ACTING WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE
INSTRUCTOR: Tom Fulton, Executive Director – The Fairmount Center
Tuesday Evenings: January 29 - March 18, 2008
7-9:30 pm
Mayfield Village Civic Center
6622 Wilson Mills Road
(Corner of Wilson Mills and 91)  (See Map)
$195.00 - To Sign Up, call 440-338-3171
$25 per workshop audit fee.
See Reviews of Tom's Workshops

Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue: but if you mouth it, as many of your players do, I had as lief the
town-crier spoke my lines. Nor do not saw the air
too much with your hand, thus, but use all gently; for in the very torrent, tempest, and, as I may say, the whirlwind of passion, you must acquire and beget a temperance that may give it smoothness...

...Be not too tame neither, but let your own discretion be your tutor: suit the action to the word, the word to the action; with this special o'erstep not the modesty of nature: for any thing so overdone is from the purpose of playing, whose end, both at the first and now, was and is, to hold, as 'twere, the mirror up to nature; to show virtue her own feature, scorn her own image, and the very age and body of the time his form and pressure..."

Hamlet - Hamlet, William Shakespeare

	Acting the Great Roles of Willam Shakespeare opens up a treasure chest of information about acting Shakespeare, bringing his remarkable characterizations and language in reach of the contemporary actor. Our focus is on script analysis, the analysis of speech (diction, rhythm, vocal melody, imagery), and the wealth of tips, clues and even 'stage directions' from the bards own pen through deconstructing his verse.  We discover the human hearbeat beneath the words and then apply the work of Stanislavsky to the speeches and scenes.  A new kind of 'action' is explored: the action of speech, acting dramatic or comic poetry. Our focus is on monologues, scenework and exercises in Temporal Phrasing Punctuation Accentuated Word Focus of attention Visual Images, which drive the expression Verse as Action. Text: Building a Character Scene Work: Two person scenes and monologues from Shakespeare. This class is part 1 of 2.

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