Our amazing stage manager Analise with the new mascot of the 3H6 team!
Today’s date: 8th July, 2025
Show title: 3 Henry VI
Director: Mili Koncelik
Staff Crew: Production Interns Analise Toone (Stage Manager) and Madeleine Cook (Dramaturg); RDAs Sarah Clayton and Topher Zane (Asst. Directors)
What we did:
Our game plan in the rehearsal room today was to begin the table work and really work the language and dialogue of the first two acts! Throughout the table work the campers also got mini lessons in the history itself behind the play and the family trees that cause so much drama in the first place, the show song was introduced (Private Eyes by Hall and Oates!), and the campers learned a bit about how the actual script came to be, from what the original text of the first folio looks like to the hot pink organized scripts we have in hand. Campers also started learning about how the real history fits into the script, in both accurate (such as how the family trees tie into the conflict over the crown) and inaccurate (such as how Shakespeare had to make all the characters adults despite the fact that many of them were actually KIDS when some of these events took place) ways.
Quick and Quotable:
- From the text:
- “The hope thereof makes Clifford mourn in steel.” – Clifford, 1.1.35
- “The gods grant that this may be the height of your glory.” – Rutland (translated from Latin), 1.3.203
- From the director:
- “There are five names in early modern England.” – Mili (as we talked about the family trees and how so many people are named Henry, Edward, Richard, Elizabeth, etc.)
- From the cast:
- “Finally, the English respect me! It only took two shows.” – Anna-Caroline (the Dauphin in 1H6 last session)
Production Insights
Despite many of these characters proclaiming themselves to be all action and no talk, there’s a great deal of significant dialogue that we covered in rehearsal today. One of the most important parts of doing Shakespeare is knowing what you’re saying, and the table work lays such an important foundation to build the character development and relationship development. It’s so cool to recognize patterns and underlying linguistic themes, such as the language of steel surrounding the character and dialogue of Clifford, the repetition of the number ten thousand across the Henry VI trilogy, the language of roots and being planted, especially within this world of family trees divided by the alliances and symbolized by the colors of the roses selected in 1 Henry VI. We went page by page, line by line, making sense of the early modern text and making many, many new discoveries along the way.