The Charlotte Shakespeare Festival Hosts A Text Workshop

We invite you to join us on Friday, February 19 from 7-10pm at CAST (Carolina Actors Studio Theatre) as we kick off our 2010 education and training season.

Dennis Krausnick, co-founder of Shakespeare & Company, one the nation's most respected professional classical theatres, will be in town to lead an interactive lecture/workshop on Shakespeare's First Folio. Dennis is a gifted actor and director with decades of experience in classical theatre and serves as Director of Training at Shakespeare & Company in Lenox, Massachusetts.

So, what is the First Folio? It's one of the earliest printed collections of Shakespeare's plays and preserves the language of the plays in as close to an original form as we can get. In this workshop, we'll delve into the clues that are embedded in the text which help actors and audiences more clearly understand Shakespeare's language. The original punctuation, the "archaic" spellings and "arbitrary" capitalizations, the endings of lines, the directions in the lines themselves - all of these are clues to the action and the character's intent. They serve to make Shakespeare's works easier to perform, as well as more accessible to a modern audience.

If this perhaps sounds too "scholarly" for a Friday night, don't worry, this is a fun and interactive workship with Dennis demonstrating his ideas using scenes performed by local actors. This workshop is ideal for actors and audience members alike - anyone who wants to gain a deeper understanding of Shakespeare's language. Actors and audience will explore the text together in casual and intimate setting.

This workshop is free (although we will pass the hat and donations are very much appreciated). CAST is located at 1118 Clement Ave., just off Central Ave. in the Plaza-Midwood neighborhood of Charlotte. Parking is free. The theatre only seats about 45 people, so reservations are recommended. To make a reservation, please send an email to education@collaborativeartstheatre.com.