Today’s Date: 6/17/2019

Show Title: Measure for Measure

Director: Emily MacLeod

Assistant Directors: Taylor Lamb and Molly Harper

Production Interns: Maddie Miller (SM) and Grace Wallis (Dramaturg)

Rehearsal Room: Deming

What we did:

Today was the first day we met as a company! After a positively packed day of auditions, the cast and crew of Measure for Measure met in Deming in the evening for a riveting first read-through of the play. Afterward, we had a Q&A, discussing our first questions about the cast’s characters and the complicated world in which they live. Ready for Day Two, when we’ll go into our first round of table work, further exploring the historical context of the play and taking a deep dive into the text.

Quick and Quotable

From the play:

“Come hither sirrah; can you cut off a man’s head?” – Provost

From the director:

“Some things in this play might very well make you uncomfortable. And I think they should! In fact, this play has been making people uncomfortable since it was written. And that is why I want to direct it, and why I think it is a story worth telling. It is called a “problem play” and we must face those problems head-on.”

From the cast:

“So how am I supposed to feel about my fiancée being pregnant?” -Ben (Claudio)

Production Insights:

There is nothing like the moment you give breath to fresh text. Reading through a play for the first time has always been one of my favorite milestones of the production process, because I learn so much from everyone’s initial responses. During our read today, I was amazed at how much humor we extracted from the text of one of Shakespeare’s darkest and seediest “problem” plays. The text is thoroughly laced with humor, starkly juxtaposed with a seriously dark plot. As Emily (our fearless director) stated at the top of our rehearsal, there is something really worth evaluating about a story that makes you feel uncomfortable. I believe this is a play that teaches us the most in those little moments when we ask ourselves, Why am I laughing right now? The moments that usually pass any semblance of deep inspection but which are rich with information about the ways in which we choose to live our lives, to spend our attention, and to allow certain things to persist. Our cast laid bare a good chunk of Shakespeare’s raw humor today. I wonder what we’ll be laughing at together tomorrow. And what we might learn from those laughs.