ado I.i

For me, last night was a whirlwind, beginning with final adjustments and warm-ups with the actors. On opening night there is a kind of lap-running that every director (and producer) reading this will immediately recognize. Delivering final notes, cards or gifts are all part of the process—perhaps a final talk to the actors (More volume please, crisper, less air please—in short: louder/faster/funnier); added to this are greeting guests, attending to opening night receptions and guest lists, and all the challenges of a new box office system.

I'm certainly not complaining—I love this busy time, as the director's work subsides and the acting and technical company take the show and welcome the audience into the world of the play.

The cast gave their best performance to date, winning huge laughs and especially at Dogberry's arrivals and exits—I would argue Shakespeare intended—ovations of applause. The audience loved our clowns, and Bob Jones' hilarious performance in this role, and his work with his fellow actors, (especially his fellow officer Verges, played by the adorable Thomas Cunningham) is a show-stealer, and should not be missed. I absolutely love the entire cast---every single performer has moments to shine; each actor takes Shakespeare's outstanding material and really delves into its truths and resonances. They plumb the darkest places and explore the most joyous just as ardently. Each is also dearly likeable; we've had a marvelous time preparing the production.

Rebecca Cairns and Annie Hoskins have outdone themselves yet again, creating an entire world of costumes. It's my professional goal to get these ladies a proper costume shop—can you imagine what they'll create when they don't have to work in a spare bedroom and their dining room? I'm delighted with the entire design team---the production matches our RS aesthetic precisely: focus on the actor's relationship to the audience, highlighting and serving but not overwhelming the story created on stage. It's a tough balance to execute with style, and they certainly have succeeded. Thanks to all of them.

Other treats on opening night included our new concessions lounge, which boasted cappuccinos, pumpkin cookies (executive sampling was requried), and other edibles, wines, beers and soft drinks. Our guests were of course welcome to take these into the theatre with them.

I'm grateful also to the SMG staff for handling more folks than we anticipated at the post-show reception. The exquisite donor lounge is a perfect venue for post-show celebrations. I look forward to making use of it often. Photographs of the event abound on Facebook---it seemed the perfect end to a joyous and thrilling opening. It was exhausting, but well worth the effort and the long wait for our new home.

Much Ado About Nothing runs only through October 25…and given the buzz our final weeks usually sell out, so I would encourage you to join us this week or next. Come downtown for the Folk Festival and just saunter up 6^th street to Richmond CenterStage…

Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award Nominations Announced

Congratulations to Richmond Shakespeare artists! But before I list the nominations, let me give a special shout to Vanessa Passini. Selected for an award before the event even takes place, Ms. Passini has won an award for outstanding Fight Choreography to Vanessa Passini for her work on Richmond Shakespeare's Henry V [The History Cycle].

We're also nominated in a new category, "Best Ensemble Acting" for which I'm delighted to report that the cast of A Midsummer Night's Dream has very rightly been recognized. They should be nominated just for enduring emotional rainouts.

Finally, our exquisite costumers, Rebecca Cairns and Anne Hoskins are nominated for their truly outstanding work, also on Henry V [The History Cycle]. I always feel like I hand these two ladies a pocketful of lint for supplies and they return with the most gorgeous costumes a director could hope for. They are the 2008 winners in the same category; I couldn't be more pleased that their work is receiving recognition again.


One can always gripe and moan about artists not nominated (Joe Carlson's stunning Laertes comes to mind! as does James Bond's marvelous direction on Henry V--so there's mine!) but I want to take a moment to thank the critics as they attend, ponder, enjoy, endure, and evaluate the productions that make up our theatrical culture. They do it for very little compensation--sometimes none, I'll wager---factoring in the gas to see Sycamore Rouge or Swift Creek Mill (not far, but it adds up), and I couldn't be more pleased that the success of last year's ceremony has led to year #2.


Let me go on record right here to invite the RTCC awards for year #3 to Richmond's newest performing arts venue, Richmond CenterStage.



Cheers!
-Grant Mudge

A Midsummer Night's Dream opens next week!

A Midsummer Night's Dream opens next week, with performances Friday and Saturday at 8pm and Sunday at 2:30. (Check out the discounted preview on Thursday, 8pm.)

The actors are (clockwise from Sandra Clayton at top left, Brandon Crowder, Stacie Rearden Hall, Adam Mincks and Kerry McGee. Directed by Andrew Hamm , with costumes by Rebecca Cairns.

April 16 - May 10
Tickets: http://www.richmondshakespeare.com/

Style Weekly: "As You Like It" is "vibrant, witty"

From Style Weekly:

Contract of Breeches

The Richmond Shakespeareans sign up for a lot of costume changes in a play already full of mistaken identities.

by Mary Burruss

I confess: Richmond Shakespeare’s concept of five people playing all the parts in a Shakespeare play is often distracting, and at times I find the prop/costume changes awkward. But the five-actor version of “As You Like It,” playing at Second Presbyterian Church, has made me a convert to this type of production.

Director Andrew Hamm has done a masterful job of choreographing a vibrant, witty homage to this prototype of romantic comedy. The transitions were seamless, and the onstage costume changes mostly worked well.

The many characters who romped through the forest of Arden, celebrating the rites of spring with music and dance, could threaten to get mixed up — especially considering the multiple identities already at work within the story — but there was an ease and confidence to the production that precluded any disorientation.

Hamm warmed up the audience with a piano-accompanied set of contemporary love songs. It set the tone for a breezy show, delivering a cast of characters that exuded playfulness. Frank Creasy (as Charles, the Duke’s wrestler) pushed the limits of kayfabe during the better-than-WWE wrestling scene with Patrick Bromley’s Orlando.

Sunny LaRose was adorable as the love-struck Rosalind (disguised as the youth Ganymede in the forest). LaRose’s onstage relationship with Julia Rigby’s Celia portrayed a connection whose bond was “stronger than that of sisters.” And despite the wonderful silliness of Creasy’s dancing and Bromley and Adam Minks in women’s roles, the gender-bending performances of the two natural girls were the strongest overall.

The beautiful costumes designed by Rebecca Cairns blended soft, earthy tones of creams, gold and floral prints that intertwined through all the costumes like ivy on a tree trunk. The effect was a cohesive, well-tailored look that added a dash of sophistication and sumptuousness to the show. Cairns not only designed a whimsical collection of costumes, but also managed to define characters with minimal pieces that functioned well for those quick transformations.

Times-Dispatch: "This is as I like it."

From the Richmond Times-Dispatch:

A rollicking version of 'As You Like It'
Saturday, Mar 29, 2008 - 12:08 AM
By SUSAN HAUBENSTOCK
SPECIAL CORRESPONDENT

It was when Adam Mincks went to put on the tulle skirt that things went over the top.

Shakespeare's "As You Like It" depends on gender switching (the heroine, Rosalind, disguises herself as a man), and Richmond Shakespeare often depends on a tiny cast to portray multiple characters without regard to their sex.

But this five-actor "As You Like It" includes enough gender-bending to spin your head around.

It's the tale of Orlando, who falls in love with Rosalind just before she's banished from her uncle's court. She and her cousin Celia flee in disguise to the forest of Arden, where Rosalind's father is in exile.

There they meet various rustics, the clown Touchstone and the sentimental Jacques, as well as Orlando, who escapes to the forest when he learns that his brother is planning to kill him.

Everyone falls in love in the forest, and all ends well (but that's another play).

In this version, the comedy is amplified by quick changes of role that result in, for instance, bearded Patrick Bromley playing a country maiden and Julia Rigby as a lovelorn shepherd.

In Rebecca Cairns' endlessly versatile and lovely costumes, they add a cap here and a wreath there to mark the characters, with the actors' skills making the transformations magical.

As is the company's frequent practice -- at least for its indoor season -- costume pieces are hung in plain sight, so that when Mincks, hilarious here in numerous roles, goes for that skirt, we know that something even more delicious is coming.

Director Andrew Hamm (who is onstage as accompanist) has infused the production with physicality and music, his trademarks.

There's so much roughhousing that a fight choreographer (actor Frank Creasy) and a fight choreography consultant (David White) were needed to plan the action.

And Hamm has provided pleasant melodies so his cast can sing as appropriate. With nonstop energy and an approach to language that is colloquial and deceptively relaxed, Hamm has created a rollicking version of this classic.

Every actor is superb, especially considering the demands of their many roles. Rigby has less flashy parts such as Celia and Silvius, but she is charming. Bromley is romantic as the lovelorn Orlando and ridiculous as the silly goatherd Audrey.

Sunny LaRose is a marvelous Rosalind, brave and emotional and admirable, even when disguised as Ganymede. Creasy is a marvel as he morphs from aged servant Adam to wrestler Charles to emotional Jacques. Creasy is an actor who is always fully committed.

Mincks has a breakthrough performance here as he achieves perfection in a fistful of roles -- Oliver, the cruel brother who has a change of heart; the foppish courtier LeBeau; the dignified Duke Senior; the clown Touchstone; and the tulle-skirted Phoebe.

Mincks changes accents and attitudes with seeming ease; he even appears to change height. This is as I like it.

Images from "As You Like It"

Here are a few of Eric Dobbs' beautiful promotional images for As You Like It, opening Friday, March 28th. As usual, the costumes by Rebecca Cairns and Annie Hoskins are just gorgeous! The cast isn't bad-looking either.

Celia (Julia Rigby) coaxes a smile out of Rosalind (Sunny LaRose).

Jaques (Frank Creasy) muses that "All the world's a stage" with the help of Amiens.

Orlando (Patrick Bromley) listens as "Ganymede" slanders the name of Rosalind.

Touchstone (Adam Mincks) freaks out Daffy Duck-style. The lovely Audrey and the simple William look on, fairly oblivious.

"It is not the fashion to see the lady the epilogue..."

Coming Attractions: "As You Like It"

Overlapping with performances of Measure for Measure, we're now in full-time rehearsal mode for the beloved comedy As You Like It, opening March 28.

Directed by Andrew Hamm, with costumes designed by Rebecca Cairns, the show stars Patrick Bromley, Frank Creasy, Sunny LaRose, Adam Mincks, and Julia Rigby. Frank is a mainstay of our stage, having appeared in A Midsummer Night's Dream, Twelfth Night, and The Tempest, the latter which also showcased Patrick's comedic skills. It's been a decade since Sunny has played with Richmond Shakespeare, and Julia and Adam are both making their debuts with us.

This production celebrates Richmond Shakespeare's (then the Encore Theatre Company's) first-ever Shakespearean production over a decade ago, and is being presented in our trademark five-actor format, complete with cross-dressing and chaos. I've been describing it as "a love letter to the five-actor format." Patrick plays both the romantic Orlando and the love-struck Audrey. Frank begins as the usurping Duke Frederick and finishes the play as the melancholy Jaques, who muses, "All the world's a stage..." Sunny is our story's hero, the brilliant Rosalind, who disguises herself as a boy; she also gives a hilarious turn as the bumpkin William. Adam is our big character actor, playing the flamboyant LeBeau, the wicked older brother Oliver, the clown Touchstone, and the, ahem, "irresistible" Phebe. Julia brings spunk and smarts to Celia and unrequited devotion to poor spurned Silvius.

Somehow, four couples must be married by the end of this show. How that's going to work with only five actors? You'll have to come out and see.

It's a play about love and hate, devotion and despair, brothers and cousins, fathers and daughters, country life versus city life. Mostly, though, it's about a girl dressed as a boy pretending to be a girl. Comedy!

We began the rehearsal process by working with ComedySportz's Christine Walters on improv, then Jill Bari Steinberg on multiple-character skills, and these two ladies have really made their mark on this show. I'm now in the process of composing the music for the show, and I'm pretty excited about finally taking advantage of the fact that our theatre has a Bosendorfer baby grand piano in it...

The show previews on March 27th and opens on the 28th. Don't miss it!

"Measure for Measure:" February 7 - March 20

Next up at the Richmond Shakespeare Theatre:


Directed by James Alexander Bond, who brought you Richmond Shakespeare's critically-acclaimed productions of Julius Caesar and Henry IV, Part 1, featuring the acting talent of Liz Blake, Andrew Hamm, John Moss, Julie Phillips, and David White, costumes by Rebecca Cairns and stage managed by Heather Johnson.

Death! is the sentence for impregnating a woman before marrying her, and even though Claudio does intend to marry his Juliet, he’s in a heap of trouble! The good Duke of Vienna has taken a break from royal duties, handing the reins of government to the strict conservative Angelo, who is tempted by Claudio’s sister Isabella, a nun’s novice; if Isabella will yield to Angelo's desire, he'll spare Claudio. Confused yet? Even though appearances in Shakespeare have a way of unraveling and all might end well, someone will be put to death, someone else spends a reckless night alone with a woman he cannot see, the clowns of Vienna will howl and the city itself could crumble. Be careful who you judge, as judgment might be passed on you!

Richmond Shakespeare's contribution to the Acts of Faith Festival, Measure for Measure is a story of passion and prayer, lust and restraint, sin and virtue, offense and forgiveness. One of Shakespeare's last comedies, the play is in many ways one of his most rich and complex, with broad bawdy humor alternating with theology and philosophy centuries ahead of its time. "The tempter or the tempted: who sins most?"

Mature themes but appropriate for age 14 and above.

Show times are Thursday, Friday, and Saturday nights at 8:00 and Sunday afternoons at 2:30. All performances are in the chapel at Second Presbyterian Church (5 North 5th Street). Click here for directions!

Click here for tickets!