Playing around

UPDATE:Here’s the YouTube video made from my shots…

I just finished chronicling the work of Theater of the Seventh Sister Associate Artistic Director, Lydia Brubaker during her annual Shakespeare Camp at F&M. Every summer Lydia directs a group of young men and women (from ages 13-18) through an intensive theater workshop that produces one Shakespeare play. This year’s offering was The Taming of the Shrew.

One of the most interesting parts of the workshop, at least for me, was the gender distribution of the students and how that affected the play. The students, some dozen or more young women and three young men, because of the make to female ratio, all played cross-gender roles. Put simply, all the guys played women on stage and woman played the male roles. So not only were they learning and working with the process of acting but they had the double hurdle of playing against their own gender. In a time of life when we all formed our adult identities, these students were not only working it out in real life but on stage.

I can’t say how impressed I was with the group’s passion, involvement and their performances. It’s simply amazing to watch Lydia work with the campers and them work for her. The students (and Lydia) do everything from working the theater itself to costuming their roles. I saw the final dress rehearsal today and I thought they did an admirable job with the play. It was very entertaining.

Below you find a few samples from today’s dress rehearsal and you can view the other images I shot throughout the workshop at the links below.

final dress rehearsal gallery

first dress rehearsal

rehearsal

blocking

acting exercises