PDF Version and Application

Shakespeare might have met Rosencrantz and Guildenstern in the white streets of London, or seen the serving-men of rival houses bite their thumbs at each other in the open square; but Hamlet came out of his soul, and Romeo out of his passion. They were elements of his nature to which he gave visible form, impulses that stirred so strongly within him that he had, as it were perforce, to suffer them to realize their energy, not on the lower plane of actual life, where they would have been trammeled and constrained and so made imperfect, but on the imaginative plane of art where Love can indeed find in Death its rich fulfillment, where one can stab the eavesdropper behind the arras, and wrestle in a new-made grave, and make a guilty king drink his own hurt, and see one’s father’s spirit, beneath the glimpses of the moon, stalking in complete steel from wall to wall. Action being limited would have left Shakespeare unsatisfied and unexpressed, and…it is because he never speaks to us of himself in his plays that his plays reveal him to us absolutely, and show us his true nature and temperament far more completely than do those strange and exquisite sonnets….Man is least himself when he talks in his own person. Give him a mask, and he will tell you the truth.

Oscar Wilde
“The Critic as Artist,” 1891

This summer's production, The Taming of the Shrew, is a battle of the sexes that has also inspired Kiss Me Kate and Ten Things I Hate about You. It features a play within a play (in which the "taming" actually takes place) and a farcical back-and-forth that has attracted illustrious husband-and-wife casts including Mary Pickford and Douglas Fairbanks, Lynn Fontaine and Alfred Lunt, and Elizabeth Taylor and Richard Burton. (John Cleese has also played the role of Petruchio, Katherine's gold-digging tamer.) It is a play of contradictions, in which an ironic reading of Kate's final speech suggests that her subjugation is not what it seems after all, just as the device of the interpolated play "abolishes" or subverts its own frame and "becomes the play itself," as Stephen Orgel observes. The workshop concludes with a matinee performance for family, friends and other revelers at Main Street Theatre in the Village, Sunday, 17 July.

Mornings are spent developing technique (versification, characterization, movement, projection) and in rehearsal. No previous acting experience is required, but you must know your lines frontwards and backwards. Afternoons are reserved for PLAY BY PLAY, an eclectic sampling of dramatic literature on film, including plays you may be seeing for the first time such as Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, Moliere’s The Bourgeois Gentleman, Gogol’s The Government Inspector, and Mérimée’s The Golden Coach. (For a fuller description, go to PLAY BY PLAY in the Wonderworks Summer 2011 listings; PLAY BY PLAY is included in the Shakespeare and Company tuition.)

This 5-week program of learning by doing is open to students from the Houston metropolitan area who will be entering the 10th, 11th, 12th grades or college. To apply, complete the student section of the PDF form and give it to a teacher who knows you well or a counselor to fill out the recommendation section. Your teacher/counselor should mail the completed form along with an official transcript directly to:

Shakespeare and Company
Wonderworks
PO Box 667550
Houston, TX 77266-7550
Fax: 713.523.6145

To ensure full consideration, applications must be received by 31 May; early applications are encouraged. All applicants will be notified by 2 June; early applicants will be notified sooner.
If you have any questions or need additional information, call 713.301.4882 or email info@wonderworkshouston.org.

This program is made possible in part by a grant from Houston Endowment Inc.