Thursday, June 21st
Show Title: Volpone, or The Fox
Director: Mary Finch
Assistant Directors: Miranda McPherson and Chase O’Neill
Production Intern: Abraham Joyner-Meyers
Rehearsal Room: Deming Black Box
What we did
After quick warm ups and check-ins, the Volpone cast started working on costumes for our setting of the show. The campers brought some impressive pieces, including “a silver shirt covered in sparkles; size tiny.” Together, RDAs, director, cast, and intern worked through the second act, and then blocked out the staging for almost every scene. This Saturday, we’ll finish our act 2 preparation by putting the mob scene (where Volpone, disguised as a Mountebank (or quack doctor), beguiles the city with the help of Nano and Mosca) in our rehearsal on the Blackfriars’ stage.
Quick and Quotable
From the play
MOSCA: Odso—Think, think, think, think, think, think, think, sir.
Ben Jonson had rhetorical devices of repetition (which campers learned about in text masterclasses on Wednesday) down pat.
From the director
FINCH: “Sir Politick is trying to convince you [cast member Will] of ‘The Benefits of Quacksalvers’, which sounds like a new George Bernard Shaw play.”
From the cast
SCARLET: “[The angry] Corvino “is like ‘quiet mom in a grocery store’ mad”.
ALL: “Lace up boot-like shoes”
Production Insights
In our exploration of the second act of Volpone, the play’s setting (Venice) became more fleshed out, thanks to the commentary of the traveling Sir Politick Would-Be, an English knight. Sir Politick (played by Kiernan) remarks to the itinerant Peregrine (Will) “I hope you travel, sir, with license?” The need for an knight to acquire a license to travel to Venice stems from the English fear of the corrupting power of Catholicism, and hence Catholic countries. Finch has helped us recreate this “badlands” vibe by setting our characters in the Wild West.
Charlie does table work.
Caroline, script in hand.
Campers Spencer and Scarlet put the text on its feet with Director Finch.
RDA Chase
Director Finch
RDA Mimi
Abraham Joyner-Meyers
Abraham Joyner-Meyers is a fiddler, a juggler, and a huge Shakespeare nerd. He completed watching the Shakespearean canon in the fall after seeing ASC’s production of The Fall of King Henry (Henry VI, Part 3). His passion for the Bard also led him to attend ASCTC for two summers, where he acted in Two Gentleman of Verona and Much Ado About Nothing. When Abe is not furiously reading, seeing, or acting in Shakespeare plays, he’ll often be found teaching himself to play new instruments, dancing at contras and with Morris teams, or training with his school archery team. He just completed his freshman year in the dual degree program between Harvard University and Berklee College of Music.