The Tempest Director Kelly Hunter (Royal Shakespeare Company) and Ohio State Assistant Professor Kevin McClatchy discussing a scene during rehearsal. June, 2014, The RSC Rehearsal room in London, England.
Actors rehearsing The Tempest in the RSC rehearsal room. Left to right: Ohio State Visiting Assistant Professor Robin Post, RSC Actors Eva Lily Tausig, Greg Hicks, and Chris McDonald. June, 2014, The RSC Rehearsal room in London, England.
Kevin McClatchy and Mahmoud Osman rehearse
The final encounter between Caliban (Greg Hicks) and Prospero (Kevin McClatchy)
RSC Stand Up for Shakespeare training participants are creating a tableau from Henry IV, Part II. Left to right: Kayla Jackmon, Amelia Baumgardner, JB Jagerman, Elliot Lemberg, and Johnny Merry-June, 2014, The Clore Learning Center in Stratford-upon-Avon
RSC Stand Up for Shakespeare training participants are creating a tableau from Henry IV, Part II. Left to Right: Samantha Stewart, Bridget Lee, Melissa Crum, and Patricia Enciso Sarah Neville in the background. June, 2014, The Clore Learning Center
Teachers Create a Tableau at September 2013 PD
Teachers create a tableau of the dangerous forest of As You Like It at March PD
The Partnership Expands: The Royal Shakespeare Company and The Ohio State University
By Elizabeth Harelik (PhD Student)
The partnership between The Ohio State University and the UK’s Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC) continued to grow and expand during the 2013-2014 school year, the fifth year of this partnership. In autumn 2013, guest director Cressida Brown was in residency at Ohio State, and directed the MFA acting cohort, along with six undergraduate students, in a production of The Tempest. In addition to evening and weekend shows, the cast performed several matinees, which allowed over 1000 K-12 students from Columbus and the surrounding area to see this show.
In February, the Department of Theatre opened its touring production of As You Like It at the Lincoln Theatre in downtown Columbus. Mo Ryan directed the production, which toured to 18 area schools from February to April. In addition to performing, the cast conducted interactive workshops with K-12 students.
In April, the RSC’s First Encounter production of The Taming of the Shrew toured to Columbus. Over 2000 K-12 and undergraduate students were able to attend this show and experience either a Q&A or a music-focused workshop, led by RSC actors. Throughout their residency, the company worked with students and faculty from the Departments of English and Theatre in a series of workshops.
Additionally, a new cohort of teachers and graduate students began the RSC training in October 2013. The 2013-2014 cohort of 21 teachers and 8 graduate students (JiRye Lee and Esmaeil Najar from theatre) participated in professional development days throughout the school year, culminating in a week-long trip to Stratford-upon-Avon in June 2014. Cohort members attended the RSC productions of Henry IV parts 1 and 2 and had the opportunity to see other plays in their repertoire. In June the RSC opened The Other Space at the Courtyard Theatre for a festival that included four new plays by women. Lesley Ferris was invited to speak at one of the events related to this new work: “Making Mischief: Shakespeare, Gender and Radical Thought.”
There were also exciting developments in the Shakespeare and Autism project, another element of the OSU/RSC partnership. In June, The Tempest, adapted and directed by Kelly Hunter, opened in Stratford-upon-Avon as a co-production between Ohio State and the Royal Shakespeare Company. This groundbreaking production, targeted specifically towards young people with autism, used the games and tenets of the Hunter Heartbeat Method (HHM) to tell the story of Shakespeare’s play. The cast of six was made up of three actors from Ohio State (Robin Post; Kevin McClatchy; and alumnus Mahmoud Osman) and three actors from the RSC (Greg Hicks, Chris MacDonald, and Eva Tausig). Additionally, children with autism who attended the production were incorporated into the performance. Following its last performance in Stratford on July 4, Lesley Ferris moderated a post-performance discussion that included Kelly Hunter, the actors, and Michael Dobson, Director of the Shakespeare Institute in Stratford.
After its two-week run in Stratford, the production had its North American premiere in Columbus, co-presented by the Wexner Center for the Arts, with four performances at the Wexner Center for the Arts, two performances at Haugland Learning Center, and two performances at WOSU@COSI.