H A M L E T

BY WILLIAM SHAKESPEARE

ADAPTED BY MAC MACDANIEL

AUGUST 27 & 28, 2022 at 8pm

LA MAMA SHARES

66 EAST 4TH ST. NY, NY 10003

A NOTE ABOUT THIS PRODUCTION

Raising a Shakespeare play in a week was standard practice for the first actors of Hamlet, 400 (or so) years ago.

Devising the content for a new play was the craft. Know your space, know your play-mates, know your words. Prepare your part. Work the dance and the fights the morning of the show. Welcome an audience to join you. Improvise your movement around the stage. Play together in a free-form dance of active listening. No directors necessary.

It’s why they’re called plays not reads.

If you haven’t seen a show made this way before, you’re in for a treat. What you’re about to see might feel different than other performances. Everyone together in a world of not knowing exactly what’s going to happen next.

So tonight's show may have a funny sort of buzz buzz about it; weird electricity may hum through the air, as artists power this extraordinary play with 400 year old fuel.

Anything could happen. It’ll be different every night.

They can’t do it without you.

Ben Crystal, via email, August 12, 2022

Ben Crystal (www.bencrystal.com) is an actor, creative producer, and explorer of Ensemble original practices in Shakespeare rehearsal and production. He is the author of Shakespeare on Toast and Springboard Shakespeare, and the co-author of Shakespeare's Words and The Illustrated Dictionary of Shakespeare with his father, David Crystal. He is the founder of international collective theShakespeareEnsemble.com, and with Dr David Sterling Brown he contributed a chapter to Arden’s newly published Lockdown Shakespeare discussing the Ensemble’s 2020 digital promenade adaptation, What You Will (still freely available online). He is an Associate Artist at the new original practices theatre, the ShakespeareNorthPlayhouse.co.uk. His TEDx talk was called Original Practices: Shakespeare's Craft.

FEATURING

in order of appearance

CLAUDIUS/GHOST - Langston Darby*

GERTRUDE - Amy Gaither Hayes*

POLONIUS/GRAVEDIGGER - Isaiah Dòdó-Williams

LAERTES/PLAYER - Adebowale Adebiyi

OPHELIA - Emma Elle Paterson

HAMLET - Hilary Dennis

HORATIO - Leo Ribeiro

ROSENCRANTZ/OSRIC/PRIEST - Justin Viz

SWING/FIGHT CAPTAIN - Olivia Sowell

Stage Manager - Callie Considine

Covid Compliance Person - Costanza Bugiani

Fight Director/Talkback Moderator - Meron Langsner

*These actors are appearing courtesy of Actors' Equity Association. This production is an Equity Approved Showcase.

This production is part of the “LA MAMA Shares” program, which makes theatre available for uncurated productions.

HAMLET is a sponsored project of Fractured Atlas, a non-profit arts service organization. It has been made possible by a group of generous sponsors, and by a crowd-funding campaign on Seed&Spark. To read more about HAMLET, click here.

Photos and video by Daniel Madsen

Special thanks to Kenneth Martin and the whole LA MAMA team, Paul Sise of Pioneer Valley Fencing Academy, Evan Moren, Meredith Bove and Jen Pollins of A.P.E. at 33 Hawley, Jamie Monahan, Jessica Michael Davis, Rin Wilhelmi, Jennifer Cox, Josh Troxler, Paul Carpenter, Julian Abelskamp, Annabel O’Hagan, Kathy Keneally and Tom Marshall, Mac MacDaniel, Mary, Peter and Sophie Dennis, Doris and Eric Madsen, and Daniel Madsen.

And to Ashley Garrett, for entertaining a humble cold-call from a passionate actor.

RUN TIME: 90 minutes with no intermission

You are invited to stay for a 20-minute talkback after the show.

TEAM BIOS

Click on a picture to read the actor’s bio!

(Then, there may be a tiny white dot in the bottom right-hand corner of your cell-phone screen - click that to open.)

THIS PROJECT WAS MADE POSSIBLE BY A NETWORK OF nearly 150 CONTRIBUTORS through FRACTURED ATLAS and SEED&SPARK. THANK YOU.