Workshop Description:

This workshop gives the participants tools, tricks and techniques to bring Shakespeare’s language alive for an audience.  While contemporary practices can make understanding Shakespeare’s words/characters/plays difficult to understand, it’s actually not hard to bring people into these incredible worlds.  There’s no need to translate the play or “act Shakespeare”, nor is there some advanced graduate school secret knowledge to unlock this elaborate text… all that’s needed is a simple bag of tricks that any theatre professional can use, to make Shakespeare’s plays sound like you’re hearing a modern story. 

This workshop utilizes exercises which help put these techniques in the body as well as the mind, to open multiple points of access to this work; Jake will provide immediate feedback to reinforce the impact of using said techniques. With culture building, discussion, and celebration, we create a space where you can play with the text as your full, authentic self. 

Finally, we will provide you with additional materials you can take with you to reference the work we do here… but that’s all the spoilers you’re gonna get for that.  Join us to play with some beautiful language, while learning all kinds of new tricks… and having a blast doing it!

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About JAKE:

Jake Merriman has been a Shakespeare nerd since he saw King Lear at Oregon Shakespeare Festival in 1995. He studied the Bard under Nancy Benjamin (voice/text coach at OSF). Jake was fortunate to train at Shakespeare & Company’s month-long intensive, and worked extensively with their education program. Through incredible luck, Jake has been in the room with Shakespeare masters like Tina Packer, author of ‘Women of Will’. Jake has compiled his learning and experience (and what has had an impact on his own students) to create a practical Shakespearean Text workshop--with actionable techniques from beloved Shakespeare scholars.