Acorn Theatre Presents NAKED SHAKESPEARE, 9/13

The Acorn Shakespeare Ensemble presents the second annual outdoor installment of the company's popular "Sonnets and Soliloquies" on Monday, September 13 at 5:30 p.m. in Monument Square in Portland (rain date is Thursday, September 16th).  The performance begins with table side sonnets, and continues with a sequence of speeches and short scenes from various plays, including 4 selections from Double Falsehood, a play that scholars have recently concluded was a late-period collaboration between Shakespeare and John Fletcher.  This performance marks the first time these words will have been spoken in performance in over 200 years!  With the help of Gorham-based Transformit, Naked Shakespeare will transform the square into a vibrant performance space through the use of Transformit's signature colorful fabric installations.  While members of the public are welcome to watch the performance as they pass through the square after work, there will also be a more formal audience area set aside as a "beer garden" in which beer and wine and hors d'oeuvres will be served. Speeches and scenes will be introduced by Joe the Actor and Prof. Grand L. O'Quence, reprising their popular appearances from last year.  The performance is free with a $10 suggested donation requested to support the work of Naked Shakespeare.
 
"We are excited about providing the opportunity to Portland audiences to hear some text from Double Falsehood," says the company's Producing Director, Michael Levine, "While the play as a whole is clearly not all Shakespeare's work, the speeches we have selected demonstrate Shakespearean thought and imagery, and they feel like the work of the bard to us."  While the authorship debate is very much a hot topic in the academic world, audiences attending the Monument Square event will have the chance to experience the text themselves and draw their own conclusions.  The 4 speeches will be presented as a unit, with some narrative bridges to help audiences understand the circumstances surrounding the speeches since it is unlikely they will be familiar with the storyline of this "new" Shakespeare play.

"Sonnets and Soliloquies" is a one-hour performance that features actors delivering their pieces in an intimate and accessible style.  During the show, actors roam freely about the audience, removing the "fourth wall" by addressing audience members directly and sometimes even sitting at their tables. The ambiance and performance style encourage an intimate relationship between actor and audience that allows the language to take center stage.  Actors are cued by contemporary lines written on cue cards read by audience members, allowing for a playful interaction that celebrates the poetry by providing a contemporary context for the text. The company performs "Sonnets and Soliloquies regularly at the Wine Bar on Wharf Street on the first Monday of each month from October to June. The Monument Square event kicks off the company's 4th season of these unique performances that have become the group's signature event, offering actors and audiences alike a chance to experience both familiar and lesser-known pieces from the bard's canon of work.

Naked Shakespeare's 2010/11 season focuses on the production of the late-period plays Antony and Cleopatra, Coriolanus, and Cymbeline.  During the course of the year, The Acting Company will immerse themselves in the text of these plays, exploring the text in a series of weekly workshops during the fall and winter and presenting selections at the Wine Bar series as they become performance-ready.  In the spring, the company will hone the scripts down to abridged 90-minute versions that will be presented over 3 weekends at the annual Riverbank Shakespeare Festival in Westbrook during the month of May  The plays will rotate in repertory along with a performance by Acorn's Young Actors Shakespeare Conservatory, a program for teen actors currently accepting registrations.  The season will culminate with a unique performance-installation at Battery Steele on Peaks Island.  This environmentally-staged production will allow the audience to walk through the WWII-era historic structure, experiencing the Cymbeline (and some additional text) throughout the building as the action moves from room to room.

The Acorn Shakespeare Ensemble was founded by Michael Levine and Michael Howard in the fall of 2004 in order to provide an opportunity for local professional actors to forge a long-term working relationship designed to deepen their ability to interpret classical text.  The company's mission to is to educate its audience about the meaning behind Shakespeare's text by using acting to simply demonstrate the broad range of intricate emotion, theme and language.  Naked Shakespeare actors strive to create the world of the play in the imagination of the audience by minimizing the use of sets, lights and costumes and focusing on the imagery contained in the Bard's language.

Call Acorn Productions at 854-0065 or visit www.nakedshakespeare.org for more information about "Sonnets and Soliloquies" or any other programs offered by Acorn Productions.

CALENDAR OF EVENTS

Who: Naked Shakespeare
What: "Sonnets and Soliloquies"
Where: Monument Square, Portland
When: Monday, September 13th at 5:30 p.m. (rain date Thursday, Sept. 16th)
How Much: FREE, suggested donation $10
FMI: www.nakedshakespeare.org or 854-0065