Weekend Workshop Immerses Students in Shakespeare

LYNCHBURG — A group of Randolph College English and theatre majors are getting the unique opportunity to immerse themselves with a professional theatre group during a special Renaissance Drama Weekend Seminar.

Twenty Randolph students will travel with Mara Amster, associate professor of English, and Ken Parks, associate professor of theatre, to the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, Va. The trip, funded through a grant from Randolph’s Strategic Curricular Initiative Fund will allow the students to see four plays, participate in acting workshops, attend rehearsals, and meet with professional actors.

“This is a great opportunity for our students to see the arts coming together,” Amster said. “It’s about acting, but it’s also about writing, music, and performance and how they are all intertwined. It allows our students to be immersed in this environment for an entire weekend.”

The American Shakespeare Center (ASC) is an internationally acclaimed theatre company that performs the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries under their original staging conditions — on a simple stage, without elaborate sets, and with the audience sharing the same light as the actors. Home to the ASC’s resident troupe, the Blackfriars Playhouse is known as one of America’s premier Shakespeare destinations.

“A Blackfriars performance makes us aware of our current stage conventions and how they affect what we see on stage,” Parks said.

Randolph’s students will see Part 1 of Henry VI , The Revenger’s Tragedy , A Midsummer Night’s Dream , and The Changeling .

For more information on the …please see: http://americanshakespearecenter.com/