The Shakespeare Connection

​ The Audience, our Fellow Conspirators.

 

In Shakespeare more than any other playwright, we the audience are friends and collaborators in the characters and we, the actors are friend and collaborators with the audience. Nowhere is this more obvious than in Richard the Third as we accompany him on his dark journey of villainy. As actors and lovers of Shakespeare we might explore these questions; “Is the audience a character?””Can we be sensitive to the audiences energy  and can we allow that to affect the character themselves?”  “Is the audience complicit in the character’s journey?” “In soliloquies, how does the audience energy affect the actors choices of direct address or introspection?” “How do we as artists make these decisions?”   Through exploration of the text, and Michael Chekhov’s exercises we will try to explore these questions which take us to the heart of what must be a live event.

 

Liz Shipman—Director/Choreographer, Specialist in Psychophysical Actor Training, Acting Shakespeare and Active Integrations. 

Co-Artistic Director of the Meisner/Chekhov Integrated Training Studio in San Diego (2013-present),Co-Artistic Director of the Kings County Shakespeare Company (NYC) where she directed and/or choreographed over 50 productions (1983-2001),Certified Laban Movement Analyst, self-taught & trained in the Chekhov work

(1987-present). Her approach integrates the work of Michael Chekhov, Rudolph Laban, Irmgard Bartenieff and Arthur Lessac.

In 2020, she launched Virtually Shakespeare, a recurring course on Zoom. Liz relishes working with language-rich texts & creating work that engages both the actor & the audience through heightened atmospheres & fully committed performances.

 

Max Hafler is the author of Teaching Voice, and “What Country Friends is This?” both published by Nick Hern books. His work on Shakespeare with young people using the Chekhov Technique is documented in the second book . Max trained at LAMDA and worked as an actor for several years before expanding into play writing, teaching and directing. His company Theatrecorp was dedicated to presenting classical work in the West of Ireland, which included Shakespeare, Beckett, Lorca, Marlowe and Webster. .