Released - April 30, 2010

Unrehearsed Shakespeare Workshop students to perform ‘Coriolanus’

May 22 - Pritchard theatre - 2:00 to 4:00 pm

Students participating in an Unrehearsed Shakespeare Workshop at Eureka College May 17 through 22 will perform “Coriolanus” in a free, public performance from 2 to 4 p.m. May 22 in Pritchard Theatre.

The tragedy by William Shakespeare is based on the life of legendary Roman leader Gaius Marcius Coriolanus.

Performers will include Tiza Garland, Gainesville, Fla.; Glen Wall, Macomb; Erin Cochran, Collinsville; and Eureka College theater professor and workshop coordinator Holly Rocke, Normal. Performing in minor roles will be 10 students enrolled in the sixth annual Stage Combat Workshop that will run concurrently with the Shakespeare workshop. 

Unrehearsed Shakespeare is a performance technique that replicates the conditions under which Shakespeare's company worked. Elizabethan acting companies would present approximately 10 different plays every two weeks at public playhouses in addition to private performances for the royal court. That left no time for rehearsals but only for brief choreography sessions for fights, dances and songs. Actors were not given the entire script but worked from
"cue-scripts" that contained only their own lines and their cues.

Using the technique today empowers actors to make bold, textually justified acting choices, according to workshop leader Bill Kincaid, an associate professor and head of acting at Western Illinois University, which is co-sponsoring the workshop.  

While the actors will recreate an original performance, the audience also will be encouraged to behave in the 17th-century manner, according to Rocke.

“Audience members are free to come and go as they please, boo or cheer the actors and bring snacks,” Rocke said.   

For information about the workshop or the performance -

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contact Rocke at (309) 467-6580. 

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Contact:

Michele Lehman

Media Relations Coordinator

mlehman@eureka.edu

(309) 467-6318