The SL Shakespeare Company is participating in the Second Life Land Expo — which ends this Saturday! Our display shows off a unique slightly “modernized” skeletal build of an amphitheater-style Blackfriars. The salient characteristic elements of the Blackfriars — the hammerbeam ceiling supports are revealed in an open sky, while the sunbeams and ornate Elizabethan stage are also shown. Here are some unedited SL photos with SLurl’s:

Our nifty display shows off our innovative use of SL and SL land resources to create… what you know to be the SL Shakespeare Company magic ;-). This being the first Linden-Lab event we’ve participated in after receiving the aside on SL brand name infringement, you’ll notice that the signage shows “Ina Centaur SL Shakespeare Company.” This is the beginning of a tradition where the artistic director of this virtual Shakespeare troupe also gets her name tagged into the company’s official name, for purposes of both artistic merit/identity and legal reasons, as decreed by LL. This easily adheres to their guidelines on how… not to infringe, while making sure people who knew us by our old name still know us, and can easily find us in SL’s convoluted search system!

On Saturday morning, I gave an opening talk at Land Expo on Historically Accurate Buildings in Virtual Environments: The Architecture of Shakespeare’s Era in Second Life. Here’s the Powerpoint:

Tags: branding, Land Expo

For purposes of transparency, we have released a public Transparency subsite that accounts for all SLSC public funds. Rest assured that your dollars are spent right, and that you’re kept in the know on these matters.  http://transparency.SLshakespeare.com

Please note that though we are currently supported completely via inworld means, our actual production costs far exceed what we have raised. Artistic quality has been the bane of the SLSC’s existence; you should know better than to judge us based our funds listed.

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I’ve hesitated from doing this in the past because there was always a subset of people who would put us in the slushpile primarily because of this lack of funds. But, speaking from the point of view of an artist — someone who starts with just a blank canvas and art utensils obtained at based pricing and, after brooding for several years, creates a masterpiece that later sells for thousands of times the initial cost — I have to say that SLSC is worth far more than the tier paid. I and others who have actually seen what we’ve done know that any SLSC (canon) event far overdoes your typical big-org event that receives all the RL media. I guess cynics will always be cynics…

This coming Sunday May 10th @ 1 PM PDT (SL Time) will be the SL Shakespeare Company’s LAST PERFORMANCE of Twelfth Night, Act 1. Don’t miss it!

For those who haven’t caught our show, here’s a smattering of pages from our current programme.

Drop by this Sunday to see all this LIVE on our SL stage in our historic replica of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre on Second Life.

Tags: Finale, Last Show, programme

Back for ONE HOUR ONLY, encore performance of SL Shakespeare Company’s April Fools Multi-Parody SUPER SPOOF 2009 - that parodizes some of the memorable pop culture icons in 2008, while analogizing them to characters from Shakespeare’s Twelfth Night, Act 1:

• Scene 1: Still Popular in 2008 - Star Wars in Duke Jar Jar’s Court … with Duke Orsino played by Jar Jar Binks (Duke Jar Jar); Curio played by Amidala; Valentine played by Darth Maul… and a small battalion of R2D2’s piping a spacy-techno-variation of Thom Dowd’s “Music is the Food of Love.”
• Scene 2: Popular CG 2008 - Wall*E in a not-so-barren wasteland (coast) of Illyria … with Wall*E played by the Captain, and Eva played by Viola
• Scene 3: Popular Politics 2008 - Outside a tavern in Illyria … with Hillary as Maria; GWB as Sir Toby Belch; Obama as Sir Andrew Aguecheek!
• Scene 4: Cult Film 2008 - Twilight in Duke Orsino’s Court … with Duke Orsino played by Edward Cullen and Viola (as Cesario) played by Bella Swan
• Scene 5: SL Popular 2008 - Rezzable Greenies in Olivia’s Household … Wherein… nearly the entire cast of Twelfth Night (Feste, Maria, Malvolio, Olivia, Sir Toby Belch, and Viola) is replaced by… a slew of Rezzable Greenies

Sunday, May 3 @ 1 PM at the SL Globe Theatre

LAST CHANCE to see our super satire, beyond Shakespeare, super spooooofed! SSSSSSSSSSS!

Free show; seating is first come first to squat.
Be there early! Sunday, May 3 @ 1 PM at the SL Globe Theatre

P.S. The Darth Maul, Queen Amidala, and R2D2 avatars shown in the poster above will be given away for free at the event! Come for the show, go home with memorable freebies!

The Twilight Bella Swan and Edward Cullen skins are also available at the Twilight SL Shoppe with 100% donation to support the SL Shakespeare Company — for Shakespeare and live theatre on Second Life!

This isn’t our usual — but just for fun — kind of our version of the Simpson’s tradition of parodies on Halloween — but earlier in the year for us! Join us for this free-for-all medley on SL!

Tags: MultiParody, Parody, Spoof, Variation

As announced, the Blackfriars Museum (a.k.a. the Blackfriars Theatre Museum) grand opens TODAY on the Bard’s Birthday 2009! The museum is a humble shack adjacent to the north end of the Blackfriars Theatre, as such it’s more of a mini-exhibit, but should give you a good overview of the historic elements behind the construction of the world’s only complete replica of Shakespeare’s indoor playhouse, the Blackfriars Theatre in Shakespeare, Second Life.

While creating this exhibit (the sketches are modified from Irwin Smith and the Public Domain; the text is mine), I couldn’t help but notice the similarities between a cathedral floorplan and that of a theatre, and so here’s my sort of “pet paradigm”:

The above, in context, is displayed on a wall in the Blackfriars Museum, unedited SL photos as shown below. (Clicking on the “Cathedral in a Theatre” panel inworld also gives you a free inworld info HUD so that you can take these three panels home–or anywhere on SL–with you!)

The Museum illuminates the historical basis for the construction of the Blackfriars Theatre, which was actually built within a building inside a lavishly *rich* Dominican Monastery (hence the name Black Friars — the Dominicans wore a black cloak over their habits). Conjectural diagrams of the monastery are shown, although only the building segment housing the Blackfriars is built (due to funding shortages — I can’t afford to buy another sim for my pet projects anymore but, if you’re crazy enough to fund a sim dedicated to a build of the *complete* Dominican priory that the Blackfriars Theatre was set in, give me a poke!). In addition to… yet more diagrams… the museum also shows a scaled-down version of the roof structure, explaining for its historical basis. Faux-original documents, such as Piers Plowman and diagrams/photos from archaeological digs are also displayed in context (emphasis on faux-original — admittedly, they’re made to look da-Vinci-Code-esque, i.e., Hollywood style imitations of ori doc’s).

For the detail-pious, just a note of excitement to look forward to in the next few months: The Blackfriars Theatre will have both rushes and candlelight installed for our summer staged reading series in preparation for our 2010 production of Henry VIII (and stage stools!). We’ll also make use of the rear-stage, and trap-doors as well even though it’s a staged reading series! Last year, we tried a costumed staged reading series, but this year, we’ll try a staged reading series with (perhaps?) some basic blocking. For sure, we will be going for an Tudor-accurate production of Henry VIII, when we start showing the full ensemble performances in 2010!

As future Challenge Productions, we also hope to try out a couple (at least?) of the many historic play manuscripts with explicit blocking for the Blackfriars!

But, for now, I bid thee check out the Blackfriars Museum! And, happy birthday Shakespeare!

Tags: Accuracy, Blackfriars Museum, Blackfriars Theatre Museum, Construction, Historic

As mentioned a while ago, we’re going to try a couple of Variations to Twelfth Night. We already tried the “Popular-Culture-Analogues-Edition” on April Fools Night, and now we’re trying the GENDER BENDER, i.e., a Switched-Gender-”Analogues” Edition of Twelfth Night! 6 PM, tonight the 14th! The casting goes like this (Recall that Mokey usually plays Viola, Kerry plays Olivia, Caliban plays Orsino, Captain, Toby, and Malvolio, and Ixmal plays Valentine, Andrew, and Feste):

Scene 1 -
Mokey: Orsino
Kerry: Valentine
Caliban: Curio

Scene 2:
Mokey: Captain
Caliban: Viola

Scene 3:
Mokey: Toby
Kerry: Andrew
Ixmal: Maria

Scene 4:
Mokey: Orsino
Kerry: Valentine
Caliban: Viola (as Cesario)

Scene 5 -
slightly shortened version -
** Maria only has her Feste/Maria lines in the opening (she doesn’t
do the hoist sail sir, and calls from backstage her announcement of
Cesario) - no Toby entrance in S5!
Mokey: Feste
Kerry: Malvolio Caliban: Viola (as Cesario)
Ixmal: Maria (the opening part only) & Olivia

Tags: Gender

For those who’ve seen a vanilla performance of our current Open-Ended Run (if not, do drop by on Sundays @ 1 PM PT), one of the things you might note is the meticulous analysis that was put into creating the dramatic interpretation behind the acting. Methods in directing on the virtual theatrical stage vary–but, I prefer it such that the character’s personality can be cogently presented through voice only, and the rest, the visual adornments, merely help embellish the role.

In general, I ask actors who make the cast to spend some time analyzing the playscript, especially with regards to scansion and their own close reading. We use several versions of the playscript through the production, starting with a version with emphasis on language and interpretation (one for the actors to mark up themselves, and one with my own interpretation), before finally moving onto the final script, paginated at a page per minute with stage directions. A well-rehearsed role is not merely a reading, but an enactment, where you’re living through the life of your character via your unique portrayal of the script.

I also post some supplementary notes on the blog. Here they are for each Scene of Twelfth Night, Act 1:

1. Orsino, Valentine, Curio.
2. Captain and Viola
3. Toby & Maria | Toby, Maria & Andrew | Maria & Andrew
4. Orsino & Cesario
5. Feste & Maria | Feste & Olivia | Malvolio, Feste, and Olivia | Malvolio and Olivia on Announcement of Cesario | Cesario & Olivia | Malvolio & Olivia Reprise

The point is to have you gain an understanding of the character that is coherent with as much of the play as possible.

Tags: Analysis Recap

The year’s second open auditions will be held on Saturday, April 18 @ 11 AM - 11:59 AM SL Time and Saturday, April 25 @ 1 PM SL Time. We are hoping to launch an open-ended run of Twelfth Night: Act 2 (Production Serial: OEP2) in June, with rehearsals starting in May, exact timing TBD. Auditions would be for roles in this upcoming production, and also several possible productions, including a Challenge Production (a non-Shakespearean production) and Twelfth Night: Act 3. Please be sure you have SL voice configured prior to auditioning.

1. Please have prepared a passage (from Twelfth Night, Act 2) of no more than 5 minutes. Polish it well; this should demonstrate what you are capable of at your best.
2. Be ready to perform another segment from the perspective of the character you wish to play (though you might not get casted as that character).
3. Be prepared to demonstrate (voice) range.

If you can’t make it to the audition times, please email item #1 as an mp3 file (no larger than 10 mb) to production at SLshakespeare dot com, along with a detailed schedule of your availability from May to August, inclusive.

Auditions will be held at the SL Globe Theatre.

Tags: Auditions

This isn’t the Brady Bunch, but…

Here’s the story… of a lovely cast set… where everyone can let you take photos and go wow!

Really, quite seriously–for the first time ever–the SL Shakespeare Company will be unleashing our avatars, standing still, on a single sim for you to take photos of–as part of our Koinup Photo Contest, with over L$100,000 in prizes! If you’re new to avatar photography or would like to learn more about it, we’ll also have the legendary photographer Ryker Beck to kick off the event with a photography tutorial.

Here are my recommended settings for avatar photography. The photos shown above are unedited, with Windlight *off* and avatars wearing a face light.

Join us this Saturday, Apr 4 @ 1 PM SL Time at the Blackfriars Theatre in Shakespeare, Second Life.

Tags: "Avatar Photography", Contest, Koinup, Photography