Students take Shakespeare back to basics in the annual, traveling Guerilla Shakespeare show.

Carrying on a student tradition, senior theatre major Kate Lynn Abigail will direct a group of 11 student actors in Shakespeare’s comedy “Twelfth Night” in this year’s Guerilla Shakespeare production.

The ensemble will travel around campus in a choreographed routine using the university as its set, and an audience can follow them around starting at the steps of Hutton Sports Center from May 7 to 9, 13 and 15 at 7 p.m.

“Every week I get to play in this huge playground of a campus we have. We bring to life statues, benches and trees that you walk by every single day and never take a second glance at,” senior Brian Drummy wrote in an e-mail.

Guerilla Shakespeare began in 2006 when students wanted to take their training off the stage, said Tomas Bradac, associate professor of theatre on directing and acting Shakespearean plays.

“The intent was to make it come alive with just the words,” said Bradac of the show that uses no props, costumes or stage sets.

This brings the students closer to how Shakespeare would have shown his plays, Bradac said.

“These plays were intended to be wild, and were supposed to be performed outside,” wrote Drummy, who plays the drunken Sir Toby Belch.

Auditions are held by the returning cast members at the start of each year and the director is chosen by the previous director, wrote Abigail in an e-mail.

“I remember the callback alone having at least 40 people at it for what ended up being five or six spots,” wrote Drummy of his audition experience two years ago.

Preparing for Guerrilla Shakespeare takes about a year.

“The first semester we work to establish trust and communication as an ensemble as well as developing our acting techniques outside of the classroom,” wrote Abigail. “The second semester we work on a show using the campus as a stage to tell an active engaging story.”

The six-year old tradition is entirely student run with little involvement from the theatre department and has evolved into the traveling Shakespeare show, Bradac said.

“Because you are following us around, you are always actively engaged in the story, if you aren’t, we’ll literally leave you behind,” Drummy wrote.

Finances for the production are garnered through donations raised at each show and saved for the next year’s show, Abigail wrote.

Rehearsing once a week, usually Sundays for four hours, the students will perform the comedy “Twelfth Night” featuring a shipwrecked heroine, a mourning lover and some drunken fools.

“[The show] ultimately speaks to our internal fear of being alone and desire for a person to share the moments of life with,” Abigail wrote.

Guerilla Shakespeare is an opportunity for students to tell Shakespeare’s stories while developing their own perspective, she wrote.

“The group has a familiarity [with Shakespeare] to make it unique and understandable,” Bradac said.

“I feel so fortunate to have been able to spend three years in this amazing group. I have grown so much, and have become the actor I want to be because of Guerilla,” Drummy wrote.


Contact this reporter: kerrianne.rivas@thepantheronline.com