The featured article this week in the FSView was an article I wrote about the recent Midsummer production that was put on by Jennifer Acker, founder of Were The World Mine Productions. Here is the article, in conjunction with some photos from the show.
View the article on the FSView’s website, or go pick up a copy for yourself!
On October 9, 2009, FSU student Jennifer Acker walked into the Globe Theatre in London. It was there that she saw a Shakespearean production, and had her view on Shakespeare forever changed. “I immediately fell in love with it, and realized that Shakespeare is meant to be performed, and not just read,” Acker said. “I wanted to be able to bring it to life in the way that the Globe was able to for me.” Acker, who is double majoring in Theatre and Music, went on to found ‘Were the World Mine Productions,’ a local non-profit theatre company based in Tallahassee.
Julien Bensimhon. Jacki Von Preysing.
Acker, 22, then applied for the Undergraduate Research and Creative Endeavors Awards (URCAA) in early spring 2010, with the proposal to put on “an outdoor, free to the public version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ that was as easily accessible to a modern audience as it was 400 years ago.” With the grant, Acker received $4,000 to research and produce her show. Acker then took a trip to Atlanta to visit the Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern for inspiration.
Ross Magyar. Chelsea Hayes.
Acker’s production concept aimed to mirror the juxtaposition of worlds that ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ is all about. The play, which is about the collision of two worlds (the mortal world and the fairy world), is reflected throughout the production design. The set features simple objects – a bench and several boxes, and the rigidity of those objects is contrasted by the moss, vines, and leaves which seem to grow from within them. In the same way, the lighting reflects the concept as well, with the warm, sunset tones of some parts sharply contrasted by the cold, steely blues of others.
Ross Magyar
The character development that Acker used was non-traditional as well. Traditionally, actors will research a part first, then the director will block a scene, and then the actor must fit their character to the actions they are performing. Acker decided to work backwards, and immediately jumped into the play. She focused on Laban Movement Analysis, which states that all movements fit into 8 basic gestures, with the ultimate goal that her actors would begin to instinctually think and act like their characters. Then, when it came time to set the scene, the movement would become natural for the actors in their characters. For the fairies, Acker had different exercises for them. Each fairy picked an earth element, and explored the different emotions of that element. For example, if one picked rain, the anger emotion would be a thunderstorm, and the happy emotion would be a light drizzle. The fairies then translated these ideas into concrete movements, and integrated them into their characters. The goal again was to have more natural, impulse, and character driven movement in the play.
Liz Stein
Acker used a quote from Robert Louis Stevenson’s ‘Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde’ for her inspiration. “In each of us, two natures are at war – the good and the evil. All our lives the fight goes on between them, and one of them must conquer. But in our own hands lies the power to choose – what we want most to be, we are.”
Jennifer Acker’s production of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ was seen the Lab Theatre July 15-17. For more information on her theatre company, visit weretheworldmineproductions.com.
Jacquie Alberto. Cameron Huppertz.
