Patrick Stewart as Macbeth

Sting - In Darkness Let Me Dwell

In Shakespeare's time, actors learned to sing in order to use their talents to enhance the plays in which they acted as well as to give them another skill to take on the road.  Sting might have been a rock star even then. . . .

Give us some music; music, moody food. . .(Antony & Cleopatra)

One of the best traditions in the Elizabethan/Jacobean theater, one to which Shakespeare was very sensitive, is the use of music to create mood, heighten or relieve tension, to create an audio backdrop or simply to entertain.  Productions of Shakespeare's plays often included vocal and instrumental music, especially when the plays were performed as special occasions before royalty.

In many of the plays, though not necessarily in Macbeth, dances enliven the action in much the same way a fight scene does.  The music and the dance, then, underscore the characters' intentions, their motivations.

Minor characters were often chosen to sing vocal selections, and instrument players were members of the ensemble; they played such instruments as the viol, the trumpet, the hautbois -- our oboe -- and the lute.

Anthony Bez, ASC Music Master, is responsible to see that our production of Macbeth continues the tradition and does the Bard proud.

"When daisies pied" a Shakespeare song by Thomas Arne

Countdown to Opening. . .

Only three more days till the curtain goes up on The Actors Shakespeare Company at New Jersey City University's production of William Shakespeare's Macbeth on March 16th!  We hope you're getting so excited you're telling all your friends to come see the show with you.  It runs through the first of April, and the schedule of performances is as follows:

March 16 – April 1, 2012

7:30 p.m. Friday

3:00 p.m. Saturday

3:00 p.m. Sunday

Remember, as you prepare for your journey to the theater to see the show,  memorize Hamlet's invocation, so that you can recite it before the lights go down, and the first scene begins.
"Angels and ministers of grace, defend us!" to protect the production from The Curse!

Below some names of people to watch for when you attend the performance.

Macbeth is directed by Play Master Colette Rice.  Fight choreography is by Mark McCarthy. Production Stage Manager is Jennifer America.

Playmaster Colette Rice confers with Michael Basile, the actor playing Macbeth
Photo by Cindy Boyle

Macbeth cast

Macbeth               Michael Basile

Lady Macbeth      Denise Hurd (witch, Seward, Fleance)
Malcolm               Patrick Harvey (Lenox, Young Macduff, witch)

Macduff               Terrence MacSweeney (Seyton, Bloody Captain, witch)

Ross                     Colin Ryan (Witch, doctor, murderer)

Duncan                Jonathan Dewberry (Porter, murderer, Mentieth) 

Michael Basile and Jonathan Dewberry rehearse a fight scene for ASC's Macbeth
Photo by Lauren Casselberry

           
Macbeth Creative Team 

Set Design                 Timur Kocak
Properties Design      Michael Hajek
Costume Design        Eva Lachur-Omeljaniuk
Lighting Design        Paul Hudson    
Music Master            Anthony Bez
Wardrobe Mistress    Cindy Boyle  

West Side Theater Manager is Colleen Conwell      

Another Openin' . . .

Excitement is building.  This is the week that Macbeth opens!

All hail Macbeth, hail to thee, Thane of Glamis.  All hail Macbeth. Hail to thee Thane of Cawdor.  All hail Macbeth, thou shalt be king hereafter.

Macbeth (Michael Basile) does battle with Young Seward (Elizabeth Belzoni) on his way to fulfilling his prophecy
Photo by Lauren Casselberry

"This castle hath a pleasant seat; the air/ Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself/Unto our gentle senses."

Jonathan Dewberry, as King Duncan
Photo by Cindy Boyle - BoyleImage©

"Our tears are not yet brewed . . . Not our strong sorrow upon the foot of motion. . ."

Banquo(Elizabeth Belzoni), Ross (Colin Ryan) and Malcolm (Patrick Harvey) discuss the state of Scotland
Photo by Cindy Boyle

Entertaining with Blood and Guts

"kill a little kid or two a prince

                                                              or something they like
                                                              a little pathos along with
                                                                         the dirt" 

"Pete the Parrot and Shakespeare"

Don Marquis

ASC Rehearsal of Lady Macduff's Assassination
Pictured here: Jonathan Dewberry, Elizabeth Belzoni, Colin Ryan
photo by Lauren Casselberry

Nothing sells like violence, and William Shakespeare understood that better than anyone.  His objective was to put "bums on seats," as they said at the Globe (or the Rose or whichever venue they were playing) and get sell the standing room around the stage.  Shakespeare knew that he was competing with the most compelling entertainments of his day: bear baiting and executions.  And both were gruesomely bloody and attracted audiences in droves.

So knowing that he must lure his people away from the hangings, beheadings and drawings and quarterings at venues like Tyburn, Shakespeare wrote in his scenes a fair modicum of blood and gore, and he employed the best stage tricks of the day to ensure that the audience would get the most for their money.


According to the history of fencing, Shakespeare was the first playwright to recognize how compelling an onstage sword fight could be, and he incorporated a fencing school into his company, requiring that all actors partake of the instruction; in the school they learned how to use daggers as well as rapiers, the most popular swords of the day

Rapiers and Daggers

Before performing a violent play, Shakespeare's actors would fill vessels such as pigs' bladders with blood or a liquid resembling blood, which would then be concealed beneath their costumes. Onstage, a character had only to pound a fist against a bladder to release the blood and thus die a visually gruesome death. Truly fortunate groundlings would be splattered with the "blood" and could return home with vicariously gained spoils of slaughter on their clothing.

At the Globe

Violence is, of course, far more effective if it's loud.  In Shakespeare's day, stagehands in the wings simulated thunder by striking a sheet of metal or pounding a drum. They occasionally exploded fireworks during battle scenes and  lit torches during night scenes. Simple theatricalities such as these could fire up an audience's imagination and stir untold excitement.

Michael Basile and Elizabeth Belzoni
Photo by Lauren Casselberry
Fight Scenes choreographed by Guest Fight Director Mark McCarthy

In the upcoming ASC production of Macbeth, both Denise Hurd, the company's fight director, as Lady Macbeth, and Michael Basile, as Macbeth, along with the assassins they hire will be yielding deadly weapons in this production of Macbeth, and the passion with which they will wield their weaponry is just the right stuff with which to titillate the audience's desire for stage savagery.

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