#ShakesbeersShowdown
#ShakesbeersShowdown is where Toronto’s hottest indie Shakespeare companies face-off in a battle of winner-takes-all, loser-drinks-most, as contestants cold read scenes from Shakespeare’s notoriously-hard-to-read First Folio.
The rules are simple: if you screw up, you drink!
The winner is crowned the revered Shakesbeers Showdown Heavyweight Champion (complete with championship belt), and the losers…get a lot of beer.
All funds raised go towards the 2018 Shakespeare-In-Hospitals Program, set to launch this fall.
INTRODUCING YOUR 2018 COMPETITORS:
Spur-Of-The-Moment Shakespeare Collective
Shakey-Shake and Friends Theatre Company
Shakespeare in the Ruff
Skipping Stones Theatre
Theatre By Committee
Shakespeare BASH’d
Theatre ARTaud
The Reviewers
The People
And
Stratford Festival
LET’S GET READY TO RRRRUMBLE!
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Spur-Of-The-Moment Shakespeare Collective is proud to present the seventh annual Shakesbeers Showdown: Jurassic Bard April 27th, 2018 at918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media & Education
Doors: 6:00pm
Show: 7:00pm
General: $25
Student/Arts Worker: $22 at the door ($18 online)
Honorary Judge: $100
TICKETS NOW ON SALE: http://www.nowtickets.ca/
Transcript
Welcome to episode 122 of Stageworthy. I’m your host, Phil Rickaby. Stageworthy is a podcast about people in Canadian theatre featuring conversations with actors, directors, playwrights, and more.
If you like the podcast, I hope you’ll leave a comment or rating on Apple Podcasts, Google Music, or wherever you find your podcasts. Your ratings and comments help new people find this show, or even better, if you know someone you think will like the show, tell them about it. Some of my favourite podcasts became my favourites because someone I knew told me about them.
If you want to tell me about someone you introduced to the show, or the person who introduced you, or just want to drop me a line with your questions or comments, I would love to hear from you. You can find Stageworthy on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram at StageworthyPod, and you can find their website at stageworthypodcast.com. If you want to drop me a line, you can find me on Instagram and Twitter at Phil Rickaby, and my website is philrickaby.com. The fringe season is almost upon us, and social media is a great way to find and target your audience for your upcoming fringe show. But you’re in rehearsal, or you don’t know what a boosted post is or how to make an ad, heck, you don’t even know what web optimization means.
And you know what? That’s okay. Let Adriana Prosser do that for you with her fringe social media packages. I’ve worked with Adriana before, and I can tell you that she knows her stuff, and her social media marketing campaigns translate into bums in seats.
And after all the work you put into the show, that’s what you really want. Adriana can help you do that. Find her on Twitter at Adriana P., or on her website, adriana-prosser.com. This week, we’re talking about Spur of the Moment Shakespeare’s Shakespeare’s Showdown, happening April 27th at the 918 Bathurst Centre for Culture, Arts, Media, and Education.
My guests are organizer Victoria Urquhart, and representing some of the competitors, Jeff Dingle from Shakey Shake and Friends, Eli Hamm from Spur of the Moment, and judge and dramaturg for Shakespeare’s Noam Lior. So here we are, some Shakespeare’s competitors, a judge. Why don’t we start here to my left, and we’ll introduce, why don’t you introduce yourself, and we’ll make sure that everybody knows everybody’s voice.
Okay, I’m Jeff Dingle, and I’m representing Shakey Shake and Friends, this year’s Shakespeare’s. Yeah. I’m Victoria Urquhart.
I am a very congested creator of the Shakespeare’s Showdown, and occasionally your host for Shakespeare’s. I’m Eli Hamm. I have no idea what I’m doing here.
No, I’m competing on behalf of Spur of the Moment, Shakespeare’s Collective, in Shakespeare’s Showdown. I’m Noam Lior. I’m the judge and dramaturg, so my job is not only to create diabolically difficult challenges, but also to evaluate and, let’s face it, mock our contestants when they fail.
Are you taking payments now, or when should we start? I want my briberies in the form of single malt scotch. Oh. I like the Speysides.
I have to ask, if you’re drinking during, does that impair your judgment as the judge? I feel that it makes me more judgmental and higher. Okay, that’s good. I mean, some drinks do make a man mean.
Before we get into what Shakespeare’s is and all of that, I’d love to know about what your relationship with Shakespeare is. Tori, you and I have talked a few times about your relationship with Shakespeare, but Shakespeare, I’m going to very carefully enunciate this time because Shakespeare is now a specific thing. When did you first start working on Shakespeare? When did you fall in love with Shakespeare? Anyone who wants to start? I have a pretty long love affair.
I grew up in a hippie commune, organic garlic farm, outside of Stratford, Ontario. I grew up just outside of Stratford, Ontario and in Stratford, Ontario. I was around the bard a lot growing up.
When I was maybe eight or nine, we used to watch Bran as Henry V about three times an evening every Friday, my friends and I, and just mostly the battle scene. We decided we would write our own seven-minute version of Hamlet, which was five minutes of exposition. Well, no, pardon me, two minutes of exposition and five minutes of sword fighting.
We took that and we went down with my dad’s guitar case to the Stratford Festival outside of the stage. As a group of about six, seven, eight, nine, I guess we were seven to ten was our ages. We would perform this seven-minute Hamlet on a loop for people in theatre busk and they would toss their coins into the hat.
So that was my first experience really loving performing it. Then I was lucky enough to see enough performances where I just fell in love with it. When I was 12, Stephen Womet was in Waiting for Godot, which was amazing, not Shakespeare, but he was also in Richard III.
I went to a performance I saw, I think it was my sixth time, and I was sitting in the back and there were two people sitting in the front and the lights were coming up for the second act and he lumbered on stage and they were opening the candies. Yeah, the classic crinkly candies. You see him turn and because the Tom Patterson is such an intimate venue, the entire audience is now looking at these two 60, 70-year-old women who are opening their candies and one of them notices and starts to whack the other one.
Chop it away, put it away, put it away. Her name wasn’t Ethel, but for editorial purposes. He starts just sauntering over to these women.
So the one woman is getting more and more terrified as he’s walking over and the other woman is still searching in her purse for Mentos. Eventually he’s leaning over them and to my nerdy 12 or 13-year-old brain, I don’t think he changed a single line of his monologue. I think he just kept talking and looking at us and referring to them.
Richard III can be pretty malevolent gentlemen. By the time he got there, he was just spitting these words in this woman’s face and she looked up from her purse and burst into tears and left the theater. This sounds terrible, but I was the kid sitting at the back of that theater going, I want to do that.
I’m very curious. There’s a few things I’m curious about, but how old were you when you were watching Richard Henry V? We started watching it on the regular when I was about eight, I think, seven or eight. I’m starting my daughter early.
She’s four. She’s got her googly works. Sure, we were talking about how she would be giving us notes if she was here.
She would be, yes. Does she want to judge? I don’t know. If I can convince my wife.
I don’t think it would be inappropriate. She can be our honorary judge. I think where she’ll be 18 years from now.
Shakespeare’s is still going. He will beat you all. It should be impossible to be contender or judge.
Let’s see. My first introduction to Shakespeare probably began then I remember probably was Disney’s Gargoyles because Macbeth was a character. Macbeth was a character and he was like a gargoyle hunter or something and his backstory was loosely Shakespeare’s Macbeth with Disney slash gargoyle modifications.
This is amazing. I did not even know that. That show was amazing.
It’s been decades since I’ve seen it, but that show is actually full of like Shakespeare references. He also featured predominantly actors from Star Trek. Yeah, Riker was the villain.
Riker was Xanatos. And Deanna Troi. Deanna Troi was the other bad guy.
She was the evil Desdemona, the evil gargoyle. I actually think Puck and Oberon show up later. I think one of there’s some like there’s one episode where they it’s like a Midsummer Night’s Dream theme and like Puck and Titania and however you pronounce it and Oberon show up.
But but I remember watching Disney’s Gargoyles and I remember my brother and his friends when they were in high school they made like video like Macbeth and Julius Caesar like movies for their class projects in Shakespeare and I remember being in middle school and like getting into acting and being like I want to be in your movies and like stealing like my brother’s like copy of Macbeth and be like I know this shit. I watch Gargoyles. And then yes, when I got to high school, I’d already like knew half the stories that we studied in the curriculum and but I don’t think I actually performed Shakespeare until late like in my college years because I know in high school I come from a small town in New Brunswick and we mainly just did musicals.
There was like the high school musical and we did like the Music Man and stuff like that and then university we studied a lot of like modern drama which was great but I don’t think I think when I university did Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead that was the first time I actually like spoke Shakespeare in a live play. Wow. I played Rosencrantz and there’s it’s like it’s like 95% Tom Stoppard and like 5% Shakespeare but where there’s still some lines in there but I don’t think I think I think it was after I graduated.
I was in a summer production midsummer and that was like the first like Shakespeare play I had done. When you made the tradition from Gargoyles to to high school did you was there an adjustment or? Oh yeah I definitely read Macbeth for the first time was like this didn’t happen in Gargoyles. Macbeth doesn’t have any Gargoyles in this.
This is bullshit. So I had a great high school teacher in grade 11 and we learned we did Hamlet so that was my like my introduction but my my gateway drug was Neil Gaiman’s Sandman. So comics got me into into Shakespeare and that that last issue which is The Tempest I just happened to hit it when I was we were moving I was staying at my grandmother’s place she had the set of the those those blue cloth bound Yale editions that apparently my great-grandfather had bought and they lived on a shelf in the basement accruing dust and I was like I should read The Tempest I don’t have much better to do and I did and I was like okay this is this is pretty great and it’s like and then I was kind of I was overcompensating is what it was which I don’t do anymore I was in college I was starting theater school I had friends who were in university so they were doing you know Machiavelli and Hobbes and I was like I’m doing that you know I’m learning to dangle my sacrum or whatever we were doing and I felt like I needed to kind of get my intellectual cred up so I read my way through that complete works and you know I found by the by the fourth or fifth time you have to look up the same thing you go like oh that’s that thing that was in that other place I’m like my god this guy reuses his tropes oh it’s the makeup thing again okay I’ve got this it was a real it was a shock to me when I got to university and discovered that you didn’t read whole things right that like people read a chapter and I was like I read you know the discourses like Machiavelli’s the discourses and I got there and they’re like oh we’re gonna look at these 20 pages I was like what but then you know when I was doing like I love the Shakespeare work in in theater school and and I did an independent study I was as a stage manager on a production of Cymbeline that Kate Lynch was directing and because as Tori has learned I can’t keep my damn mouth shut I was doing things that like you should never do as a stage manager but I was sitting there going like um I have an idea about that line and like I don’t think you’re quite getting that thought and like I one of the reasons I will love Kate Lynch to this day and beyond is she at some point went like hang on I should be listening to like do you have any ideas forgive me more um and she hired me for stuff after that but like I and that was my first dramaturgy gig um and I was like oh there’s like there’s a you can kind of get a job not a paying job but like there’s room to be like the Shakespeare talking guy on productions um and then you know this Shakespeare play app thing landed in my lap um I was not the person who came up with the idea they brought me in as a Shakespeare talking we’re like we want to make a Shakespeare app for high school students and film productions and include them um and we need a Shakespeare talking guy and I came in and did that and Phil you came in and did some stuff for us on Macbeth yeah yeah um and yeah now now I’m yelling at people while they drink I’m just imagining like Kate Lynch going to you being like no stop stop that no no no but then tell me all of that stuff later I come to my office later and then tell me all the things and I’ll bring that out later but stop it yeah I mean I learned a lot on that like she she was amazing like I mean I know that was a joke but also like like one of the things I learned from her that served me as a director was she like I would say something and she’d go like that is a good point that actor isn’t ready to hear that yet um right so like we can talk about that but don’t like they need to get a foundation before they can even integrate that note and I was like oh that’s a thing absolutely yeah right um so yeah yeah so I’m curious where did where does Shakespeare’s come from where did okay first where did the the combination of um the first folio and alcohol first come together well um I mean for you not I’m sure the people I didn’t get by the first folio um that’s a great question I mean you didn’t ask me what my relationship was to Shakespeare I thought that we’d covered this at least twice before but I mean we can certainly go over it Cole’s notes I read Shakespeare um and well my mom isn’t was an English teacher um she’s no longer an English teacher uh she’s gone down a different path but uh for a long time she was an English teacher and she uh she used to always quote Hamlet at me and I didn’t know it was Hamlet um until I got into high school and I read Lamb’s Shakespeare when I was 10 and that was something that uh that was a retelling of Shakespeare that I believe a dude did for his sister uh because she was dealing with some mental health concerns and he wanted to uh contextualize it for her and uh soften some of the images and whatnot um so it was easier for her to to read without triggering and having said that it’s been so many years since I’ve read that and I could be totally off the mark but this is what I remember from it I think that’s pretty close Dorothy Parker actually wrote a play about them called uh on the coast of Illyria or possibly just the coast of Illyria okay they were also like friends with Coleridge and he shows up in the play like all loaded up on wadden and then I got into high school and they were saying they were talking about these quotes and I knew them so much because my mom had sent them to me so I was like oh I fucking know this um and then I just kind of read with that kind of swagger for the first couple of years and then I got to theater school and they were like nope you don’t know anything about this here we go here’s a lesson um but uh yeah that’s that’s that’s essentially my what was your reaction to finding out that these things that your mother said to you had come from this play oh god um there were many reactions um some of which were were oh you mean my mom’s not just not just saying some some old moral she’s not just saying some like some some tale as old as time lesson although it kind of really is a I’m like oh you’re gonna said by some old dude yeah screw that um as well as uh I don’t know I was a keener in school so there was a bit of a okay I got you all beat now this is great like I’m gonna coast right through English um that actually never happened but uh you know by the time I graduated I got a decent handle on it um yeah so what surprised you when you got to theater school and they were like nope what was the what was the thing that they were noping you for oh so many things so many things to know before um I a large thing that I’ve struggled with is getting the sense of of the sentence when it’s funny because when I was in high school I got the sense of it so easy because all I had to do is look at the punctuation and go oh the sentence doesn’t end there just because the line doesn’t just because the line ends there doesn’t mean the sentence has to and I’d read it and teacher teachers would be like oh yeah you’re speaking it very well congratulations um and then when I got into theater school I couldn’t really think that anymore um but yeah especially uh for me even even now I struggle with finding the sense in in the language uh just because of my ADD sure uh putting those putting all of the images together I have to like I have to do all this crazy stuff just to like just to just to get the the sense and of the argument in my body once that’s there then I can build a character on top of that the character’s kind of really already there in the text anyways but like yeah that’s I got I got caught a little bit with that in in theater school as well because I always had really good diction as a kid like I was one of those kids who spoke really clearly right away and so once I got into Shakespeare and then once once we got to college and the advent of the internet and and or like even going to the library and there are so many recordings of RSC Shakespeare is that if I ever like didn’t know how to say something I would just look it up and I would copy John Gielgud or like you know what I mean like I would just copy that literally do like a all the line readings from that until in second year theater school uh um Joe Ziegler actually went yeah I heard that one too like he just called me up for like that’s Gielgud’s Tempest yeah cut it out and come up with your own shit yep yep that’s awesome but somebody there that depth of knowledge to go like no no no I’ve heard that before and I know what I’ve heard it so and they tell you they tell you don’t uh don’t listen don’t don’t go and watch the play if you’re stuck like if you’re if you are prepping a role don’t go and see another person’s take on it and it’s very smart what I do now just to make sure that I am getting the sense of it is sometimes I will go and listen to it but I will listen to it in very specific points because for me that’s the same as going to like No Fear Shakespeare on Sparknotes going and getting yeah um for those who are listening and just gentlemen just I brought notes I brought a No Fear Shakespeare No Fear Shakespeare totally at least check it out sometimes it sometimes it gives the the context and the the the the modern colloquialisms that help fill in the sense um and yeah sometimes listening to specific parts will do that for me but it’s you still you you tread at your own risk because if you go and listen to the whole thing you’re screwed and same thing here I think as an it is editorialized somewhat like this is somebody’s interpretation of sure of the text it’s I wouldn’t call it gospel it’s a good it’s a good starting point though if you’re struggling it’s a wonderful teaching yeah it’s a wonderful especially when you’re engaging with other total times too is like as much as we all want to be like I’ve done Shakespeare before I know what all this stuff means there are times where it’s like I have no idea what that means yeah like eight lines without a period it’s like what is the thought oh yeah and also for me like they’re one of the the weird joys in my life as someone who has done like editorial notes for I mean for for digital editions but still and like you know uh in in the perpetual last stages of a dissertation on Shakespeare and and um digital editing all that stuff is like finding the thing where like I don’t I get the basic sense but I don’t quite get it and then like looking it up in four different sources and they’re all saying like okay so actually nobody’s sure like it is weirdly satisfying to know that there’s some stuff that we just don’t know and we’re all kind of winging it and we have been for 400 years like that and isn’t that sort of the beauty but like isn’t that sort of why we still love to do it yeah because you still run into those little things where you’re like oh yeah nobody is like we’re all just like throwing pickles at a window or whatever sorry that’s a it’s a Wayne’s World reference you know like who’s ever pickle gets to the bottom that’s whose idea we use oh like pickle slices oh yes it’s all it’s all Shakespeare strange brew for example yes yeah um but now speaking of strange brew now we can get back to the beer thank you um how did the first folio and beer first come together for you all right well um I mean Shakespeare’s the term Shakespeare’s has actually been in existence well before we started this gasp I know um and there have been versions that have been in the states and I think it ended up going Canada side back in 2009 2010 um I was hanging out with Kayla Bratton and Kayla had mentioned that there was that there was this way that we could do a really cool competition reading and make a fundraiser out of it and it would be a really fun game and what happens when we just hang out and drink and read Shakespeare um and from there I started to kind of put in a game structure um and how would this look if and how would we get how would we we eliminate people that was the big question for for me for a long time with poison no I mean yes but also I mean there are a lot of people out there who read this was my assumption at the start oh everybody can read the first folio we really make it difficult for them so then I started getting things like okay and then they have to switch characters so then they’ll switch hats and we’ll we’ll do it like this and then some people have to share a character okay this is good and then we got to the first showing in 2013 um and I was so wrong like there’s a lot of people who read and and speak Shakespeare very well there are a lot of people who cold read Shakespeare okay but perform really well and there are a ton of people who cannot read the first folio but who do Shakespeare really well sure thank god well I mean most I mean a lot of people have not picked up their folio the first folio if they did at all in in theater school yeah and other people um have a copy of the first folio in modern type on their shelf and uh have forgotten that the v’s are u’s and the u’s are v’s sometimes and the s sometimes looks like an f and sometimes Shakespeare puts in an emoticon yes the question marks are sometimes exclamation points and things like that and colons and well they just they ran out of type I mean literally like they’ve only got so much of each thing and they’re setting big pages and sometimes they’re just like anything with a dot in it just throw that in yeah yep it’s those semicolons that I hate so how calling for well I mean there’s a comma in there they don’t seem to have a meaning until they do um sorry how does somebody get eliminated I I understand that if somebody fucks up that they have to drink well um at the end of the round whoever has drank the most is is eliminated um that was we used to measure the cans by how much was left in each I feel like I have a bigger mouth than like now so like I’m gonna take more beer in one gulp I’m at a distinct disadvantage now here’s the other thing uh shaky shake in particular has been known to take larger swigs than the other teams y’all know what I’m talking about that’s because the other teams was like oh I got buzzed but soft while like oh and then like and then they win it’s like that’s because you only consumed like a gulp and it’s never it’s never occurred to shaky shake to maybe reduce the amount no we’re hardcore and each shaky shake participant is drinking for two that’s right yeah this is the they’re they’re drinking reading and carrying a puppet at the same time yeah like automatically they they get style points just for just for I feel like sometimes it’s the puppet carrying a performer but no one wants me there no one actually wants me there no one goes oh Jeff either like bring the purple puppet out that was funny when it’s so I mean so that’s how people get eliminated whoever has drunk the most yes um I mean yes go ahead we changed at least like last year it was it was whoever made the most mistakes so no matter how many how much they were drinking in each time they that way it’s not based on the text um yes I don’t know I was reaching for hyperbole is that what it is this year whoever makes the most mistakes rather than who drinks the most well this year and it’s been growing over the years that we’ve been also establishing uh style and style points so that uh it’s not just about being word perfect but it’s also about being able to read with flair and being able to uh give a little of what Shakespeare would call chutzpah um sorry I’m stuck on the on the on the Yiddish Shakespeare um oh no some of those sonnets are no longer mourn for me when I am dead it’s uh there’s a lot of there’s a lot of old Jewish mother especially the rape of the you know that’s the kind of thing you get away with when it’s a puppet when the puppet says that it’s endearing so I’m curious if um if there’s something that the competitors are most concerned about as far as uh Shakespeare’s goes is there something that you like that your that is your weakness I mean not to I mean I’ll make the other guy cover his ears if you’re worried about about that but like is thing that you’re worried about um I’m worried about like is there a play that scares you probably uh I know the one year I I lucked out because I knew the piece it was from like it wasn’t something I performed it was definitely like I got to read something that was from something I’d done or knew really well um so like it’s usually when it’s like if I can tell you right now someone threw something from time and of Athens at me I’d probably be screwed about some of the names some of the names in that play I mean I saw it at Trafford last year and at the end of the play I’m like wait a minute I still can’t pronounce that name when I look at it let alone what they said yeah so um but yeah no not really oh the other the other um the other thing is uh in and I don’t think it’s happened to me but I think it’s happened to other people that they get thrown something that’s not Shakespeare this that can happen yeah every now and then someone gets thrown like a Thomas Middleton or or Ben Johnson piece and they’re like I practice reading the folio for five hours every year at least once James Wallace goes to me what was that it was Shakespeare’s I’m I’m a little I’m admittedly I brought this up at the other meeting um I you know having made the transition to fatherhood I’m severely out of practice when it comes to drinking beer for one I also don’t have never tended to have the largest bladder so you know like there’s I’m a bit worried about starting to rush to get off stage so that I can go pee and then making a mistake because of that your weakness is noted the the the solution has already been given to you oh oh I’m definitely going to be that no I don’t think I don’t I don’t think I don’t think that my team leader will allow me to do that but um oh no Mel is going to actually be giving me my sips I won’t be taking them myself however long Mel tips my cup for we used to have a tag team rule and I wanted someone to use it so bad and nobody did where it was it was the equivalent of give them the chair basically you tap out if you’re down to like the bottom of your beer and you know you’re running you’re running low you tap out and you have your other teammate come in and read the rest for you and then but nice but then the the caveat of that is they still have to go in and do their round with that with that um handicap right it was I wanted people to use it so bad but I never got used so maybe scrapping it maybe the uh the threat of of the handicap is too much for people I think so I think I think uh I mean over the years it’s been taken very very seriously because we’re very serious Shakespeare readers um but uh I I think uh I think especially this year it’s just we’re just here to laugh at ourselves do you get player points for correcting your your competitor oh yeah everyone loves that well I grew up in a household where it was like everything was cutthroat right so when we played cribbage if I didn’t count all my points my dad stole them so I would lose by large amounts until I figured out how to count my own points and so it’s we were pretty cutthroat that way it’s a terrible thing to give up another actor I’m just thinking that’s the when people when people are drinking that’s probably a good way to start a fight yeah I mean yeah which is probably not what we want here it’s all good fun I was I ran into somebody yesterday it was like oh yeah I just found out I’m doing the Shakespeare’s thing because they said that I’m the drinker in the group yeah they told me that I had to do it because I’m the drinker I’m like but how’s your Shakespeare we’re coming for you smile point noam what is your so you’re putting together these traps for teams these these little nuggets for them what’s your approach like how do you good good no I mean I think like um try to find stuff that’s um in terms of the finding the material try to find stuff that’s a bit off the the the beaten path um which sometimes means the more the the less performed plays and sometimes it’s like that you know that the scene that always gets cut but has great stuff in it um I mean some of it is also like it’s looking at um what we’ve got in facsimile and so like because you know we want to give them something that’s going to be um challenging and hopefully like sets them up in particular ways right anything that’s like that’s got the word suck in it with the long s yes right it’s just like how can I resist um but also like you get you know facsimile is like ink stained and has bleed through and you’re like all right that’s just not gonna be like it you know if they’re gonna just freak out looking at the page that’s not super fun um how do I read this what are you doing to me but I mean I think I think there and we’ve also like been this is where the the style points come in we’ve been sort of trying to find um structural stuff to like build a game on top of you know just the very simple uh structure of like elimination style first folio reading because that’s too simple um but I think I think um I’m like intermingling answers but um like some sort of complicated layered structure um yeah to so um to to like add complications on top of that so that there’s more than just the reading but I think also like to go back to what we were just saying right like people I mean it’s it’s it’s fun and we don’t take it seriously until you’re sitting at that table in front of an audience and there’s a text that’s difficult to read and um I mean I haven’t been an actor for a long time but like when I was I was a competitor for one year before they made me the judge I’m not sure what how to describe that trajectory right but the what what I saw and what I’ve sort of seen in or I don’t know projected my experience onto other people right is like when you’re there you don’t have the um the kind of uh safety structure of being an actor right where it’s like this is pretend and I’m playing a part suddenly it’s just me and there’s no armor and if I fuck up then it’s it is really personal um and so a lot of what we’ve been trying to build is to to um find ways to um allow players to create personas for themselves so that it’s not like oh it’s Noam and he’s getting it wrong and like feel self-conscious about that um and I think there’s some people who are like you know after two or three mistakes or an appropriate amount of beer are like this is awesome I’m just screwing up and it’s great um but I think also like there’s what we want to sort of um the the structure of just the drinking game kind of incentivizes boring performance right like a Shakespeare actor who knows the rules right will get you a by the rules performance nobody really wants that um so we want to kind of find something where like we still get to punish people for getting it wrong because that’s my joy in life but also like set them up so that they’re having fun with the material and playing the crowd and like getting some good performances Hugh last year had had a cheering crowd of people going Gilbert, Godfrey and like and then there was Larry from Shakespeare in the Rough back in 2015 where I screwed up his last name his last name was Smith like how do you screw up that name but I read it and I was like I’m so sorry I can’t read my own writing on here and he just goes to me he’s like it’s Smith were you were you pronouncing it as Smith maybe um but then from then on in um well I let I let the audience know because I had said over the mic in my in my ridiculousness I was like Larry I’m so sorry I can’t say your name because I can’t read my own run and then he goes up to me and he tells me and he go and and uh he’s on deck oh and then when we get to the next round where he is on I go hey guys um you know what this was this was uh Smith and so Larry then goes okay I’m uh any word that I don’t know in here I’m just gonna say Smith and so he’d read and then he’d read to the end where the page kind of curved and he couldn’t read the word anymore and he’d go Smith but Smith and I think the judges only only gave him like three penalty drinks for that because it was hilarious and uh and and he was just really brilliant at it and there were people the crowd was cheering Smith I had never seen a crowd go crazy over the most ridiculous things in my life it’s amazing and like why not it’s so much fun is there just one judge or is there a group of judges there is a group this year okay um there was a group there were two judges last year uh in in the interest of uh ensuring that we are having uh equal representation for uh for for genders and uh and and uh all identities we are ensuring that there is a group of judges because I mean there’s we’ve asked for we’ve asked for that representation on our teams so we should be doing that for our judges sure um how is the determination like is it one mistake equals one drink or is it uh are there penalty drinks for big mistakes are there how much of this like how much am I well I mean for all for all for all we know these guys you could be lying you could actually stuff up I’ll definitely also forget one of the drinks is poison but which one one of the drinks is a shot of whiskey I’ll take that one so the the traditional formula has been uh one mistake one drink and um again because we’re always refining we’ve we’ve added we’re we’re tinkering this year so one of the things that we we’ve added in order to to like gamify the game so that we get more game in our games we’re we’re adding a uh um what are provisionally being called chance cards or possibly fortune cards so that style points and we’re still working out the math here style points can be redeemed for fortune cards yes this was in your information packages so this is okay which might just the chance card not the fortune card well I just I was thinking fortune was a more Shakespearean early modern term than than chance I mean or hazard possibly well because I understand they can go both ways yes yes so for example you might get a card that says right for for the rest of this round every time you screw up you take two drinks or yeah um or one that I’m no I’m not gonna say share all the things but no so Eli you have a bit of a challenge in that in that the competitor that’s that’s across from you is um well this is Jeff but there’s also going to be a puppet so like what’s your plan for the puppet I might bring my daughter okay I might just bring my daughter on stage and if they won’t accept her as a judge then I mean I really think that that’s age diversity I think you’re getting a lot of she’s a she’s a woman and judges get free drinks yeah exactly if she found that chocolate milk you know how am I going to deal with the puppet I feel like like you said like with the puppet there are certain things that puppets can say that people can’t say um so there are also certain things you can do to a puppet that you can’t do to a human oh they’re way more flammable yeah so I thought you know like I mean I said you know I wanted to create some tension and I think that that’s a you know I think that took a darker turn yeah well you know if it’s a competition I was just told that I was we are trying to win puppets can say things that humans can’t then humans can do things to puppets they can’t do to humans well Jim Henson did like he did many things to puppets you can’t really do to people but yeah oh Jeff it’s on Marlo is uh it takes a lot of charm there’s I notice a lot of people pay attention to the puppet’s mouth and not my mouth and uh Shakespeare’s coming out of my mouth so sometimes I can mask my mistakes um see I feel like it would be doubly hard though because if you mess up the mouth moving up and down I feel like that’s oh it’s super hard it’s way harder it’s actually it’s not at all a thing that helps me in my opinion Tom and I of people who competed before uh and with the puppet it’s like it’s so much like it would be so much easier if I didn’t have the puppet on my hand but every year once again no one wants to see me no one no one wants to see the puppet team with other puppets so we got to bring the puppet but do you guys try to like do you do you try to like really match the the puppet mouth with the words or do you eventually end up just being like approximating it depends on how drunk he is oh yeah as the night progresses and uh and whether it’s the actual round or the fool’s round um we started to take liberties with I recall last year in the fool’s round of totally abandoning the puppet um I think I gave it to Jordan Hill so he because he was playing two characters and and uh the fool’s round ended up being probably about 25 minutes longer than it should have been long story the fool’s round was entirely in Klingon cold reading yeah so uh that was fun but um no no it’s actually really really hard to be drinking and uh and puppeting and doing Shakespeare at once especially with uh um with the other puppets their hands are on little sticks so uh in the past I know Tom last year was Tom and I and he had no problems just using his real hand to flip the page Marlo’s hand is covered my it’s it’s my hand uh covered in like purple felt so there’s like just times of just like trying to grasp the page and already I’m getting dog points or just not talking yet uh I don’t know if that’s a rule this year or not um yeah Marlo uh it does not help but it’s a lot of fun and that’s why we’re there is is there a team that scares you is there a team that intimidates you um last year there were a couple people in the uh the the people’s team that were like that sort of walked that fine line of I I thought of like reading Shakespeare really well and having like a great personality and it’s like oh crap that guy’s like really good good for them and he totally got voted out so I didn’t give a shit about him for the rest of the night what’s the what is what’s the people’s team fear from uh so the people’s team uh is basically uh competitors who do not have a company and applications for that are open until April 10th and this is releasing on the 10th I think so I think so yeah so if you’re hearing this now you’re um but uh yeah competitors uh if they want to enter without a team as one of the people in the audience uh they can submit a form and a uh short video outlining their training montage and why they would be a good fit for Shakespeare’s oh okay and yeah then they they compete alongside Shakespeare’s veterans by alongside we mean against yeah heavily against Eli yeah is there a team that you’re nervous about scared of I mean I my initial response when you asked that question because that was no because I’m such a loser that I probably don’t know anyone so I don’t know anybody I don’t know any better like I won’t know any better it’s it’s sort of going to be ignorance is like whatever I’m just gonna you know but that’s how I’ve always sort of treated this business anyways I’m just gonna go and do my thing and we’ll see what happens I’m gonna throw my pickle at the window and if it gets to the bottom first I’m gonna get the part um but I think I mean not to be cheesy or um overstate the point I don’t know how you can’t sort of have some kind of apprehension around the Stratford festival team in terms of I don’t mean that in terms of like um uh you know pedigree or whatever but just in terms of like dollars and cents resources oh sure we’re talking about these these people for eight months have had have had um free access to text coaches and a library and archives and a bunch of other senior artists who are they get to watch night in and night out so um in terms of their proximity or the recency um of their interaction with the bard I think that they’re gonna probably come in with some fresh some fresh brains at the very least so you know I’ll be looking to intimidate them early well maybe they’ll be intimidated by pocket side yeah well that’s true that’s true that’s my plan is there is there a team in the media this year yes there is so I mean here the media I mean if we if we’re if we’re we don’t know how versed the media team is in Shakespeare and how well they might perform it but does that make you guys feel any more confident about your chances that we won’t be last we won’t be like the first people eliminated I mean I don’t know I don’t know I can see the media people being really good because if they’re you know seasoned uh reviewers have probably seen everything sure but maybe they haven’t spoken that’s true that is different seeing is different than speaking yeah maybe we’re looking at a folio page it might be therapeutic to watch them fail this is what you get for saying I shouted all my lines by the way Phil you’re in the media section I know I’ll be in the media section I’ll be yes yes so when they beat you I will cheer for them yeah that’s probably the more likely I’m actually offering coaching to the media um for good reviews in the future okay well I’m all about the bribes as you can tell I can tell like that seems to be your your your plan is just bribe except except the thing is that I have no no no money and no assets and so it’s not a really good plan yeah it’s no it’s a terrible time but you’re accepting them you know you’re you’re accepting yeah that’s right you Victoria you talked about uh the the diversity that you’re trying to to find is that is that more of a focus this year than in past years is that something that that um you made a concerted effort to put together yeah um I remember uh I mean in in I think it was in 2015 we made a a more general call out for diversifying teams because I mean all in all this text may have been written by an old white dude but it doesn’t have to be performed by one um and back in I think was it 2014 or 2015 but around that time we had just done um an all-female uh Julius Caesar and moving on from that I just learned that there was so much more that we could do um and I’m still learning that there’s so much more that we can do um so this is just one step in in that direction um and there have been there have been many steps in the past and there will be many more in the future I it is my goal to ensure that once again just because these words have been written by an old white dude doesn’t or a collection of old white dudes however you choose to believe this text came into being um yourself doesn’t have to be doesn’t have to be performed by no white dude yeah that being said I mean when this old white dude wrote this text he wrote it for very specific people sure um and when we get to perform these texts um I think it is our duty to ensure that uh it is not uh it is incorporating more identities than what was originally written um and not in stereotypical ways uh Shakespeare just got real from well there there can be interesting things that happen by putting those words into a non-white male mouth and you know just because Rosencrantz and Guildenstern were written as men they can be played as women they can be played as some and most roles can um be played by another gender or like there’s so much that you can do and and it often does it ever I I can’t think of a situation where it really takes away from it more usually like adds to the uh the the experience of watching the play absolutely I mean did everyone here see Diane Diane Dacola play oh I didn’t but I wanted to yeah it’s that the I mean it’s still it’s still a parental connection and there’s it’s a whole different story with the maternal with the maternal thing and not a whole different story but it’s it’s you know like it illuminates a different part of the text and and as a as a bit of a you know real hopeless romantic who wants to believe that one one white old white genius sat in his room and made this all up I would like to believe that he would love the fact that people are diversifying his stories and bringing them to life in different and interesting ways and illuminating things that maybe he didn’t even intend when he wrote it but if you’re creating exciting I just gotta think as a writer if someone’s creating exciting things with something that I wrote whether it’s entirely what I wrote or whether it’s inspired by that and using that as an anchor as a writer myself the idea that in 400 years someone could still be working with or inspired by things that I wrote would be amazing yeah and like let’s look at the 50,000 edits that are out there the 50,000 edits that are out there are out there for a reason one version he took to a bar another version he took to the book another version went to 50 like yeah how many different cuts of hamlet are there because the wording on on the on some of those speeches is just like out of this world um and there’s the version that we all know and that is generally said and then there were other versions yeah q1 is kind of amazing to be or not to be ah that’s the point yeah yeah yeah we had that one in last year yeah spoilers but it’s also like I mean what amazes me is what people get caught up on like we all know it’s not real right like we all know that nobody got murdered and yet people are like oh well uh you know there was a there was an asian person playing this character and there wouldn’t have been that person in that period and that took me right out of it and i’m like the accents weren’t a problem the perfect teeth weren’t a problem the clothes weren’t a problem like why would this be an issue like it’s all yeah we’re all agreeing to pretend like let’s just make a bigger pool of people we can pretend with yeah yeah i mean if bbc can take steps towards uh appropriate gender conscious casting and whatnot not saying that it’s perfect at all yeah but uh hey we sure it’s okay yeah yeah yeah um yeah so does everybody have a plan for for leaving on the night do you have like do you plan for a cab uh who’s pouring you into that cab do you have is there a plan or you’re just gonna wing it my daughter’s gonna be there so she’ll be one down yeah yeah she knows how to work uber i’m sure that i could show her how to work that here honey now you agree to make me the pickup yeah i’ll probably walk it off because i’ll have to get up at seven o’clock there you go uh no i have the next day uh uh just a general advertisement to any uh any companies that would like to work in sponsorship with us you’re more than happy to arrange for some sign of some sort of promo code for you to uh sponsor this night um no but uh i’m last year we did an uber um we might do an uber again but this time without a fridge yes you brought a fridge like we had a fridge a full fridge last year oh yeah we brought that in as a new i guess where what where are you uh doing shakespeare’s this year that’s the location uh 918 bathurst at 918 pathers oh i can definitely walk home from it that’s excellent plan reaffirmed and noam do you have a plan for all the bribes that you seem for when people are buying you drinks um my plan is to drink as much as i can and take home the rest sort of evaluate sure who brought what and and what kind of advantage i can give them sure can you tell me again the region that you said was your favorite those are the those are the the lighter sweeter ones yeah most of the islands which are more peaty and smoky that’s what my wife likes so that’s that also works um you know if you want to talk specific distilleries we can get into that as well last year i i was enlisted to bring a cooler uh so for storage for the to help out with the bar so i i arrived on my bike with a cooler um uh what’s the the straps that stretch in the bungee cord yes um uh which then meant that i i biked home at the end of the night i left the cooler because i had to pick that up later on but the uh the bike ride home was um was it was interesting it was pouring rain it was it was uh it wasn’t pouring by the time i left it wasn’t pouring but by the time we left it was yeah victoria have you ever been able to be a contestant in shakespeare’s one day i when the day comes that this task is taken off of my shoulders and uh it is able to function on its own which is not far away then i will compete on behalf of spur of the moment and make this happen that day is not today coming 20 30 30 like the amount of like that should sell some tickets as it is like for the first time well here’s the thing um we do test nights uh in order to make this happen so and like i would not run this event if i had not tried it on my own and had my ass handed to me on my own several times um that being said i it is like it is something that i look forward to absolutely and will shit my pants in fear justifiably so yes well thank you so much you guys i’m looking forward to that this year this has been a homebody productions production
