July 2011
1 post
Tickets on sale for SOLO TALES OF TERROR
You can now purchase tickets for The Magic Circle Theater Company’s first Fringe production, Solo Tales of Terror: Lovecraft & Stoker. Chris Morse performs his chilling adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s “The Statement of Randolph Carter” and Josh Hitchens performs his terrifying Stoker’s Dracula. We are bringing Halloween to the Philly Fringe!
Tickets are $20 and...
May 2011
1 post
Philly Fringe - Solo Tales of Terror!
I am pleased to announce that The Magic Circle Theater Company will be mounting its very first Philly Fringe show in collaboration with local actor and playwright Chris Morse: Solo Tales of Terror!
H.P. Lovecraft’s The Statement of Randolph Carter, Adapted and Performed by Chris Morse
Stoker’s Dracula, Adapted and Performed by Josh Hitchens, Directed by Ken Jordan
Two classics of...
March 2011
1 post
Writing "Kings"
After nearly a year of work, the script for Magic Circle’s Kings is nearly finished. Now the director (Ken Jordan) will take a look at it and we’ll see what changes grow from that. It’s been a very interesting writing experience for me, and I’m very excited and happy with the shape the play has taken. It really feels like a play of its own now, not just an editing of the...
January 2011
1 post
"Cymbeline" in New York City →
Sounds like a very intriguing production of a very difficult Shakespeare play. I’m going to try and get up to New York to see it. I think it would be very inspiring. Above is a link to the New York Times rave review.
I also want to see Classic Stage Company’s production of Chekhov’s Three Sisters with Maggie Gyllenhaal as Masha and Peter Sarsgaard as Vershinin. The...
December 2010
1 post
NYTimes - When Familiar Words Are Heard Anew →
Blog’s been quiet over the last few months! Announcements to come soon.
In the meantime, here is a really interesting article in the New York Times by Ben Brantley. It’s about what I think every company who does classical theatre reaches for.
October 2010
2 posts
Watch Patrick Stewart's MACBETH →
I just finished watching Rupert Goold’s film of Macbeth, starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood. As mentioned in the last post, I saw this production on Broadway and was eagerly awaiting the film version. Now I’ve seen a lot of great film Macbeths, including the Ian McKellen/Judi Dench version, the RSC film with Antony Sher, and Roman Polanski’s. This film is the best...
Patrick Stewart's MACBETH on PBS
In 2008, as I was preparing to direct Macbeth for Magic Circle, I made a trip to Broadway to see British director Rupert Goold’s production starring Patrick Stewart and Kate Fleetwood. I came out of the theater three hours later stunned. That production remains one of the best productions of Shakespeare I’ve ever seen, and it was a huge influence for me when I directed the play. ...
September 2010
9 posts
Shakespeare Paintings by John Link
Last night, while I was searching through images of Richard III, I came across these beautiful paintings of Shakespeare’s characters by John Link. Here are a few of my favorites:
Hamlet and Old Hamlet
Feste
Imogen
Malvolio
Ophelia
Sir Andrew Aguecheek
King Lear
Viola and Sebastian
And of course, Richard III
You can see all of the paintings here.
John Webster's THE DUCHESS OF MALFI - Philadelphia...
If you love classical theatre, or theatre at all, go see the Philadelphia Artist’s Collective’s magnificent production of John Webster’s The Duchess of Malfi. It is unforgettable, and the best piece of theatre that I have ever seen. I really mean that. I just saw it tonight for the second time, and I would happily go again. Tickets are only $15. The show closes on October...
Dramaturgy Post #1 - The Story So Far
So I’ve started to delve into the dramaturgy for Henry VI and Richard III. It’s been very enlightening so far. I’m really starting to see these characters as very specific people in my head. Because of the history there is so much detailed information about them. Of course Shakespeare ignored the facts whenever he felt like it, but I’m finding a lot that is relevant to...
Next for Magic Circle - HENRY VI and RICHARD III
The Magic Circle Theater Company presents
HENRY VI and RICHARD III
by William Shakespeare
Directed by Josh Hitchens and Ken Jordan
June 10 - 26 at The Shubin Theatre
“Thy kingdom is a bloody slaughterhouse.” Henry V is dead. His only son is crowned Henry VI when he is nine months old. England is ripped apart by civil war as two families scheme and murder to get the crown. ...
"What heir of York is left alive but me?"
In this proposed adaptation of HENRY VI and RICHARD III, we would have 10 actors playing 27 different characters. It striking to go through the list of characters and see that almost all of them are murdered. And all the women survive except for Lady Anne, who is done for the second she marries Richard. Queen Margaret, Queen Elizabeth, and the Duchess of York all walk away alive. KING HENRY VI,...
"Thy beauty, that did haunt me in my sleep..."
One of the most famous scenes in all of Shakespeare in Richard’s successful wooing of Lady Anne. Lady Anne is the daughter of Warwick, one of the great political heavies of HENRY VI. Towards the end of that play Warwick marries her to Prince Edward, Margaret’s son. Richard kills Warwick, Prince Edward, and her father-in-law Henry VI. And in one scene Richard turns her around like a doll and...
"Art thou my son?"
Another soap opera angle: In HENRY VI you get to see how bad Richard can be. And in RICHARD III, you get to meet his mother. The Duchess of York is almost like Mommie Dearest. And she would be played by the same actor that plays York. Queen Margaret and the Duchess of York are shadows of one another. Queen Margaret is everything the Duchess of York is not. She is outspoken in political...
Notes on HENRY VI & RICHARD III
One of the proposals for our next production in Spring 2011 is to do Shakespeare’s Henry VI (three plays adapted into one) and Richard III in repertory, with a ensemble of ten actors. I’ve been working a lot this past week editing the text and really diving in. Even if we don’t end up doing the plays next year, I want to start posting some of my notes of the texts as I am...
August 2010
6 posts
Shakespeare in the Philly Fringe →
Great article on interesting spins on Shakespeare being presented in this year’s Philadelphia Live Arts/Fringe Festival. I really am excited to see Plays & Players’ staging of Titus Andronicus, featuring Magic Circle alumni Chris Morse (Malvolio in Twelfth Night) and Ryan Walter (Duncan/Doctor in Macbeth).
“You can’t ignore the language, but there is also the truth. And without...”
– Claire Bloom, Shakespeare’s Women & Claire Bloom. Available on Netflix Instant Play!
HENRY V - The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater
I saw this production opening night, and it’s been selling out ever since. This Henry V is one of the best productions of Shakespeare I’ve ever seen. The directing is great, the ensemble acting is pretty much flawless. But this production, more than any Shakespeare I’ve ever seen, vividly shows the audience in a very insightful and entertaining way exactly why Shakespeare...
Director's Notebook #7 - Watching Twelfth Night
Last night, Ken and I watched the DVD of Magic Circle’s Twelfth Night. Since I had to jump into the role of Toby Belch in the last week of rehearsal, I had never gotten to see the play in performance. From being inside the machine, I felt that it was a very good production, that it was very close to what I wanted it to be as a director. So I was a little afraid to watch it from the outside. I...
“There is a certain ambition for a very naked exposed truth about humans in...”
– Deborah Warner, Director.
This quote is my Director’s Manifesto. It expresses exactly what I try to do with my work. I’ve always tried to find the right words to say what I really believe in, and this is it.
June 2010
7 posts
Shakespeare's Women →
An interesting NYTimes review where a 70 year old actress takes on Shakespeare’s women. I love how it highlights the power of the language, how in Shakespeare the words are the most vital thing. It’s a lesson I keep learning again and again. Sounds like a great show, I wish I could see it.
And Magic Circle’s Twelfth Night has only four more performances! Last night was...
Director's Notebook #6 - Into the Breach
Well, it’s finally here! After five months of rehearsal and a year of planning, our production of Twelfth Night begins performances this week. As a director I couldn’t be more excited to let this one out into the world. I love this play very much, and I have never seen a version of it, filmed or live, that fully lived up to the Twelfth Night I have always imagined. Now I have, and...
TWELFTH NIGHT opens this week!
The Magic Circle Theater Company’s beach-themed production of TWELFTH NIGHT opens this week at the Shubin Theatre! Tickets are starting to sell quickly, so get yours online today at http:/magiccircletheater.ticketleap.com and see Shakespeare’s comedy of midsummer madness. $15 General Admission $10 Under 30 years old DATES Thursday June 17 @ 8pm (Preview)* Friday June 18 @ 8pm...
TWELFTH NIGHT in the Philly Theatre Examiner!
SHAKESPEARE MEETS “THE SHORE”
by Samantha Kristina Clarke
I met my best friend in our sixth grade library class. (What was a class in “library,” anyway?) She was young, pretty, thin, and a far better dresser than my norm-tomboy fare could ever imagine itself to be. One day, she asked if I knew of a boy named Jon. “Of course I do!” I replied. He and his brother were twins in my class...
Press for TWELFTH NIGHT in the Northeast Times!
Dost thou like funnel cake?
By John Loftus
Times Staff Writer
If you put William Shakespeare at the Jersey Shore in flip-flops, do you call him Bill? No, that wouldn’t be right, but still, you would have some laughs with him.
Partying, drinking, fooling around - the key ingredients of a fun week in Wildwood - are on the menu of Shakespeare’s comedy Twelfth Night, or What You...
May 2010
4 posts
Caught in the act: Juveniles sentenced to... →
From the blog of The New York Neo-Classical Ensemble, a theater company that really excites me! http://www.newyorkneo.org
A Contemporary DOLL'S HOUSE →
Sounds like a very interesting production, and this kind of work is what The Magic Circle Theater Company is all about.
An Introduction to TWELFTH NIGHT
This will probably make it into the program. It’s the best overview of the play that I have ever come across. It’s from Twelfth Night: A User’s Guide by Michael Pennington.
“Duke Orsino’s appetites are all taken up by Countess Olivia, to whom he seems barely to have spoken. In this story, noble characters will make proud speeches to each other as if discussing the...
April 2010
8 posts
Tickets on sale for TWELFTH NIGHT!
Tickets are now on sale for The Magic Circle Theater Company’s Twelfth Night or What You Will. You can get them on Ticketleap.
DATES Thursday June 17 @ 8pm (Preview)* Friday June 18 @ 8pm (Opening Night) Saturday June 19 @ 2pm & 8pm Sunday June 20 @ 2pm Monday June 21 @ 8pm (Industry Night)* Wednesday June 23 @ 8pm Thursday June 24 @ 8pm Friday June 25 @ 8pm Saturday June 26 @ 2pm...
Could the author of Shakespeare's Plays... →
An interesting article on a subject that I find mildly annoying. To me it doesn’t matter who wrote the plays, what’s important is that they are there. And all of the authorship theories I’ve heard seem fairly ridiculous. Maybe a guy named William Shakespeare just wrote some plays, you know?
Director's Notebook #5 - Seeking the Truth
Rehearsals for Twelfth Night have been going very well. We have almost the entire play blocked, and everyone is doing very complex, beautiful, and exhilarating work. As we work I am coming to grips with how hard it is to do the play well. There are so many separate worlds in the show, and the magic trick is getting all of them to seem part of the same universe. In 1.1 we meet Orsino; 1.2 is...
“As a fantasist, I dream of a theatre of heightened passions that takes me to...”
– Mary Fengar Gael, Playwright
www.fengar.com
March 2010
8 posts
Finally
Ok, as I wrote in my first entry I’m not great at writing these things. Hence, no entry for a couple of weeks. But I have an excuse, I’ve been busy. Getting Fucked by Shakespeare.
Apparently, I can’t escape the old fuck. In addition to the 12th Night that I’ve written extensively about, I am also working at The Philadelphia Shakespeare Theater’s Macbeth and...
My Twelfth Night Mixtape
So I always make playlists of music when I act or direct anything. Just finding songs that make me think of a character or a moment in the play. I’ve made a playlist of songs for each character in Twelfth Night, and I thought I would post it just for sheer randomness. Here you go, with links to the songs:
ORSINO: Jewel Box by Jeff Buckley - “I know you’re a woman by the way...
Secret Shakespeare! →
I’m totally going to see this tonight. Just because I haven’t really seen much way-outside-the-box Shakespeare. You wear a red carnation and go to Broad and Vine, where you are escorted to a secret location. Then you see five companies tackle each act of Julius Caesar with drinks and desserts in between. I’m also going to see the Theatre for a New Audience (where Julie Taymor...
Other Projects - CASSANDRA
I have the honor and pleasure to be directing a reading of Cassandra by Katharine Sherman tomorrow night. It’s part of Plays & Players Theatre’s New Play Reading Series. I’m posting about it here because Ken and I had discussed doing a modern adaptation of the Cassandra myth for Magic Circle, and then I read Katharine Sherman’s play and immediately wanted to do it. ...
Director's Notebook #4 - Youth
“Youth’s a stuff will not endure.”
That line of Feste’s keeps sticking in my head as we rehearse this Twelfth Night. With every play I direct I try and find a line in the text that sums up the story I’m trying to tell, and I think this may be the one. This production is about a group of young people who head to the beach (Illyria) to have fun, to forget their pain,...
February 2010
3 posts
Director's Notebook #3 - Discoveries
We spent a lot of time last week working on Act 1, Scene 3 (the scene that introduces Toby, Maria, and Andrew). Lots of great work done, and some exciting discoveries about the scene. The first thing was realizing just how great of a team Matt (Toby), Maria (Courtney), and Andrew (Ken) are going to be. All three are constantly challenging one another in the scene, and it’s going to be...