Workshops for Adults – now with REMOTE options

Acting is one of those crafts audiences often take for granted because the point of it is (usually) to make everything look and sound natural and spontaneous, so if done well…it looks like the actor isn’t doing anything.

With Shakespeare, sometimes the audience has more of a sense the other things are happening as well – a vocabulary has to be learned, verse has to be respected, and the way people say things doesn’t always resemble the way people say things.

So if you’ve ever been curious about The Room Where It Happens, join us in chatting about the way actors, directors, and dramaturgs approach all of that – with special guests from Kentucky Shakespeare joining us!

Saturday, May 30, 1:00pm-4:00pm and
Saturday, June 6, 1:00pm-4:00pm

Email amy@kyshakespeare.com to register or ask questions.

Gregory Maupin is an actor as well as resident dramaturg with Kentucky Shakespeare, which in this context means he occasionally assists the actors in finding meaning in the text and edits the plays for the sake of the audience’s 21st century ear (and bladder). He’s been leading Kentucky Shakespeare’s Off the Page gang since its inception in 2017.

About the Book: What accounts for Shakespeare’s transformation from talented poet and playwright to one of the greatest writers who ever lived? In this gripping account, James Shapiro sets out to answer this question, “succeed[ing] where others have fallen short.” (Boston Globe)

1599 was an epochal year for Shakespeare and England. During that year, Shakespeare wrote four of his most famous plays: Henry the Fifth, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and, most remarkably, Hamlet; Elizabethans sent off an army to crush an Irish rebellion, weathered an Armada threat from Spain, gambled on a fledgling East India Company, and waited to see who would succeed their aging and childless queen.

James Shapiro illuminates both Shakespeare’s staggering achievement and what Elizabethans experienced in the course of 1599, bringing together the news and the intrigue of the times with a wonderful evocation of how Shakespeare worked as an actor, businessman, and playwright. The result is an exceptionally immediate and gripping account of an inspiring moment in history.

Saturday, June 13, 1:00pm-4:00pm (discussing the first half of the book) and
Saturday, June 20, 1:00pm-4:00pm (discussing the second half)

Email amy@kyshakespeare.com to register or ask questions.

Gregory Maupin is an actor as well as resident dramaturg with Kentucky Shakespeare, which in this context means he occasionally assists the actors in finding meaning in the text and edits the plays for the sake of the audience’s 21st century ear (and bladder). He’s been leading Kentucky Shakespeare’s Off the Page gang since its inception in 2017.