Blackfriars Lecture Series

Don't miss our next pre-show lecture or workshop! Ralph Alan Cohen, the American Shakespeare Center Co-Founder and Director of Mission and a Mary Baldwin professor, along with other scholars and education artists, will expand your knowledge of the plays on stage at the Blackfriars Playhouse. These events are pay-what-you-will and open to the public. Lectures and workshops begin at 5:30pm and last approximately 40 minutes. Suggested donation $3.

Fall 2013 Schedule

• September 18 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Troilus and Cressida
• September 25 - Dr. Ralph Presents: She Stoops to Conquer
• October 2 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Romeo and Juliet
• October 9 - Dr. Ralph Presents: All's Well That Ends Well
• October 16 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Return to the Forbidden Planet
• October 17 - Inside Plays: She Stoops to Conquer
• October 31 - Inside Plays: Romeo and Juliet
• November 7 - Inside Plays: All's Well That Ends Well
• November 13 - Inside Plays: Troilus and Cressida
• November 14 - Inside Plays: Return to the Forbidden Planet

Winter/Spring 2014 Schedule

• February 6 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Timon of Athens
• February 13 - Dr. Ralph Presents: The Servant of Two Masters
• February 27 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Epicene
• March 6 - Dr. Ralph Presents: As You Like It
• March 12 - Dr. Ralph Presents: The Maid's Tragedy
• March 13 - Inside Plays: Timon of Athens
• March 19 - Inside Plays: The Servant of Two Masters
• March 26 - Inside Plays: Epicene
• March 27 - Inside Plays: The Maid's Tragedy
• April 3 - Inside Plays: As You Like It
• April 9 - Dr. Ralph Presents: The Merry Wives of Windsor
• April 10 - Inside Plays: Henry IV, Part 1
• April 16 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Henry IV, Part 1
• April 17 - Inside Plays: Othello
• April 23 - Dr. Ralph Presents: Othello
• April 24 - Inside Plays: The Merry Wives of Windsor

About the Blackfriars Lecture Series

At the heart of our love of Shakespeare is his uncanny ability with language and especially his facile handling of the unruly nature of words.  That unruliness is what makes the performance of his plays so new, for the audience as well as for the actor. The desire to probe the intricacies of Shakespeare’s language is why we usually begin rehearsals for our Summer, Fall, and Touring seasons with a tablework period: directors leading the actors through line-by-line paraphrasing of the text, scanning all the verse, and exploring the multiple possibilities and textual variants inside the rich words of these wonderful plays.

In our lecture series, Dr. Ralph Presents, and in our workshop series, Inside Plays, we encourage audience members to come to the Playhouse before shows and to do as our actors do, to deepen their contextual understanding and to recognize the performance choices that the language offers.

“I have gained my experience.” (As You Like It)
Dr. Ralph Alan Cohen, Director of Mission and co-founder of the ASC, has been teaching Shakespeare’s plays for 30+ years. He brings his experience to bear for each of the lectures he presents before the plays in each ASC season.  With an eye to the audiences he knows so well, he also selects additional lecturers as guests in this series throughout the year.

“And good plays prove the better by the help...” (As You Like It)
Attendees of our Inside Play series will engage in a deep, narrow analysis of the performance questions which arise in the production of the plays.  These sessions rely on the text and context of the plays to demonstrate playing choices actors have in the preparation of the plays.  

“These are complements, these are humours...” (Love’s Labours’ Lost)
Our playhouse series are a gift ASC Education takes joy in giving to the public throughout the year.  Our mission unites performance and education, and these hour-long pre-show sessions take advantage of the meeting of audience and space to illuminate the plays and to engage the audience in new ways.

“Could ever hear by tale or history...” (A Midsummer Night’s Dream)
The history of Shakespeare’s company, the way they worked, the clues the plays provide us for recovering their staging conditions, are all tools for understanding the intricacies of the choices Shakespeare and his contemporaries made with language and stagecraft.  ASC’s playhouse series studies those choices as a means of enhancing audience appreciation.

“The same tradition takes not away” (As You Like It)
Actors at the American Shakespeare Center are the most recent contributors to a long tradition of performance, a tradition that -- rather than stagnating -- creates new and exciting avenues for discovery in our renaissance space.  ASC Education’s playhouse series reveal the effect of tradition on play performance and the impact of building on the practices of the past. 

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