December 2023 SIP Blog

Written by KFG

This December has been a really productive and cohesive phase for our ensemble. The group made great strides to come together as an ensemble, and we finished reading Midsummerin its entirety. Finishing the play and early analysis of the script always feels like a big exhale and there is a shift in the group to start thinking in terms of production. We now start dreaming about and talking about the parts we want to play, and we start thinking about exactly how we are going to start telling this story to our audience. 

Just like in years past, not everyone who joined in November was able to stay with the group. Some ensemble members are going home and they have required classes to take as they prepare for release, others  join and really enjoy the sense of community and safety we cultivate, but don’t always stick around when they realize how much time and work this next phase of rehearsal and performance might be. This year was a typical year in terms of attrition and also in terms of the  its two major effects, 1) the group members who remain become very tight-knit, and 2) participation goes way up, in part because the group gets really comfortable with each other, but mainly because there are lots of parts and fewer ensemble members to fill them for any given scene. This is especially true for A Midsummer Night's Dream (MND) with its large cast of characters! Right now, most of the ensemble are playing a part in just about every scene we get up on its feet! 

One important step that that ensemble took together this month was starting to work in the proscenium (what most people think of when they think of doing a play– think the set up of a high school auditorium!). Typically to get going with scene work, we start by working in the round with everyone on the stage. We, more or less, ignore the seats in the house and put the scene on its feet in a big circle on the stage. We do this for a couple of reasons, 1) the proscenium can be intimidating, 2) there are a lot of rules and/or technique to working in proscenium that are difficult to teach while everyone is getting used to getting connected to each other and to the language (some of those rules include cheating out, getting used large distances between actors in private scenes, etc.), and 3) it can make us think about staging before we are ready. We first need to get used to playing with and performing Shakespeare instead of simply reading Shakespeare aloud for a class, which is, most people’s experience with Shakespeare whether in prison or not. Performance is a full-body experience and it can be difficult for many people to get used to fully engaging their whole selves in a character; combine that with the fact that Shakespeare is a such a heavy emotional and linguistic lift, it can be a stretch to inhabit your whole body, voice, and brain on the first go. So we try to cut back and make it a bit easier by performing in the round first. Then, when the time is right, we up the ante and switch to working in the proscenium. The time was right this past December, and after a few sessions that it seemed almost, dare I say, boring, to the ensemble to still be in the round; one of the emerging leaders in the group suggested we make the switch almost immediately after I thought it. It was exciting to know we were on the exact same page! Leaving behind this work in the round had an immediate effect on the group. Suddenly they were taking their roles a bit more seriously and taking their roles as constructive audience members much more seriously as well. It may seem so small to someone looking in, but it marks a huge leap and dividing line in the course of a season.

The ensemble, as a whole, has now fully turned their attention to performance. There are constant ideas for staging and how they envision the final piece. The biggest jumpstart to this headspace is the distribution of the rehearsal scripts. With the heavy edits needed for a ninety-minute run time, it quickly becomes  cumbersome to use the published script in rehearsals; so every year we make a rehearsal script with some initial slam-dunk edits and cuts we know the group will approve.  Then the ensemble begins working together to cut the piece and edit it down as we go. The ensemble was absolutely thrilled to get their own copies of the rehearsal script and asked about them several weeks in a row before distribution.  The ensemble has also been greatly inspired to think about performance after seeing the U of M Prison Creative Arts Project (PCAP) performance. They speak about it regularly and start frequent sentences with “Ya know what PCAP did was…” or “We should do what they did in PCAP…” It’s great to hear– unsolicited– the profound impact and influence of our long-time partners at PCAP!  The PCAP and SIP participants are lucky to have this program in our lives!

 The ensemble members have really started to come into themselves in the group and come out of their shells. We have had so many quotes from them saying how much they love SIP; that it is the “highlight of their week,” and that “SIP gives you dignity– it makes you feel respected, like you’re a normal person for those two hours.” Another said that she doesn’t have to be “tough” here, she can just “be myself here.” And for these couple hours I “feel like I’m not in prison.” They are sentiments we have heard for years from many different participants, but they always stop me cold when I hear another ensemble member reiterating the same sentiment even though they have never heard it before. There is so much silliness in our work– it's the theatre, it has to be silly– but underneath is a gravity and importance that never fades too far to the background.

As we approached the holiday break we talked about the roles the ensemble wanted to play and recognized that we did not have enough members to cover all the roles. While the group has bonded so strongly, we all agree that we will have to open the waitlist after the holidays in order to do a full length version of the play. So the current members have picked out parts (with lots of happy surprises for me in their choices!), and we will open up the waitlist to let new ensemble members in early January. Everyone, facilitators included, are eager to get working on the play in earnest. It is a very exciting time for the group and we are all looking forward to January!

Summertime Wrap Up

Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

It’s been a little while since we have posted… A lot has happened! The end of the summer and the early autumn were filled with exciting news, difficult decisions, big changes, and new beginnings. 

You may remember we got word we could re-enter Women’s Huron Valley Correctional Facility last winter, and in February 2023, we were thrilled to head into the facility for our first season back in person since the pandemic. SIP normally begins our seasons in September and we traditionally spend nine full months working together towards a capstone performance, so we knew from the start (in February - not September) that this year was going to be different in every way. AND since we knew that so much was unknown in our first season back, we decided that it would be wise to avoid putting pressure on the ensemble after such a traumatic few years—so we decided that we would not schedule a final performance in advance. We devoted the early months to finding a new normal and creating a new rhythm within a greatly shortened timeline, and we did so with an almost entirely new ensemble! Great challenges and great opportunities came from discovering new ways of working. Some of what we learned the ensemble would like to keep in place as we get back to a longer timeline (deep text analysis and more time for character exploration and PLAY) and some things we will all gladly say goodbye to (not having a capstone performance—we ALL missed that!). Here I share with you the good and the difficult and the learning and growth that came along the way!  

Last season the ensemble worked our way through Hamlet and explored the play in depth in a luxurious way we haven’t been able to before. In seasons past, getting the show up on its feet and getting to the final performance has been a thrilling way to establish momentum and focus for the ensemble, and at the same time the looming deadline and benchmarks have, in some ways, confined and limited playful deep exploration. In this first year back at Women’s Huron Valley, as we reestablished the ensemble, we experienced great freedom without the pressure of performance. But we also experienced great disappointment of missing out on that excitement and closure.  At first we thought we would perform scenes for a small group but towards the end of the summer, the ensemble began to shrink; several members needed to leave for reasons both positive and challenging—several members were released between mid-August and mid-September, and there were members who faced disciplinary issues. By the end of September we determined that with so much change in the ensemble, even our small  performance would not be possible. So we made the tough decision to switch gears and  continue our work on the material, but let go of the dream of a performance. We still took pride in reestablishing the in-person program, and we have set our sights on a performance next season building on the progress and learning we have achieved together since February.  

Here is what we have landed on and how…  

Sometime during early September, one of the ensemble members began reading from the complete works. One of the plays she read, among many, was A Midsummer Night’s Dream and she was hooked! She brought it to the group and we were even able to begin work on some of the old monologues that had been approved by the facility years prior. We talked at length about the setup and plot of the play and, although I didn’t know it, had laid the groundwork for the next season. There was a buzz to the ensemble and, as much as we loved its infinite layers, we quietly realized that we were getting ready to let go of Hamlet. This was not an easy decision, nor was it our ideal. The SIP facilitators, the ensemble, facility staff– just about everyone it feels like– weighed in at one time or another that they wished there was a way we could perform. There had just been so many gains and achievements since February it was disappointing to think we couldn’t show them off somehow. However, we had to decide between starting Hamlet again– from the beginning– with a new ensemble, or starting a new season fresh. It was not easy for anyone to say farewell to Hamlet (for now), but the choice was clear. The ensemble voted unanimously to move on and, while this decision was not without some heavy-heartedness, it was definitely the right decision. Hamlet holds a special place for the ensemble; it is complex, philosophical, layered, and deliberative, and was the source of hours of debate and conversation within the group. If ever there was a play that we, as an ensemble, would choose to mull over and explore with no agenda Hamlet would be it! It was perfect for us at that place and time, and I can’t help but think this first season back on the inside played out exactly as it should have. 

There was another layer to this transitory phase we entered. Letting go of Hamlet and moving on to a new season corresponded with saying farewell to Frannie Shepherd-Bates. Frannie is SIP’s founder and led the program for its entire existence until this Fall. As you can imagine, Frannie’s choice to move on was difficult for everyone and no part of the transition was taken lightly. As our first season back in person was coming to a close, all these different dynamics were converging; I found myself in a new role as SIP Director, with the ensemble at a turning point, and the program entering a new stage. A central theme of Hamlet is inaction and the paralysis of introspection and, after years of pandemic-necessitated waiting to return to work on the inside, we needed, as an ensemble and a program at large, to put away Hamlet’s brooding; we needed to be activated and energized, and dammit we needed to have some fun!

We are pleased– nay, ecstatic– to announce the start of a new season of SIP at Women’s Huron Valley! We will be working on A Midsummer’s Night Dream, and we are  working towards a performance in late June. We have opened up the callout so new ensemble members can sign up for the program, and currently have seventeen members, many of whom are brand new to the ensemble, to Shakespeare, and to theatre. They are thrilled to be in the ensemble and already are establishing a culture of safety and collaboration. 

A Midsummer's Night Dream couldn’t be further from Hamlet, and although letting Hamlet go has been bittersweet for all, this fresh start has served as a wonderful catalyst for a very active group. The  characters are so direct—they say what they mean with little ambiguity, so while we have less to analyze with Midsummer than we had with Hamlet, we get to spend a lot more time speaking the language, loving the poetry, on our feet playing with the scenes– and we get to spend a lot more time laughing.

Even with no culminating performance, this past summer was time well spent! Free from the pressure of a performance deadline, the ensemble was able to focus more on process—on artistry and analysis—and less on product, so quality of the acting was quite extraordinary and we had more time to let the text breathe and let moments land. We had time to explore the text and play without a time crunch. There were epiphanies and breakthroughs weekly, and the ensemble grew together as a group in equal measure. The operational and theatrical processes (see our case study and follow up report) were in full effect, and we didn’t lack for new discoveries with the characters. I’m glad it wasn’t A Midsummer’s Night Dream we poured over–there aren’t nearly as many layers to mine—and I am grateful for the lessons we learned from having the luxury of time!

Some of our best sessions were the physical work that we did using Micheal Chekhov’s technique. One ensemble member performed “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave…” while walking a tightrope, another performed it as if their feet were in concrete blocks, then another as if they had no spine, and again as a duo playing ‘tug-of-war'. It was an incredible night of rehearsal and theatre, and one that only could only have happened without being tied to a strict performance schedule. Another night we built and stepped into our characters using an exercise called the Imaginary Body exercise and the ensemble seemed to just love working through the creation of their characters.

We finished the season by watching a filmed version of Hamlet, something we have not  had the luxury of doing for many years, in part, because of the time constraints of production.  We were able to view the old Laurence Oliveir version of Hamlet from 1947.  It was a great way to finish the season—with an extraordinary performance. We all debated Olivier’s use of the soliloquy in voiceover, his cutting of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, all the Fruedian nonsense (we decided), and his staging of the play-with-in-a-play. We, as an ensemble, have loved Hamlet, and we have learned so much from it! And now we are ready for something new—a new play as we embark on a new season with a new ensemble and new leadership.

Look out for the next installment of the blog at the beginning of December and we will keep sharing insights and info on the new season!

Season Eleven: Weeks 22-24

WEEK TWENTY TWO

Tuesday / June 13 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Tonight was a great night. We are moving right along with the play and integrating the new members into the ensemble. We started out with one ensemble member performing “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I…” from Act Two. She has been working on it for a few weeks and slowly making her way through the monologue. We were able to give her some notes to work with and are now encouraging her to start memorizing more of the speech.

We moved on to working with Act One, Scene Three, in which Ophelia is lectured by her older brother Laertes, who is lectured by their father Polonius, who then lectures Ophelia after Laertes’ exit. There is a lot of talking in this scene and not much listening, and it can be really interesting to dive into. Immediately after putting the scene on its feet, the ensemble discussed how sad it was now that they know the rest of the play. “Ophelia got the business in this scene!” said one member. We went on to discuss how Ophelia gets handed off by all the men in the play who need her to do their bidding. “There are no other females in the play other than Gertrude,” mused one woman. “[Ophelia] doesn’t have a mom. Maybe if Gertrude took her under her wing more, things would turn out better.”

We moved on to the next two scenes, which seem to run together in a way that it makes it feel like they are the same scene. We started out reading, but in just a few minutes the readers were up on their feet acting out the scene. The woman playing Claudius/the ghost wasn’t feeling well, so we tried to stage the scene with her offstage doing a “voice over.” We had a great time exploring the text and experimenting with different ways of telling the story.

Friday / June 16 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Another great night at the Valley with the Shakespeare group. We started the night with one ensemble member reading two essays that she wrote. The first was about the inconsistencies in the text with Hamlet’s age, and the second was about Ophelia. They were both really well put together and it was interesting to hear her take on Ophelia in this new way. She brought up the small number of female characters in the play and the inevitability of comparison between them. She contrasted Ophelia’s madness with Hamlet’s and questioned Hamlet’s faux-madness in comparison with Ophelia’s actual madness. It was a really smart essay and we were happy to hear it. When pressed about what class she wrote that for, she said she didn’t write it for a class or a grade. She’s getting really into the text and wanted to write the essays.

We went on to work through staging Act One, Scene Five, which is both challenging and really fun. It’s challenging because there is the ghost, a location change as Hamlet pursues the ghost, and the ghost interacting with the character from on and off stage– it is fun for all the same reasons!

The line that ghost speaks off stage is “Swear!” and he says it several times.  This time around, we wanted the “Swear” lines to ramp up each time he said them, so we involved the whole ensemble and they all shouted “Swear!” on the last line. It was a great way to incorporate all of the newer members and get them participating.

WEEK TWENTY THREE

Tuesday / June 20 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Today was largely about continuing on through the text for our newer members that have not yet finished the play. We read through and discussed most of the beginning of Act Two. Much of the discussion revolved around Polonius and his incessant spying. This starts in the beginning of the play, and there was a clear difference between those who had read the entire play and those who were reading it for the first time. For the first-timers, his behavior didn’t seem all that egregious in these early stages, but the rest of the ensemble saw a clear pattern of behavior that starts early and ends in his death. “This is what gets him killed,” said one member. “Let the spying begin,” said another. “Nothing in this play is taken at face value,” said another.

We moved on to the next scene, one of the longest in the play, and one that needs to be broken up over a couple of sessions. In this scene, Hamlet runs intellectual circles around Rosencrantz and Guildenstern –who have also been sent to spy– and debates the nature of reality. One of my favorite lines in the whole Shakespearean canon is said in this exchange: “There is nothing good or bad but thinking makes it so.” This line prompted a really profound conversation. One member said, kind of out of the blue, “I wake up on an island every day.” I asked what she meant, and she said, “Fantasy Island!” She said that we all have choices about how we are going to live and approach the world. “I’ve been here for twenty years, but my family call me to cheer them up—they’re the ones in prison.” Another member responded, “We connected just now. I needed to hear that.”

Friday / June 23 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Tonight was a really great night; one of those special nights when the session picks up momentum and careens towards eight o’clock before anyone knows it. Check-in began with one ensemble member saying how much she loves SIP, and that she feels like we are a “family” and isn’t used to having people care about her like she feels it in the group. Several more agreed, saying things like, “SIP was one of the only places that I feel joy.” We’ve heard those things in previous seasons, but it never gets old, and we encourage that kind of vulnerability as much as we can. 

I challenged the group at the end of the check-in to start working on their scenes. They have gotten in a mindset that work happens in the unit and they present that work to the group as a finished product, but they are working towards bringing whatever they have and working it while in session. It’s a different mindset, but one that gives us a lot more to do while the group is meeting.

Next we decided to play some games. I love it when we start the evening with games, as the group really warms up and is more willing to jump in later—as was the case with tonight's session!

For the rest of the night, we worked on three different scenes and were able to really get into all of them in a really profound way. We started with Act Four, Scene Two, which features “the boys” as the ensemble have been calling Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. Next, we moved on to Act Three, Scene Four, in which Hamlet confronts Gertrude and accidentally kills Polonius. We finished with a newer member of the group deciding she wanted to try the “To be or not to be…” speech. She tried it several times, working to take notes to get more comfortable with the text. We finished the night with one of our long-time members, who doesn’t always feel comfortable volunteering, signing up to do a scene next week. There was a real sense of momentum tonight, and we all left the session feeling great.

WEEK TWENTY FOUR

Tuesday / June 27 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Much of tonight’s session was a continuation of last Friday’s work, and the ensemble made progress identifying the scenes they want to perform when the time comes. 

The ensemble member who worked on “To be or not to be…” on Friday really wanted to return to it and had been working on it all weekend. We tried it a few different ways and challenged her to make some decisions about what she wanted to do with the audience. We talked about how in Shakespeare’s day there wasn’t much of a “fourth wall” or separation from the audience. The relationship with the audience would’ve felt more like stand-up comedy, vaudeville, or a talent show: there is an acknowledgement that the audience is there, and it is woven into the text. This is hard to do because all of those examples are comedic, so it can be tough to shift to something dramatic in nature. But we tried it several ways and really let our actor try it out for herself. It was great to hear the ensemble's reactions. “I could really feel it more,” said one, and the actor said she felt like “a weight had been lifted” after she finished performing.

Friday / June 30 / 2023
Written by Maria Tejada

It’s been a minute since we got back into reading the play, so we all agreed to jump back into Act Two, Scene Two, in which Hamlet starts messing with Polonius and his “buddies,” Rosencrantz and Guildenstern. A few ensemble members particularly enjoy those characters, so we were happy to have a chance to play with a fun scene. After briefly chatting about what it would be like to start incorporating backdrops, props, and costumes into a performance and summarizing the previous scenes, we started to read in the circle. When Polonius said, “Though this be madness, yet there is method in it,” the woman reading Rosencrantz said, “That’s my favorite line.” 

We quickly decided that we wanted to play with some characterization on our feet. I suggested to our Rosencrantz and Guildenstern to really go big with a “frat boy” character, as we had all decided that they were not actually close with Hamlet but were trying to get information for the king, while he was just trying to gauge what information they knew. “I feel like Rosencrantz is the smarter-ish,” said the woman playing him. “Does that make you want to be in front more?” another woman watching the scene asked. Rosencrantz agreed, and they adjusted the blocking to incorporate the change in attitude, strengthening the scene and relationships between characters. 

When we got to Hamlet’s “Oh, what a rogue and peasant slave am I” soliloquy, another woman volunteered to read the speech from her chair. When she finished, she said that she liked it and it didn’t seem to be as long as she thought (at first, she had refused to read the entire speech since it was so long) and that there were a few spots where she could change her attitude. We asked her to read it again to hear these attitude changes, and you could feel the difference as her energy built as she worked her way through the soliloquy. “When Shakespeare makes a list, you build madder and madder…and you did that,” one woman said, referring to something that was discussed on Tuesday.

A different woman, who is aways game to jump in and take on a challenge, volunteered to try the speech next. She raced through it like a horse out of the stable, building with unbridled energy and hardly taking a breath. “Slow down!” one woman enthusiastically implored. Hamlet looked at us, confused, and said, “I thought I was supposed to read fast,” which prompted a wonderful conversation about keeping energy through each thought but using pauses and breath for Hamlet to have realizations and work through his indecision. You could see a light switch on behind her eyes as everyone collaborated on how to make the speech better.   

We finished the evening with a short round of storytelling, a game called “Fortunately, Unfortunately” in which players go around the circle telling a story one sentence at a time, alternating between fortunately and unfortunately. It was quite a dramatic story, beginning with a man who had torn a hole in his pants, to calling the police and ending up in prison. Even though the story ended in tragedy, we were laughing and smiling as we put the ring up on another wonderful session.

Season Eleven: Weeks 19-21

WEEK NINETEEN

Tuesday / May 23 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Tonight we welcomed some new participants to the ensemble. Whenever new members are added there can be a feeling of unease; we go to great lengths to establish a sense of safety in the room and new folks, by virtue of being “newbies,” need a few sessions to be brought into that culture. This is inevitable and there is really only one way through—so we got down to business!

The group was very warm and welcoming to the new members as we worked our way through the welcome packet, and existing ensemble members played a leadership role in the onboarding process. I only spoke up in a few key spots; otherwise, the rest of the ensemble led most of the evening, and they had some really wonderful things to say about being members of SIP. One member remarked, “When I first came here, I was dragged here in February. I wasn’t going to meet new people. Now I talk to new people, and it opened me up to talk to new people and new things.” Another great exchange happened between a new member and a few existing members:

“It's a good energy here,” said the new member.
“We LOVE this group,” said an existing member.
“With a passion!” said another.
“And we’re not just doing that because you’re here either,” said yet another member.

Most importantly, at the conclusion of the packet a few ensemble members were eager to perform some of their favorite scenes. We started with the gravedigger scene, which, with their “country accents,” is quickly becoming an ensemble favorite. Next they performed act three, scene three: the back-to-back soliloquies by Claudius and Hamlet. The woman playing Claudius explained to the new members that “there is so much passion. This is what draws me. He wants to repent but he can’t let go of why he did it … I’ve had that moment of prayer about what I want and wondering if they’re just words. This speech made me love this character.” 

This brought the evening to a close, and we left feeling like we had really given the new members a good example of just what SIP is all about.

Friday / May 26 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Tonight was a very unexpected and interesting night. In addition to welcoming a few more new members to the ensemble, several of our pre-covid “veteran” members rejoined. It was amazing to see them and welcome them back into the group. I wondered what they might think of things because, despite the important philosophical elements of the program having remained as they were, the logistics of this ensemble are quite different as we figure out SIP’s “new normal.” We aren’t working with our pre-covid nine-month season timeline, we’ll be working through the summer without a break, and, although we are definitely going to perform at some point, we don’t yet have a performance on the calendar; these things, in turn, affect our sense of what we “need to get done” during a given session, among other things. It’s not that I thought they would be averse to these changes, nor did I think it would be any kind of struggle; but things are different than they were a few years ago, and the vets will need to do some adjusting. It was just wonderful to see them again, and we all were excited to continue our work.

Most of the night was spent on the three questions, which we try to do within the first couple nights of new members’ joining. I took a few minutes to meet with the veteran members separately for a little re-orientation session, while the rest of the ensemble began to dive into the text. All questions were answered to the best of my ability, and we ended with a challenge to join the new ensemble and meet them where they are. So, in short order, we rejoined the rest of the group and joined them in reading act one, scene one, of Hamlet.

WEEK TWENTY

Tuesday / May 30 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Tonight we continued toward our goal of working our way through the play, beginning to end, with the new members. This time, the plan is to spend the majority of our time “on our feet,” meaning acting out the scene rather than reading while seated. If I had to pinpoint the biggest challenge so far for new members, it is developing a knack for blocking and stage movement. As with most beginning actors, there is a tendency to stand in one place and read the lines—essentially, reading the play as we did before, except now while standing. 

The other challenge is to learn a sense of theatricality with staging. The natural instinct for the ensemble members, and really anyone I’ve worked with new to theatre, is to stand a realistic distance away from their scene partner and stay there until the end of the scene, similar to how a conversation would occur in real life. We are looking at stage movement in three ways:

1. Distance from your scene partner reads very differently to the audience, despite its not feeling “natural” to you as an actor.

2. Blocking is part of the storytelling, and symbolic connections can be made by an actor's placement on stage.

3. Acting is a full-body experience, and we need to try to exist fully in the space, and fully in our bodies. It’s exciting but difficult to explain without anything to reference; that being said, when they “get it” the effect is electric.

This is largely what we worked on tonight. We inched our way through act one, scene one, and struggled to think our way through how we could stage the story of Hamlet. There were lots of great ideas, most of which centered around the ghost and how he would be presented. It was great to hear the ideas, some of which were fantastical and involved harnesses and flying the ghost in, some of which were as simple as dropping our ideas of what a ghost was (outstretched hands, howling boos, etc.) in favor of what would tell the story best.

Friday / June 2 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Every so often in SIP, there comes a time when a game night is in order. They’re impossible to anticipate, and sometimes, like this past Friday, just kind of unfold in real time. We start by acknowledging that the ensemble is feeling a bit blasè on a specific day– today being a hot summer Friday night. We play a game to loosen up a bit, we play for a bit longer than we think, and the members of the group start laughing despite themselves. Next, we ask the question “Do we want to read or play another game?” and before the words hit the air, someone has suggested another game. We play that game and still, we think, we have time to get through a scene. It happens again, and we are playing the next game. The ensemble then gets really into a game, maybe laughing a ton or perhaps getting uncharacteristically competitive. Somewhere in there, a realization sets in that Shakespeare will not be discussed tonight. Maybe we fool ourselves for a bit that that’s not going to be the case, but eventually we settle into the fact that we need to play games, and then we lean into it and keep playing. By eight o’clock our faces hurt from smiling, our sides hurt a bit from laughing, and we put the ring up and decide to really get to work next time.

Friday was such a night—it was well deserved and much needed. Also, with so many new members in the ensemble, it was a great way to bring them into what SIP is all about.

WEEK TWENTY ONE

Tuesday / June 6 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

We had more new members tonight, just as we have during the last couple of sessions. As I’ve said before, there is always a bit of adjusting that happens when there are new members in the group, and this will most likely continue for a little while longer.

We started the night with a performance from one of our newer members who had been practicing a scene with another member in their unit. They decided to perform act four, scene one, where Laertes witnesses Opehlia’s unraveling. It’s a difficult scene for professionals and amateurs alike, and is typically avoided by the ensemble because Ophelia sings. We always begin by explaining that Ophelia’s singing doesn’t need to be good—it's part of her insanity, and it can even seem more realistic if the singing is not very good. Only one or two members have been willing to try playing Ophelia in this scene, so it was a pleasant surprise when one of our new members gave it a shot. She did a great job and clearly has some background in singing. Everyone applauded. It was a great way to start the evening.

We ended up working on act one, scene one, again, but this time it was led by one of the group’s veterans. She did a great job nudging the ensemble, and we even tried the scene in proscenium, a leap in staging this ensemble hadn’t yet taken. It was exciting for everyone, and immediately a few members became instant “directors.” The conversation continued to revolve around how the ghost was going to be presented and perceived by the other characters. This merited a lot of discussion, and when the deliberation had become extensive we eventually decided to just perform it “wrong” and fix it later. It went great, and, although there were some notes for the actors on how we could stage it more effectively, we ended the scene after one run and moved on for the night. We finished the night with a game requested by a newcomer and left feeling great about our work.

Friday / June 9 / 2023
Written by Kyle Fisher-Grant

Tonight there was a performance by the dance group in the auditorium, so we met in one of the classrooms in the programs building. Being in the classroom always gives a little different feel to the night and makes us work in a bit of a different way, which can be kind of nice, especially when adding new members to the group, as it really eases the pressure of “being on stage.” 

We started the night with one ensemble member performing her favorite piece, a Hamlet soliloquy from act two, scene two, that begins, “Oh what a rogue and peasant slave am I…” She said she only had the first couple of lines down, so we just worked on what she had, beginning with her focus: was she talking to herself or to the audience? We tried it both ways, and she seemed to like talking to the audience better. As we dug into her character, she stopped and asked, “What is my body saying?” (meaning, is the way she was moving reflective of what the character was saying?) We talked about her shuffling her feet a bit, and seeming too casual to truly reflect what Hamlet is saying about himself and his decisions. 

We finished the night with act one, scene two, which introduces Hamlet, Getrude, and Claudius (whom one new member has re-named “Uncle Daddy”). When we work through scenes, members are encouraged to tag in and out when they want to take over the part. Many people got up to perform this way, including two newer members for whom it was their first time performing. We could really see them starting to “get” the Shakespearean language, and starting to dig into SIP.

It was a great night!

Season Eleven: Weeks 17-18

WEEK SEVENTEEN
Tuesday / May 9 / 2023
Written by Kyle

Tonight we tried a traditional SIP exercise that was completely new to this ensemble: the Six Directions, which is part of Michael Chekhov’s acting technique. It is a very physical exercise, and is really helpful for engaging the body. It requires commitment and doesn’t leave much room for half measures, which was tough for some ensemble members. After we completed the exercise, we debriefed a bit, and the ensemble had some good things to say. One member said this would be helpful in “those really physical scenes. I really wanted to cling to the chair, but I got to fill the whole space.”

We moved on to reading Hamlet, heading toward the very end and the climax of the play. Tonight, we read the “gravedigger scene,” in which Hamlet discovers that Ophelia has died, and then comes to blows with Laertes. The scene starts with some much needed comic relief. “Hamlet is really killing the vibe … He’s an overthinker!” said one member. The scene then takes a metaphysical turn, with Hamlet delivering the famous “Alas, poor Yorick…”  speech. It struck one member, who said, “No matter how great you are, you live, you die, and you’re buried and you’re back to dust. Alexander the Great is on the bottom of your shoe…” Another member said, “He’s just being dime-store philosophical. There are way better things to think about than your childhood babysitter. Maybe wonder WHY Ophelia killed herself!” The scene includes a funeral and calls pretty specifically for a trap door to be used for the burial plot. We talked a bit about how we might stage this in the WHV auditorium, with no trap door. There were a lot of really good ideas, and it was exciting to brainstorm about Hamlet as a real theatrical performance performed by the ensemble, and not just words on a page that we talk about.

Friday / May 12 / 2023
Written by Maria

It was ladies’ night tonight! Since most of the facilitators were busy with the Unabashed Ask for Cash Bash at Detroit Public Theatre, it was just me and a small group of ensemble members. There were some great conversations and discoveries that happened on Tuesday that I needed to experience for myself. 

One of the women was so excited talking about character choices for the gravediggers in Act 5 Scene 1 that I insisted they read the scene. The first Gravedigger got out two or three words before I burst into laughter—her accent was so funny! She said that she was inspired by the two old guys from the Muppets after seeing photos of Robin Williams and Billy Crystal in one of her Shakespeare editions. They excitedly told me that these two gravediggers were drunk and had silly accents that made the scene funny. The rest of the ensemble agreed that it was one that everyone really enjoyed. The group unanimously decided  that the two women have to continue to develop those characters and accents, finding time to slow down so the audience can understand what’s going on in the scene. Once they get up on their feet and play with some of the physicality of the gravediggers, the scene will get that much better and easier to follow.  

We also continued brainstorming ideas for staging the rest of the scene in a way that the whole audience could see what’s going on. There were concerns about being on the floor bent over, and about how to represent the dead Ophelia. Although we didn’t come to any conclusions tonight, it was great to see them work through the staging challenges that every director must consider. 

We closed out our session with some discussion about some of the roles they are drawn to. There weren’t too many surprises! When one said, “I don’t want to say too soon, but maybe Claudius,” another jumped in with, “Yeah, that’s your person,” since she has routinely volunteered to read for Claudius in scenes. It’s hard to believe that we’re almost done reading the play, but I can tell that they are all ready to begin the next phase of things as we play with staging and dive into embodying the characters. The next few weeks are going to be very exciting!

WEEK EIGHTEEN
Tuesday / May 16 / 2023
Written by Kyle

This was a really positive night, and I’m glad we took an evening to get on the same page as an ensemble. Last Friday was a smaller group, and I had been at the DPT Unabashed Ask for Cash Bash, so there was a little bit of catching up that we needed to do. Additionally, we were quickly approaching the end of the play, and we needed to discuss expectations and goals for the next phase of the season. “This is SIP 2.0,” I said, and explained that in previous years we worked from September to June, and that after finishing the play it was full speed ahead toward performances. That isn’t the case this time around, so we have more time to devote to exploring the play. We also needed to open the waiting list and add members to the group, as some members have left the ensemble and a few members will be paroled over the summer. 

Adding ensemble members is not always as easy as it might seem. It takes at least two sessions to go through orientation and our traditional three questions (What brings you to Shakespeare? What do you hope to get out of the experience? What is the gift that you bring?). Great care is taken to establish a culture of respect, community, vulnerability, and safety, and the thought of new members who don’t know the ensemble’s established culture can be anxiety-inducing for the group. So it was necessary to take an evening to talk a bit about what we could expect, what we wanted to look out for, and how exactly we should incorporate the new members. I reminded them that at the outset of this season, there was only one member who had been in the group before, and the culture was still established with our current ensemble—and this time around, there will be almost ten more people who will be able to establish our safe space. As one member put it: “I feel comfortable with everyone here. People who take the time to think about things other than prison… When I have a terrible day, I realize it's a Shakespeare day and I’m like, ‘Thank you, Jesus!’”

After that discussion, we turned our attention to loosely planning our work over the summer. I said that we have not worked during the summer in a long time at this facility, and we have the time to continue to explore the play. Some members expressed relief that we have so much time before performing; one said, “It takes me a while to learn the lines, and I don’t want to look like an idiot.” We will perform when we feel like we are ready to perform. We decided that we would work through the text with the new members, mostly on our feet, and that we would bring in new members the Tuesday after we finish the play.

We finished the night reading the first part of Act 5, Scene 2. This the the final scene, and the one in which ninety percent of the action takes place. We read all of the text up to the big finale and readied ourselves to finish the play on Friday.

Friday / May 19 / 2023
Written by KFG

One decision that came out of Tuesday’s discussion was to have the current ensemble finish the play before we bring in new members. This was not totally a logistical decision. There is just something about completing the play—the journey of Hamlet that we all began together—as an ensemble that has always been meaningful, and definitely is for this ensemble. I didn’t really realize that would be the case, but it absolutely was one of the group’s most important stipulations. So there was a real sense of impending calamity for all the characters that we couldn’t wait to see through—together.

As mentioned in an earlier post, there is a group of ensemble members who do not read ahead, only during our sessions, and it was a special joy to see their reactions to the climax and resolution of the play. There were gasps, and some “no way”s when each character met their demise. One member said of Rosencrantz and Guildenstern, “I’m a little sad about [them]. I’ve got attached to them!” Another member said, “They just kill these people, and that’s the play?!?” Another remarked, “How many times is Hamlet going to say that he’s dying?”

A big topic of the night was the reconciliation of Laertes and Hamlet right before their deaths. One member said that it was a reversal of the whole play for her: “King Hamlet was never free of it, and so he had to haunt the castle. Laertes is saying, ‘I have no hard feelings with you, you have no hard feelings with me.’” And so these two characters get to experience a freedom the older generation never does. This discussion led to a round of storytelling from the ensemble about reconciliations they had tried to make, have made, have yet to make, or cannot make. It was a really vulnerable night for many of the members. One remarked, “Since [a loved one] died, it's a whole new life. Now I’m playing a different role, and I’m able to put on new shoes in my life. … Every day I’m sober, I’m making amends.” Another member responded, “I’m not good at making amends. I need to make amends to myself.” 

The other big topics of the evening were Horatio and Fortinbras. “I think it's so funny that everyone is dead, and Fortinbras just walks in,” said one. Another followed up with, “Horatio should kill Fortinbras and become king—there’s still some poison left!” We ended with some ideas about staging, the predominant one being that Hamlet join his father as a ghost to finish the play.

We finished the night with a sense of accomplishment, and we all gave each other a round of applause. There was a real feeling that we had completed something, and a real pride for our ensemble.