Finding the Heart of the Text: An interview with cast member Will Sarratt

With rehearsals underway for The Tempest, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you.

Our next interview is with Will Sarratt, returning to Smith Street Stage in the role of Trinculo.

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How did you get into theatre, and acting in particular?

When I was a kid, there were summer camps that I would go to, to keep me occupied while my parents were working. I wasn’t very good at basketball or soccer, and I really dug theatre. I feel like that’s the earliest exposure to being an actor I had and it was always the thing that I enjoyed the most. My parents were great about taking me to shows all the time when I was a kid and to movies and things. And then I made a decision at a certain point, like, oh, this could be a thing that I do as a career.

You’ve done a lot of contemporary theatre. Why the shift over to Shakespeare?

I’ve always loved doing Shakespeare, and Shakespeare was such a big part of what I did in college. Being at Stella Adler, there’s such a heavy emphasis on classical training and classical work. It’s something that I always loved doing. And in high school as well, I had good exposure, but somewhere along the line after graduating I fell into a lot of new play development and a lot of contemporary work. So I feel like it was just strange fortune to fall in with a lot of younger playwrights and a lot of new plays. Which I love, and I love being a part of new work with people who have such interesting voices, but it’s also such a joy to take a break from that every now and then and do something that is one of the greatest plays of all time. So I always want Shakespeare and classical work to be in my life, because there’s endless work to do with it. You get involved in a production of Shakespeare, and the fun you get to have is just endless.

This is your second show with Smith Street Stage, right?

Well, it depends on what we count. I was an assistant with Smith Street Stage two years ago for Much Ado About Nothing, and played a small role in that, as part of the night’s watch guard. And then I was a part of their staged reading as part of the benefit in December for King Phycus.

So how do you feel coming back to the troupe as a fully-fledged actor

It’s great! It’s a group of people that I’ve known now for many years. Jonathan [Hopkins, Executive Director] was a teacher of mine at Stella Adler. He taught me during my junior year, and was somebody that I loved working with on that level. And it is so exciting and humbling, and I’m honored to be asked to be part of the cast in a big way like this, to be a real part of the show.

You’re playing the role of Trinculo in this production. How are you approaching the character? What are you doing to prepare for the role? 

One of the best things so far is combing through the play with Jonathan Hopkins, moment by moment, and talking through, what is this character’s arc, what is this character’s journey, because all of the storylines in the play are so separate. My storyline with Stephano and Caliban, we don’t see anybody else in the play until the last scene. So for me, it’s about finding who he is, what his journey is, and what that means to me. I see so many relatable things in Trinculo. I see him wanting to be liked. I see him in over his head. I see him trying to get approval and be funny, be clever, be all of these things in the eyes of somebody else, all as part of this stupid, drunken adventure that he’s on. For me, it really is just tracking how he fits into this world, how he fits into this play, and what that means for me.

Smith Street Stage does a lot of non-traditional casting. What non-traditional role, Shakespearean or otherwise, would you like to play?

I’m 5’9” and 120 pounds soaking wet, but I’d love to be a Stanley Kowalski in Streetcar Named Desire kind of character. Or anyone in Streetcar, I mean, playing Blanche in a gender-swapped production would be a ton of fun.

Are there any actors, directors, or other artists who have been a particular influence on you or whose work you admire?

I had a Shakespeare director I worked with three times at Stella Adler named Angela Viteale. She’s a really great director who taught me to listen to the text and dive through it and see what is there given to me, as opposed to trying to pull choices out of the air. To listen to the language, listen to what’s there, and just trust that. As for what I’ve seen out in the world, especially with Shakespeare: Mark Rylance, who I got to see play Olivia in Twelfth Night and Richard in Richard III. It was one of the most amazing double-headers I’ve ever seen. And the simplicity and the ease, that it doesn’t have to be something performative, necessarily, it doesn’t have to be thrown out there if you are just there and in it and present, and say what you mean and mean what you say. That can be funny, it can be heartbreaking, it can be sweet. That was the only production of Twelfth Night I’ve seen that I thought was legitimately funny in such a human way.

Discovering the Magic of Prospero: An interview with cast member Kate Ross

With rehearsals underway for The Tempest, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you.

Our first interview is with Kate Ross, returning to Smith Street Stage in the role of Prospero.

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How did you get into theatre, and acting in particular?

I loved acting as a kid – did all the school plays, drama club, etc. When I went to college, I was a pre-med chemistry major. On a lark, I checked out the theater and signed up to audition first week of my freshman year. It was Farquhar’s The Beaux’ Stratagem, and I was cast, and then I was hooked. Or sunk, depending on how you look at it. I am eternally grateful to the director (John Orlock, who was then chair of the Theater Program) for seeing something in my completely un-skilled audition and giving me a shot.

You’ve done a lot of Shakespeare and other classical theatre. What is it about classical theatre that attracts you as an artist?

The language. It is such a gift to inhabit this kind of text. And even when the text is complicated and dense, everything you need to know is on the page, so there are very clear guideposts to help you as an actor. In more modern theater, what is NOT on the page can often be the crux of the scene, which can present a whole other set of challenges.

Your last production with Smith Street Stage was Julius Caesar in 2013. What brings you back to the group this year?  What did you learn last time about performing outside, and are you excited (or nervous) to do it again?

I will always jump at the chance to work with Smith Street Stage and Beth Ann and Jonathan [Hopkins, Artistic and Executive Directors]. I’ve known both of them for many years and am so very impressed with what they’ve built with their company. They have such respect for the work, and have created a wonderful partnership with the community in and around Carroll Park.

I had performed outside before Caesar, so I had an inkling of what I was in for. But I don’t know if anything really prepares you for it. I am both nervous and excited, and I’m very much looking forward to diving in!

You’re playing the role of Prospero in our production of The Tempest.  How are you approaching this role, and is your approach different because the character was originally written as a man?

I am approaching the role with awe, respect, and a healthy dose of fear! Prospero is a very enigmatic character, and the more I delve in, the more questions arise. God, it’s exciting. Right now I’m really wondering what part of Prospero, if any, is innately magical? I’m also fascinated by the relationships with Miranda, Ariel, and Caliban. They are all Prospero’s dependents and Prospero exerts a tremendous amount of control over all of them. There is a lot to unlock there! The fact that Proserpo was written as a man is not, I don’t think, as relevant as all the elements and attributes that make this person tick. Those attributes are not necessarily gendered, and I’m hoping to find my own way into them.

Are there any other non-traditional roles, Shakespearean or otherwise, that you’d like to play?

As someone who adores Shakespeare, it is very liberating to think there may be a wealth of parts out there beyond the ingenue roles. So much of Shakespeare speaks to what is universally human in all of us. That said, I’m not looking much beyond Prospero at the moment – my plate is full!

Are there any actors, directors, or other artists who have been a particular influence on you or whose work you admire?

So many… One of the joys of living in NYC is the wealth of theater and talent that is here. A few performances that are forever seared into my brain are Cherry Jones in Moon for the Misbegotten, Janet McTeer in A Doll’s House, Bill Irwin in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Brian Dennehy in Death of a Salesman and The Iceman Cometh… And there is amazing work going on in the indie theater scene. I’ve had the privilege of working with companies like Boomerang Theatre Company and Oberon Theatre Ensemble, and they consistently put up inventive, exciting work with great actors. NYC is really an embarrassment of theatrical riches!

Announcing the cast of The Tempest!

The Tempest is set on an enchanted island filled with all sorts of strange magic. But as we well know, the true source of magic in the theatre is the actors!  A good cast – especially the kind of strong ensemble required for The Tempest – can truly transport an audience to far-off lands of adventure and enchantment.  And we are absolutely thrilled to have found a talented and diverse group to portray Shakespeare’s characters this summer! So without (much) ado, here is the cast of The Tempest:

Raquel Chavez – Miranda

Kate Eastman – Stephano

Shaun Bennet Fauntleroy – Sebastian

John Hardin – Ferdinand

Patrick Harvey – Caliban

Brian Demar Jones – Alonso

Joe Jung – Antonio

Peter Molesworth – Ariel

Sam Richardson – Francisco

Kate Ross – Prospero

Will Sarratt – Trinculo

JT Stocks – Adrian

Corey Whelihan – Gonzalo

 

We can’t wait to see them – and you – in Carroll Park!

Everything I Need to Know in Life I Learned Performing Outdoor Shakespeare

Performing outdoors was an incomparable adventure. This past month was a whirlwind filled with  intense rehearsals, previews, and a great run of performances. Now that the show has closed, I am beginning to realize how much this new experience taught me as an actor, and beyond that how these lessons translate into day-to-day life. So, here are the top 5 life lessons I learned from performing HENRY IV outdoors.

1) Speaking is not the same as being heard

I quickly learned that “quiet” and “intimate” were two things that simply did not hold up in the park. If the text was not delivered loudly enough the audience couldn’t hear it, and therefore the speaking had no purpose. This got me thinking about all those times I mumbled “thank you” and thought that this counted as politeness when in reality the receiver could not possibly have heard me, rendering my words meaningless. Outdoor Shakespeare has taught me that every time I speak to someone it should be supported and committed (both mentally and physically) with the complete intention of being heard.

2) Nothing beats good old fashioned team work

Henry IV was an endeavor that could not have happened without the hard work of dozens of people. As a member of a team it is crucial to fulfill your own job, but good teamwork means going above and beyond that. Sure, everyone is responsible for his or her own piece of the puzzle, but that doesn’t mean you can’t help other people get their piece into place. The generosity given by every member of the SSS team taught me that giving help and hard work is not something you do for your own gratification or personal gain. Helping my teammates makes the end product better, strengthens camaraderie, and boosts morale. This means victory.

3) Expect the Unexpected

Live theatre is always prone to surprises, but the great outdoors make unexpected obstacles inevitabilities. Distractions like musical ice cream trucks, helicopters, and children screaming on the playground will (and did) happen. What I learned was to remain focused and to keep telling the story. In life, things will happen that will try to throw me off course, but with the right attitude they do not have to knock me off completely.

4) After the rain there is always some sun

I  never checked my weather app so many times in my life  as I did during the run of this show. Rain is necessary, but it was a lot better when it didn’t come between 6:30 and 10:30 pm. When the skies looked threatening early in the day, the fate of that night’s show became precarious. Luckily, mid day rains and ominous looking skies frequently cleared into beautiful nights.   A little rain never hurt anybody, and even when it pours I learned to never lose hope that the sun will return.

 5) A community coming together is beautiful

One of my favorite parts of every show was during the opening song when I got to look out into the audience for the first time. I could not help but smile when I saw the myriad of people from different walks of life all joined together in those green-folding chairs. How special is it that for those few hours, regardless of age, gender, and background, the audience was undergoing the story’s journey together. Perhaps more than anything, this experience has proved to me that coming together as a community brings joy, learning, and the possibility of growth and change. We have the power to make that happen. Thank you so much to the cast and crew of Henry IV, and everyone who came out to see the show this summer. These life lessons could not have been learned without you. I will miss performing in the park every night, and though I wish we could “hold back the midnight chimes” just one more hour, I’m happy to say that we ended the day as we begun, we ended it all in pleasure.

The Athlete Turned Actor – An interview with cast member Michael Hanson

With rehearsals underway, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you.

Our final interview is with Michael Hanson, who returns to Smith Street Stage after playing the role of Orsino in Twelfth Night. This year, Michael is tackling the roles of Hotspur and Pistol for this year’s production.

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How did you get into theatre and into acting? 

In high school, I played a lot of sports. I played basketball and football and I got hurt a number of times. I kept dislocating my shoulder, and my doctor said I couldn’t play sports any more. I don’t really even remember how I sort of found theatre. I sort of stumbled into it and I just joined the school theatre. There were a lot of great people and it was fun and I never looked back. And when the time came to start looking at colleges, it wasn’t even really a choice. It was just like, yes, this is what I do now, and I just auditioned for acting schools.

This isn’t your first outing with Smith Street Stage – you were in Twelfth Night in 2012. What brought you back to the company this year?

I would love to work with them as many times as I can. I think they do great work, and I believe in the kind of theatre that they’re doing. And I consider them good friends as well. Any time you can work with friends that you also respect so much, it’s a wonderful experience.

How do you feel about performing outdoors?

Twelfth Night was my first full play ever performed outdoors. And it was like actor boot camp. You really have to fall back on your training in terms of your vocal performance. And physically, a lot of what you do in the room in rehearsal might change because of the outdoor space. We rehearse in a room in Stella Adler Studios, which are these acoustic acting studios. It’s so small, all the moments you have. As soon as you get outdoors, you have to fill the park, which has no walls. And this year of course we’re probably going to have more people than ever stretching back into the park, trying to hear. So it is a challenge, but a welcome challenge.

You’ve worked on both Shakespeare and many other plays. What do you think is particularly challenging or exciting about working on Shakespeare?

It’s all so well-written and it’s so much fun to get to play these characters who are speaking in this heightened language that we don’t have anymore, that we haven’t had for a long time. That to me is one of the most interesting aspects of acting Shakespeare. You’re speaking in these thirty-word sentences; today we have three-word sentences. And you have to sort of recalibrate your brain to extend the thought that you’re trying to communicate to your scene partner so that everyone else in the audience understands you. Going along a thirty-word sentence, that’s a great challenge, and it’s really beautiful.

Are there any actors or directors who have been a particular influence on your work?

So many! You know, when you have a great director, it stays with you, it really does. A director who can show you things and who can empower you as a young actor is a wonderful thing to have. I worked with a wonderful director in Michigan by the name of Jim Daniels and he was just very quotable. He was filled with all of these little gems that he would tell us in between our breaks. He said, “People come to the theatre and they say, ‘Show me what it means to be alive because I am dead inside.’” And he had a whole bag of those really inspirational quotes for actors, which I really believe to be true. I think that’s what art is, sort of overall, that’s what theatre is. People want to see people be alive and they want to see people grapple with issues and they want to see people think through things and that will never not be interesting.

From Sketch Comedy to Shakespeare – An interview with cast member Jonathan Minton

With rehearsals underway, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you.

Our next interview is with Jonathan Minton, an actor and sketch comedian from Alaska who is making his Smith Street Stage debut in the roles of Worcester and Chief Justice.

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How did you get into theatre, and acting in particular?

I really don’t know when I started getting into acting. My mom tells stories about when we moved to Alaska and I threw a big fit about how I wasn’t going to be a famous actor if I wasn’t anywhere near New York… And I was six years old at the time. My dad used to take me to Shakespeare plays when I would visit him in the summer, and my mom would enroll me in theatre classes growing up. So certainly as I got older I started to see that acting was a viable career option.

And not only did you see lots of Shakespeare as a kid, but performing in Shakespeare’s plays has been a big part of your career.

Yeah, that sort of happened by accident. I mean, I’m not complaining or anything. I got into A Comedy of Errors with Hudson Warehouse and then I ended up working with them for their entire summer season. And it just sort of escalated, one Shakespeare production after another. Since I’ve been here, I’ve done maybe two contemporary plays, and all the others have been Shakespeare, which is awesome, but a total accident.

Do you have any favorite Shakespeare plays or roles that you’ve worked on?

I got to play Oberon [in A Midsummer Night’s Dream] last spring with Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey, which was a lot of fun. Especially Titania and I, we were on stilts for the performance, and it was an educational tour, so we were doing these stilt performances on a whole bunch of varying-degrees-of-quality stages. And it’s an awesome character. And also York in Henry VI, actually, who is just a total badass.

And this is your first show with Smith Street Stage, right? It is, yeah. So how did you get connected to the company?

Backstage [Magazine]. I was perusing, looking for auditions that I could submit for, and I recognized the name. I’d seen the company name all over the place and I know people who have worked with them. I mentioned this to a friend of mine and he was like, “Oh my god, it’s fantastic!” So it seemed like a good play to throw my hat in the ring for.

Is there anything you find especially challenging or exciting about working on Shakespeare?

I think the challenge and the excitement of it sort of go hand in hand. It’s not contemporary speech by any stretch of the imagination. I don’t want to say it’s difficult, but it is a task, getting used to the language and the rhythm. And getting used to the fact that sometimes the rhythm of the language will change from scene to scene or even from character to character. But once you latch onto that poetry and once you latch onto that same rhythm again, it’s this transportive, almost transcendent thing, when you actually do connect with the language and with the characters and the thoughts. It’s very operatic, the way he writes some of his speeches and some of his characters. Or I guess the opera is very Shakespearean in that way. There’s no façade, there’s no putting on airs, it’s all genuinely what the character is thinking and what they’re feeling. It’s the only way they know how to express what they’re thinking or feeling at the moment. It’s incredibly beautiful.

You’ve also done some sketch comedy. Has that affected your Shakespearean acting in any way?

It has a little bit. When you’re going into an audition like the Smith Street Stage audition, which is one of my favorite auditions I’ve ever had, there was that encouraging atmosphere to just throw yourself entirely into the piece that you’re doing and have fun with it. And when you do sketch comedy, you have no choice but to throw yourself a hundred, a hundred and ten percent into it and make yourself look like a jackass. If you don’t look like a jackass, you’re doing something wrong. And especially with a Shakespeare audition, having that willingness to just say, all right, I’m going to make this funny face when I say this, and for this reason. Acting is just one giant machine that has different parts that need to be oiled – an upgrade on one part of the software will really branch out and assist with another part of the software.

Are there any actors or directors who have been an influence on your work?

John Cameron Mitchell and John Lithgow. I’ve admired Lithgow’s comedic work since I was a kid (I used to be able to quote any given episode of “3rd Rock From The Sun”), and Mitchell changed my life with Hedwig and the Angry Inch, this larger than life myth of a character that he willed into existence, and has taken on its own life. And they both seem like they’d be a lot of fun to just sit and talk with. And I had a high school acting and drama teacher, Susan Wingrove – she had the patience of a saint, teaching acting for a high school. She was pretty inspiring.

Playing a Dream Role – An interview with cast member and Executive Director Jonthan Hopkins

With rehearsals underway, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you. Today’s interview is with Executive Director Jonathan Hopkins, who is playing his dream role of Falstaff in Henry IV. —– How did you first get involved with theatre and acting? In high school, acting seemed like something that would be fun and that I would like doing, and so I did it and I really loved doing it. And I kept doing it in college and since college. So I guess it’s just something that started out as an extra-curricular activity that I really enjoyed and decided to stay with. Can you tell me a little more about how that turned into you and Beth Ann founding Smith Street Stage? We founded Smith Street Stage because we developed a small cast Romeo and Juliet for a theatre company we were working for in New Jersey. That theatre company was going to produce the play, which we had developed and worked on and presented a workshop for, but they had to cancel the show because of budget issues. Beth Ann particularly felt like she wasn’t through with the project, that she wanted more people to see it and wanted to work on it more. She said that she wanted to start a theatre company and start doing Shakespeare in Carroll Park and so our first production in 2010 was Romeo and Juliet with five actors. And the community was really responsive to it. We had good audiences, and they were very generous with donations after the show, which gave us a sense that maybe this was something with some staying power and something we should keep going with. And so we’ve done a show each summer since then, and we’ve grown every summer since then. And you’ve expanded beyond the summer Shakespeare productions as well – your last show was in Manhattan, right? Yeah, we did another show that Beth Ann developed. A radio play adaptation of A Christmas Carol. And we had done that the previous two years in the park house in Carroll Park, and last year the Pearl Theatre Company invited us to do a week with them. And so we did a week at the Pearl Theatre in late December, which was our first real Manhattan show, and our first Off-Broadway show. You’ve mostly worked on Shakespearean plays. Has that always been your primary interest? Since college, definitely. I took to it very much in college, performing scenes from the plays, working on the plays, and reading the plays. I really fell in love with Shakespeare. I went to London for a semester when I was in undergrad and trained at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Art and saw a lot of Shakespeare there and just sort of immersed myself in it. I just always come back to it. It’s always the best stuff to read and the best stuff to see and the best stuff to act. Are there any particular Shakespearean plays you enjoyed working on, or favorite characters that you’ve played? I played Malvolio three years ago when we did Twelfth Night. That was a really fun thing to do. And the first year [doing Romeo and Juliet] we only had five actors, so I was Romeo and Lady Capulet, which was a great split, two very different things. And other than the high tragedies, Henry IV is my favorite Shakespeare play, and Falstaff is my favorite character. So I just feel really lucky that I get a chance to work on him because of Joby’s idea that actors would be cast against type. How do feel about the fact that you’re going to be playing against type? How are you planning to prepare for this? I guess I prepare as I would for any other part, which is try to start thinking about how the character is similar to me and how the character is different from me. And even though there is a physical difference and a difference in age, I hope to be able to find some similarities in looking at the part, just thinking about the kind of person that Falstaff is. Just like you would any other part: what does this person want, why does this person say the things they say, how does this person change within each scene and from scene to scene? And I’m just going to trust Joby as well as Maddie and Patrick [our assistant directors] a lot to have an outside eye and to guide us to make sure that what we’re doing looks ok, that the story is being transmitted to audiences who may not be familiar with Henry IV. So I guess I’ll just work really hard and trust my fellow actors and trust my directors. You’ve worked with Joby before, as actors, right? Yes. Joby was our Brutus, and I directed him in Julius Caesar two years ago. And in that five-actor Romeo and Juliet, Beth Ann and I were actors, and Joby was an actor as well. I’ve known Joby since we were both in college; I’ve known him since we were eighteen. So I’ve known Joby for fifteen years now and we’ve acted in stuff all through that time period. There is a lot of trust there, and I think the same things that I love about the Henry IV plays are the things that Joby loves about these plays. I have a lot of trust in him, not just to help me as an actor and help me give my best performance, but to show audiences what’s really, really special about these plays. And what is that? There’s no genre, because they’re histories, so it’s just a story. It’s not tragedy and it’s not comedy, although I think it’s funnier than most of the comedies and I think it’s immensely sad, incredibly sad, this story. So that’s one thing, that it lives outside the realm of what most people know Shakespeare to have written. Another thing is, I think it’s a great story about time and how time forces people to make difficult decisions and how time forces people to grow up and how time brings us into meetings and partings with one another. Which I think is immensely relatable, because everyone has been faced with inevitable change and inevitable loss. And there’s something about the Henry IV plays, especially Part Two, that has a sweet and sad quality. It’s like a song that’s written in a minor key. Imagine going to a place that you went to in your childhood, and it would make you feel wonder and it would make you feel a little bit of sadness and it would make your breath catch and it would make you think about how your life has changed since that time and the life you’ve lead and the person you were, all in a breath, all in an instant. And that to me is what Henry IV, Part Two is like. It’s like a dream of that childhood place. And it’s something that I don’t find exactly in any other Shakespeare play. Are there any actors or directors who have been a particular influence on you? I think there are lots. But I remember in college, going to the NYU library and watching Chimes at Midnight, which was Orson Welles’ adaptation of the two Henry IV plays that centers on Falstaff, and just being very, very moved by that. And still that movie is my favorite Shakespeare movie. Orson Welles directed it, too, as well as acting the part of Falstaff. The way he told the story, and the element of the story that he captured in his movie, I was really struck by. And it was something that I watched during a really impressionable time, because I was in college and acting a lot and reading Shakespeare a lot and so it was a good time to see a great actor, a great artist have a take on a great story.

VOTE OR DIE: Henry IV Edition

Politicians never stop campaigning. Therefore, everyone is already abuzz about who will be the best candidate in the 2016 Presidential race. As voters, it’s our job to prioritize what makes a person a good and effective leader, and this is no easy task. As it turns out, Shakespeare was dealing with these same issues in his writing of Henry IV.  Of course, we have a democratic republic as opposed to a monarchy so things are a little different, but the challenge of determining what kind of leader someone will be after they gain power is the same.   We, Carolyn and Nell, were curious what it would be like if these monarchs/characters were running for office in America today. So, here is how we think a 2016 election would play out with our Henry IV friends.

Name: Henry Bolingbroke, King Henry IV

Campaign slogan: Saved you from Richard Two, let’s see what more he can do!

Strengths: Henry IV understands the importance of image. He knows he must give the people an appearance of a person who can fearlessly lead. As a leader and a candidate he is not afraid to do what needs to be done and never forgets the importance of what the  common people want and need. He is intelligent and has great political savvy.

Weaknesses: There is a potential scandal in how he came to power originally. This could present itself as an issue both by outward forces challenging him, and by his own guilt wearing on him.

Overall: “Like a comet I was wondered at, that men would tell their children this is he”. (Henry IV)   King Henry first took over the country in the midst of turmoil and change. He knew how to win favor and awe of the people. Times are still changing though, can he keep up or will he be left behind? Will his questionable rise to power cause him issues despite his intelligence and political savvy?

Name: Henry (Harry) “Hotspur” Percy

Campaign slogan: Honor and Mercy: Harry Percy

Strengths: Hotspur is incredibly charismatic, has an honorable reputation, and is a great fighter. He garners praise for his spotless character on and off the battlefield. Even King Henry has great respect for him and refers to him as the “theme of honour’s tongue.”

Weaknesses: He can be impulsive, hot headed, and prone to temper. He is not a stellar listener.

Overall: Hotspur has all the charm and will power a politician could dream of. He is a valiant fighter and a natural leader, however, his impulsivity raises questions. If elected, would he be able to listen to his advisors and make rational decisions? Is it possible that in one’s quest for honor their judgment can be impaired?

Name: Hal, Harry, Henry Monmouth, Prince of Wales

Slogan: A Kingly Pal who will lift morale: vote for Prince Hal!

Strengths: Hal is a man of the people; he can have conversations with people at the bar just as well as he can with those of higher status. This is a candidate who is true to his word, incredibly intelligent, and possesses an innate honor while maintaining rationale.

Weaknesses:  He doesn’t keep honorable company, could attract scandal, and has a dodgy past. Smacking the Chief Justice probably did not do wonders for his image either.

Overall: Hal’s past has not been the cleanest and it’s difficult to overlook all his drunken escapades. We all know that slap would have been caught on someone’s iPhone and within minutes we would get a CNN update about it. However, he was raised by Henry and therefore has seen how a leader should behave. He knows the common people and how to gain their friendship and trust. Could he surprise us with a “glittering reformation” and become one of the most important and unifying leaders in history?

Name: Sir John Falstaff: Knight (Jack)

Slogan: A cup of sacke and vote for Jack!

Theme Song: Captain Jack–Billy Joel, https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nQGv8PN-WlI

Strengths: Falstaff is intelligent and witty. His oratory skills would make him killer in the debate. He is beloved by those whose company he keeps for his ability to make people laugh in the toughest of times.

Weaknesses: He has no image of pedigree or honor. This would make it difficult for him to appeal to a large demographic. Not to mention that his frequent intoxication could be slightly problematic.

Overall: “Banish plump Jack, and Banish all the world”. Falstaff is king of the every man and rules the world of Eastcheape. He technically has leadership experience and would certainly use his standout semantics to crush it in a debate. However, his drunken debauchery and other indulgences could prove more challenging.  Sooner or later, TMZ would get photos of him with his friend and sometime escort Doll, and Jon Stewart would have a field day.

Despite hundreds of years of time gone by and a different form of government in place, we still ask ourselves the same questions about leadership. So, now it’s in your hands!

Who would you vote for?

“You can study Shakespeare, and never know everything there is to know.” – An interview with cast member Jane May

With rehearsals underway, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you.

Our next interview is with Jane May, who hails from Spokane, WA and recently received her Masters Degree from the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She is making her Smith Street Stage debut in the roles of King Henry IV and Hostess Quickly.

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How did you get into theatre and acting?

I’ve been an actor since I was eight years old. I got my degree at Santa Clara University in theatre and dance. I’ve just been doing it forever. I tried a couple times to not do it, but I just kept coming back to it. I love it; it’s just a part of who I am as a person. I was in Seattle after I graduated and I did a lot of professional theatre there and got my chops a little bit, and got used to doing theatre more and more professionally. And at a certain point I just decided that the place to really be is New York. So I ended up here about four years ago.

And how did you get involved with Smith Street Stage? This is your first show with the group, right?

It is. I know Joby, the director, through my husband. They did a cool Three Sisters together. I met Joby and his wife through that, and I had heard about Smith Street Stage, although I’d never seen anything by them. So I decided I’d put my name in the hat.

In this production, you’re playing two characters of different genders. How are you planning to approach that? And what do you think of the decision to do gender-blind casting?

I think it’s great. I love it. I actually received my Master’s Degree in classical acting in 2014 from LAMDA, the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Arts. My thesis was that I worked with two other women, specifically about this stuff, about gender-neutral casting. The three of us came to it from three different places, but we were all playing the same character – Flamineo in John Webster’s The White Devil. One woman really wanted to focus on trying to become very man-like, and wanted her character to be believably male, and what that entailed. The other woman wanted to approach it as if Flamineo was turned into a woman, so the character was actually a woman. And I approached it as, ok, what happens if I take gender out of the equation and I just play a character. Is that even possible? Can you play a character without all of the things pertaining to gender? So the fact that I’m now doing this is wonderful because I’m getting to apply a lot of what I learned in my thesis directly to serious text work. It’s right up my alley.

You picked a classical acting program for your Master’s. Are you particularly drawn to classical theatre, and Shakespeare in particular? And are there any particular things that are exciting or challenging about performing Shakespeare?

I love Shakespeare. I’m very drawn to him; I always have been. I love classical theatre. Shakespeare just wrote humans so well, thorough, complex human beings in such a beautiful way. There’s a reason – I don’t know what it is – but there’s a reason that he’s a four-hundred-year-old playwright that’s still being produced massively, everywhere. I specifically wanted to train for classical theatre, that is definitely what I wanted to do. It’s interesting – I wanted to train that way because I didn’t foresee myself doing too much of it in the future, in a weird way, because I wanted to focus on other aspects of being an actor and I thought, I’m going to give myself the gift of going to school for a year and just doing this. But since I’ve been back, I’ve already been cast in two classical productions so maybe that’s actually what I’m going to be doing, which is fantastic, because I think it’s wonderful and I really take to it. I love that you can study Shakespeare, and you can do tablework and perform it and you can still never know everything there is to know.

Are there any actors or directors who have been a particular influence on you?

Everyone I’ve ever met who’s an artist has had an influence on me. I’m constantly inspired. There’s a lot of bad theatre, but there’s a lot of really good theatre, and it’s always inspiring to want to keep making it. There’s lots of people I’d like to work with and lots of people I have worked with that I’ve admired. I’m really looking forward to working with Joby, frankly, I think he’s really smart. Just the little bit of time I spent in the rehearsal room during callbacks, I was really excited and really jazzed and inspired. The people who have influenced my acting the most recently have certainly been my tutors at LAMDA, and my classmates as well were really brave and inspiring. I think that there are a million wonderful theatre makers in New York City and around the world.

Learning by Watching Others – An interview with cast member Hannah Sloat

With rehearsals underway, our marketing director sat down with each of our cast members and asked them to share a little about themselves, their history, and what they love about performing Shakespeare. We are thrilled to bring their stories to you.

Next in our series is Hannah Sloat, who is taking on the role of Prince Hal in her Smith Street Stage debut. Hannah is a classical actress from Durham, NH and an original cast member of Broadway’s War Horse.

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Can you tell me about how you got into theatre and acting?

There’s a story that my mother tells, from when I was five. I was at an outdoor theatre performance of Peter and the Wolf and I was looking up at the stage and I said, “I want to be there; I want to do that.” I was somewhat performative as a kid – I guess many of us are – but I was an only child, and I did a lot of imagination play by myself and I really enjoyed that. I ended up doing the school plays in the third and fourth grade and I joined this children’s theatre group when I was in the sixth grade, and then I really didn’t look back. I was in that group through the end of high school and I did a lot of plays with them. I had brief instances where I thought I might be a teacher or a gymnast, but neither of those happened.

This is your first show with Smith Street Stage, right?

It is, yeah. I had the good fortune of seeing Much Ado About Nothing last year. I had a couple of friends in the show, and I loved the show, I loved the atmosphere, I loved the mix of people who come with their blankets and have clearly planned to be there and have ordered a pizza or brought a picnic, and that combined with people that stop by and are just sucked into the world of the show for maybe fifteen minutes or maybe they stay for the whole thing. I loved that combination.

What sort of experience do you have doing Shakespeare?

A lot of what I’ve done in the city has been Shakespeare with small, independent companies. It’s been a while since I’ve done one – my last one was before I did War Horse, which was in 2010. So it’s been several years since I’ve done one.

So what are you doing to get back into doing Shakespeare, and the role of Prince Hal in particular?

I actually just started getting help from my boyfriend. He’s helping me to work out, lifting weights, which is not something that I often do. It’s sort of a twofold, cardio and weightlifting for the lungs and the overall capacity to be in such a big space and be open and free and have the core and the base to do that. I’m really excited to be fighting in this show. It’s been a while since I’ve been fighting with swords regularly and so I want to have the muscles to do it and be not nervous, but excited about doing it night after night.

And of course you’ve been cast as a man for this production. Are you doing anything special to prepare for that?

I talked with Joby somewhat recently about where we both were at in terms of our thinking about the role and the show. For me – and I think we’re on the same page here – the idea of Prince Hal as this human being, and one of his characteristics is that he’s a man. There are many things that I connect with Hal about, besides the gender part, like the idea of wanting something and really not wanting it at the same time. He has these big questions about what it means to have something like the kingship given to you but also needing to earn it, and earn the respect to be the king and have people want to follow you. Especially at this time, with his father having risen up and taken the crown, his footing isn’t that sure. In some ways it seems like it’s inevitable and at the same time a lot of what the plays are about is the rockiness and unevenness of it. And so I feel like, in a certain way the gender doesn’t scare me too much. I also think that it’s about relationship. And so I have to be with Falstaff as man to man, and what that relationship means – as long as it’s clear and it doesn’t feel like Falstaff hanging out with one of the bar wenches, which would be so different obviously. For me, it has more to do with understanding the relationship, and gender obviously plays a big part in the way that different people behave toward one another. Coming at it from that angle makes it the most concrete without making it about having to put on a whole bunch of false physicality. I’m not so worried about that right now, I think that those things will hopefully be able to come through the exploration of these relationships.

Are there any actors or directors who have been a particular influence on your work?

Joby and I were talking about influences on the characters and maybe taking a look at other films and other people playing this role. And he said, “Don’t do it if it’s going to mess you up,” but I had this experience in the children’s theatre company where at each show you would have a different person playing the lead role because there were so many kids. My director didn’t want twenty-five kids to sit around while four of them got to do the fun stuff. So when we did The Wizard of Oz, there were four Dorothys, there were four Wicked Witches, there were four Good Witches and so you didn’t get to rehearse the scenes all the time. You spent seventy-five percent of the time watching other people do it, which was really an amazing way to learn, because you’re able to do that thing that actors talk about a lot – we beg, borrow, and steal from wherever we can. And it gave me such a sense of how much perspective and how much talent there is, even in little Durham, New Hampshire there is so much that you can see.