NEH institute this summer in Staunton

I am please to reproduce here a belated announcement distributed today on the SHAKSPER listserv, in hopes it will reach a wider audience.  The time-frame for application is tight, so those interested need act quickly.  This is a rare opportunity and one that might just make someone's career.

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I am delighted to tell you about our upcoming NEH institute, "Shakespeare's Blackfriars Playhouse: The Study, the Stage, and the Classroom," from 29 June to 2 August. We have had many enquiries; we expect that many on this listserv might be interested in joining us for five-weeks this summer, hearing our visiting scholars, working with our actors, and seeing our shows. The program - our fourth such institute - will provide teachers of early modern English drama access to some remarkable resources: the guidance and expertise of eight significant scholars in the field, the collaboration of professional actors, and the laboratory of a careful re-creation of Shakespeare's indoor theatre, the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton, Virginia. Each day combines the presentations of our experts, daily workshops and rehearsals with Equity actors, and work on a stage for which Shakespeare and his contemporaries wrote their play. We are seeking participants who would like the wall between the study and practice of English Renaissance drama to be permeable.

The deadline for the application is 3 March. [This is somewhat confusing because the deadline mentioned below in the original post is March 1.  To be safe, act immediately.]  You can find more information and the application on our website - www.ascstaunton.com on the education page under research.

The institute has three overlapping goals:

-to train literary scholars in the conversion of abstractions about plays into scenes on a stage.

-to provide the acting personnel and the venue necessary for a serious examination of the staging conditions at the heart of early modern drama.

-to apply the lessons of early modern staging to the presentation of Shakespeare in the classroom.

The idea for this institute came out of my many years of wearing two hats as an English professor and as the executive director of a Shakespeare company (now the proprietors of the Blackfriars Playhouse) devoted to the simple idea that Shakespeare's stagecraft might be as good as his word craft and at the very least was connected to it.

Rehearsing plays on that assumption produced a profusion of discoveries about the text, while classroom work created a never-ending set of questions to explore in rehearsal. The joy of that symbiosis is what the American Shakespeare Center wants to share, and, with the opening of our Blackfriars Playhouse in 2001, we now have the ideal laboratory - a stage like the one Shakespeare and his fellow playwrights had in mind when they created an exit or an entrance. "Shakespeare's Blackfriars: the Study, the Stage, the Classroom" puts this re-created theatre at the service of your work as a scholar and teacher.

The daily schedule offers participants a mix of theory, practice, and product. Participants use the mornings to become familiar with the theatres of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and with their staging practices, the afternoons to have hands-on experience in directing and staging the works, and the evening to see shows at the Blackfriars - Measure for Measure, King Lear, and Twelfth Night. The shows stimulate discussion of the issues raised by the lectures and the workshops and give participants specific models to use.

To give participants as much practical experience as possible during the workshops and rehearsals, we will divide into three-person "directorates." Each directorate, in collaboration with the actors, will work separately on successive scenes from Antony and Cleopatra (actors will be "off-book" on the designated scenes). In the final week of the institute, directorates will present their finished work on the stage of the Blackfriars in a public production. That same week each of the institute scholars will present a brief final paper on his or her directing projects.

Past participants have been delighted by Staunton. This historic city (founded by King George II in 1747), in the beautiful Shenandoah Valley forty miles over the Blue Ridge from Charlottesville, is enjoying an exciting Renaissance for which the Blackfriars was a cultural and economic tipping point. This city of 25,000 is becoming a major destination for lovers not only of Shakespeare, but also of architecture, antiques, crafts, history, food, cinema, and the visual arts. Other great attractions from Monticello, to famous caverns, to canoeing and hiking and other recreations in the nearby national forests and park, are no more than a 40 minute drive.

Your completed application must be postmarked no later than 1 March 2008. Send it to: Sarah Enloe, Project Coordinator, Shakespeare's Playhouses, American Shakespeare Center, 13 East Beverley Street, Staunton, Virginia 24401. If you have any inquiries, contact Sarah via e-mail at sarahe@americanshakespearecenter.com, or phone her at 540 887 7251.

We are glad of your interest in the institute and we welcome your application.

Sincerely,

Ralph Alan Cohen

Founding Executive Director,

American Shakespeare Center