The Complete Works of William Shakespeare is a comedic live performance improv show and a parody of the works of William Shakespeare, performed by The Reduced Shakespeare Company. The first performance of this comedic improv play was at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe (United Kingdom), in 1987. The play was written by Adam Long, Daniel Singer, and Jess Winfield. The three writers wrote the parody as a three man act. The actors that played these roles were Adam Long, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor.
In the play there is no such thing as the fourth wall, they speak to the audience many times and even have audience participation. Because it is an improv like play there are many parts that are not scripted. Such as the humorous vomit catastrophes each time there is a tragedy, and a part of the play where one of the actors refuses to act due to the vulgarity in the play name, along with many other scenes. The play starts out with an introduction from the actors. They perform many, if not all of William Shakespeare's play’s, starting with Romeo and Juliet and ending it with Macbeth.
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A woman from the audience was told by the actors to “play” one of William Shakespeare's characters, and the audience was told to speak together as a mental voice. The costumes in the play are quite simplistic throughout the show. They wear a white blouse with colored, loose capri like pants, with converse. Throughout the show they wear the same thing, but in certain acts/scenes they switch up or add something to their costume to give the audience more of a
There was a lot of breaking the fourth wall to keep to audience involved because the main priority of this play was to entertain not to tell a story, in fact a lot of the story was left out and left the audience’s imagination. In the climax of the play the villain is shot dead by a mysterious hand that you could see creep out of the curtain and shot him. His final words were “IT WAS SUPPOSED TO BE A CAST OF FOUR!” as all four actors were on stage so it couldn’t have been anyone the audience were aware of.
On the 12 of November, I attended the Nottingham Festival where I saw the Passado Action Theater. The Passado Action Theater had the Artistic Director, Dennis McLaughlin, the Co-Artistic Director, Ri Walton, the Instructor/Choreographer, Elly Calero, the other Instructor/Choreographer Nick Gregory and the last instructor/choreography, Frankie Macedo. All these actors performed The Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and Pyramus and Thisbe.The stage was decorated by volunteers from the audience, such as a lantern, a wall and a dead guy. Each actor was wearing a costume according to the time which was a big shirts, a vest, boots and tights; when it came to play a guy they wore the tights, when it came for them to play a lady Elly Calero wore a long red skirt. Also to get more into character they had a sword belt to place their
The 1920s was known for its prosperous and flamboyant lifestyle. The GDP during that time had risen by 30 percent and unemployment was as at an all-time low of 3 percent. This was not meant to last forever. In fact, it was nearly impossible for this to last any longer than it did due to an imbalance that society was unaware of including that not every citizen was experiencing this uncommon wealth. There were still 3 percent unemployed and even some of the employed members of society did not make enough to support a family and were considered homeless. It was in October of 1929 when this so-called luxurious lifestyle vanished as the stock market crashed at a time when the stock market seemed it would never stop increasing. This caused an economic, downhill, rolling ball effect. Those who took out loans to invest in stocks could not afford to repay the banks causing the banks to fail and close down. When the banks closed down, the depositors of that bank lost their life savings causing them to go broke and some company owners to close their doors. This led to a loss of jobs by the employers of those companies. This time period was known as the Great Depression and rightfully so. It is the most significant setback in the American Economy to date. The Herbert Hoover administration was in effect at this time giving the society an easy target to blame. Come time for the next election in 1932, Americans were ready for a change in authority to bring them out of this seemingly black
Since I have prior knowledge about this famous play, I did not have a hard time figuring out which actors played a specific character. When all the other characters came onto the stage, it was easy for someone to believe that they were the character stated in the program due to the costumes. The actors were attempting to make you believe they were the real characters, something that could have worked if the execution was better. If the actors practiced more and thoroughly knew their lines, making the character their own without losing the integrity of each character, the audience would be gripping out of their
The actors started setting up the world before the play officially started. A couple minutes prior to 7:30 pm, the cast started appearing from the entrances and walking around embodying their characters. They were all committed to their parts and interacted with each other and sometimes the audience members as well. There were beggars asking for money, whores complaining about beggars, and fights breaking out in the isles. It was an interesting concept to have them interact with us and it was definitely a Brechtian technique. The actors continued using the idea of Brechtian theatre within the rest of the production as well. Several times, an actor would talk to the audience and acknowledge their presence as if they were also part of the world. Jonathan Jeremiah Peachum even asked the audience to clap and waited for them to do so. The production became interactive and invited the audience to be its own character. The commitment from all of the characters to really go for it and not hold back was another pleasing feature of the production. An example of this, is when Polly Peachum is lying on the floor in her wedding dress and is violent moving her body and arms. It was strange to see, but also an interesting technique to convey
Thrilling yet confusing, and even troublesome, Twelfth Night’s theme of identity is showed within the romantic comedy through many ways. As an essential subject establishing rich symbolism and imagery, it uses disguises and crafty characters’, which causes much confusion between the characters. Furthermore, the idea brings out the comical essence of the piece. It examines the gender roles in Twelfth Night relating to the history of Renaissance/Elizabethan Theatre; males played female roles—a male actor would play a female character (Viola) who disguises herself as a male (Cesario), for women were forbidden to act. Through What You Will, it proves one’s physical features, and how a person presents them self, possesses
Though its primary function is usually plot driven--as a source of humor and a means to effect changes in characters through disguise and deception—cross dressing is also a sociological motif involving gendered play. My earlier essay on the use of the motif in Shakespeare's plays pointed out that cross dressing has been discussed as a symptom of "a radical discontinuity in the meaning of the family" (Belsey 178), as cul-tural anxiety over the destabilization of the social hierarchy (Baker, Howard, Garber), as the means for a woman to be assertive without arousing hostility (Claiborne Park), and as homoerotic arousal (Jardine). This variety of interpretations suggests the multivoiced character of the motif, but
We are being told the story by various narrators through song. The world of the play and the audience’s was never separated by a fourth wall. We were watching them tell us a story, but they knew we were watching. We were an audience to a real story. We were integrated into the plot. The audience did not have a major role. It was not as if the fourth wall was ever broken. The fourth wall in this play simply did not exist. Narrators are a very good way to make a play presentational without the audience having to be too involved. Every time a new story started or scene I suppose, we were introduced as the listeners. I like feeling like I am a part of what is going on onstage without having to act on stage. I actually prefer this type of presentational play over a representational play where I am being creepy looking in on the character’s
Likewise, Miss Brill imagines herself in a different situation. "They were all on the stage. They weren't only the audience, not only looking on; they were acting. Even she had a part and came every Sunday. No doubt somebody would have noticed if she hadn't been there; she was part of the performance after all" (740). In this story, the woman finds herself acting as if she is part of a play. She notes the
A. The plays that Shakespeare wrote were “Hamlet”, “Macbeth”, “Romeo & Juliet”, “Twelfth night”, “King Lear” and more.
The plays performed were a “performance” for the audience, who knew the actors were aware of them. The acting itself was dramatic with grand gestures and personalities that were not considered realistic or natural. This is quite different from the realistic perspective, we expect from performances today to help us relate to the characters in a performance (Elizabethan Theater, 2015). There are many artistic choices that maintain the conventions of acting style in the Elizabethan Theater in the adapted performance of King Lear, directed by Andrew McCullough as well as the textual script written by William Shakespeare. The most important being the heightened speech patterns, dramatic gestures, and speech conventions addressing the
Shakespeare has a difficult task entertaining the rowdy Elizabethan audience, especially during the exposition of the play, which sets up the entire plot. The audience needs to be engaged and invested in the play, otherwise many of the Elizabethan audience would throw food and furniture on stage or vandalize the theatre in response. Shakespeare employs a variety of techniques throughout the exposition of the play in order to do this, by creating tension between characters, introducing scandalous plots and unresolved issues right at the beginning of the play leaving the audience waiting for an answer. This essay will explore Shakespeare’s techniques and methods of engaging his Elizabethan audience.
In Twelfth Night Shakespeare uses gender roles and cross dressing to create disguise. This creates a sense of gender ambiguity and this is what makes the audience laugh - but although it creates a sense of fun and liveliness it also examines
. Article one entitled “Transformational leadership in the Public Sector: Does Structure Matter?” by Wright and Pandey, discusses the public organization and goes against stereotypical beliefs that they are filled with bureaucracy. Next “The Effect of Transactional and Transformational Leadership Styles on the Organizational Commitment and Job Satisfaction of Customer Contact Personnel,” written by Emery and Barker job satisfaction in the banking food store businesses. The last article titled “Differential effects of Females and male candidates on system justification: Can Cracks in the glass ceiling foster complacency?” by Brown and Diekman pertains to the lack of equality in politics for women.
This lesson was taught November 12, 2015 at Rosa Taylor Elementary School in Miss. Baggott’s fifth grade class. That week the students went to see Miller Middle School November 10th and were out of school for Veteran’s Day on November 11th. This week in math the students were learning about polygons and their characteristics. Triangles have a first and last name describing the sides and types of angles. There are different types of quadrilaterals and other polygons with five for more signs. For the summative assessment given to the students by the cooperative teacher, the students had to identify the shapes by their name, number of sides, number of angles, and (for triangles) their “first and last names.”