ORIGINAL PRACTICES WORKSHOPS with Jim Warren
FlagShakes Guest Director of this summer’s Antony and Cleopatra + As You Like It
American Globe Center Founding Artistic Director
American Shakespeare Center & Blackfriars Playhouse Founder and former Artistic Director
Is William Shakespeare the genius we’re usually told he is from day one of high school?
If he is, Genius Boy was writing for a specific kind of theatrical environment that was a lot different from today’s modern theatre.
Jim has spent almost four decades going Back to the Future by re-creating the staging conditions for which Shakespeare wrote to recover the some of the joys and magic he baked into the plays that sometimes get lost when you play with all the cool technological tricks we’ve invented in the last 400+ years.
Please join Jim and FlagShakes to chat about, experience, and dive into some of Shakespeare’s Staging Conditions (Original Practices):
Shared Light
Thrust Staging
Inviting the Audience into the World of the Play
Actors Playing Multiple Roles
Live Unplugged Music
Live Unplugged Sound Effects
Rotating Repertory
Embedded Stage Directions
We’ll have TWO workshops: one for ACTORS and one for DIRECTORS to explore these provocative, practical principles from these two different perspectives. Discover how Shakespeare’s Staging Conditions allow the plays to come alive as visceral, vital Theatre of the Imagination rather than trying to be movies onstage.
FlagShakes has been using Original Practices for many years; let’s have some fun playing with the what/why/how.
More info about Jim Warren: jimwarren-director.com
More info about Jim Warren’s passion project to build a re-creation of Shakespeare’s 1614 Globe theatre: americanglobecenter.org
Over the course of his career, Jim Warren has directed over 200 productions, produced and cast over 300 shows, coached thousands of actors, built a theatre company from a $500 student-start-up to a four-million-dollar Equity playhouse, led touring troupes through 47 states and six countries, mentored dozens of developing theatres, and taught students of all ages the power promised by Theatre of the Imagination. Jim founded the American Shakespeare Center when he was twenty-two years old (built the Blackfriars Playhouse in 2001), retiring in 2017 to pursue a solo career as a consultant, director, author, and educator. He is looking for his next adventure, one in which he can bring the skills he's acquired, the knowledge he's gained, and the experience he's gathered to a new project to collaborate with a new team, new community.
This quest includes his passion project — building the nascent American Globe Center (AGC) — which will include the world’s only timber frame re-creation of Shakespeare’s 1614 Globe theatre, the AGC Playhouse (a modern performing arts and education center with state-of-the-art mainstage and blackbox), a visual arts gallery, gathering areas, gardens, and green space.​ The AGC campus will be an inclusive home for the arts, rooted in its community and reaching across the world to bring lovers of theatre and Shakespeare together in one of several locations under consideration. Jim has proven the Globe will work. From programming to community revitalization to building a re-creation of a Shakespeare theatre, the first 30 years of his career at the American Shakespeare Center are proof of concept. The American Globe Center is the culmination of Jim’s experience as a director, a leader, and a visionary.