BY LUCIA MAUROA
Mara Polster, founder-artistic director of The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, admits she did not initially set out to establish a theatre company. She wanted to give her fellow Equity actors, with strong classical-drama training, more opportunities to perform and earn professional wages.
"The purpose was to serve this community of Equity actors with expertise in Shakespeare," she says, "who were not getting cast in Shakespearean productions around the city."
That was in May 1995. The group began reading two plays per month, gathering for one night and reading the play aloud together followed by a discussion. These meetings soon expanded to include methods of working, the group’s direction as a whole and the possibility of exploring other classic playwrights. Over those first six months, members of The Shakespeare Project presented workshops of Titus Andronicus, Comedy of Errors, Henry VIII, Two Noble Kinsmen, Julius Caesar, Two Gentlemen of Verona, Othello, Loves Labours Lost, King Lear, Pericles and Macbeth.
Then Polster realized that, in addition to providing opportunities for members of Actors Equity, she could serve the general public and educational system by offering free theatrical readings to seniors, students and anyone who could not afford tickets to higher-priced Shakespearean productions.
Polster traces her passion for the Bard to her late uncle who was a teacher, poet and mathematician.
"When I started acting in my junior year of high school," says Polster, "my uncle told me, if you go into theatre, don’t forget about Shakespeare."
She received a BFA in musical theatre from Webster Conservatory of Theatre in St. Louis. When Polster’s uncle became ill and could no longer go out to see plays, she thought about reading the plays out loud for persons suffering from waning eyesight, illness or other disabilities as well as individuals with a keen appreciation for the words. Early on, she looked to ShawChicago—which conducts free staged readings of works by George Bernard Shaw, many at the Chicago Cultural Center—and felt that this unadorned format really made actors and audiences focus on the language.
In its first year, The Shakespeare Project produced a radio version of its reading of Macbeth as a Halloween special for CRIS Radio. It was then performed as the troupe’s first public staged reading at Berger Park Cultural Arts Center and attracted about 20 people, mainly seniors. Its second public reading of The Merchant of Venice attracted a similar crowd.
One opportunity led to another, and the theatrical readings grew into one play per month at the Chicago Cultural Center. By early 1996, the readings were presented free to the public on Sunday afternoons. The first reading drew 65 viewers with a broad demographic. The artists were then approached by the program coordinator of the Berger Park Cultural Center to provide a similar series to its patrons—paid for by the Chicago Park District. Readings ranged from Comedy of Errors to Coriolanus. Later that year, The Shakespeare Project formed a board of directors and filed incorporation papers.
One of the company’s most successful series included all the history plays (with the addition of Christopher Marlowe’s Edward II), performed in chronological order in 1997 and sponsored by the Chicago Park District, Berger Park Cultural Center, Chicago Public Library/Harold Washington Center and a grant from the Illinois Arts Council. This series served as a successful audience builder and educational tool.
On Shakespeare’s birthday, the company presented a theatrical reading of Much Ado About Nothing to over 300 high school and college students at Oakton Community College, funded by Oakton’s program board and honors program.
Audiences continued to expand, and the Harold Washington Library Center made an in-kind donation of its 385-seat theatre, where the company completed its readings of Shakespeare’s entire canon. Polster acknowledges that she would like to take the company to the next level of full productions. And The Shakespeare Project has performed complete stagings of Hamlet and My Name Is Will, Peter Garino’s adaptation of the Bard’s sonnets and songs. But budget and time are major concerns.
"Money had been cut from the park," explains Polster. "So every show is on a very tight budget. It’s really important to me to be paying the actors competitively. At some point, we would like to do bigger productions. As much as we like the readings, there’s a certain frustration with only getting to the reading stage."
One way to satisfy the actors’ performance needs has been to extend the length of the theatrical-reading runs. Polster also has devised an intense rehearsal process in response to limited rehearsal time. Actors receive their scripts well in advance. By the first reading, they know the play’s history and their character’s motivations. They start blocking on the day of the first read-through, and eventually crunch the blocking period into six or seven hours.
"It requires very astute preparation on the part of the director," says Polster. "But the actors have to show up ready to go."
She is in the process of programming abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays to bring into the schools. The Shakespeare Project will premiere its 50-Minute Hamlet, adapted by actor David Skidmore, in April at the Harold Washington Library Center and Berger Park Cultural Center. It’s a two-person play, with Hamlet and an actress playing different roles, and highlights the major soliloquies.
The rest of the 2001-02 season consists of a reading earlier this month of Julius Caesar for National Book Week; a holiday reading of Twelfth Night, which was Shakespeare’s Christmas gift to Queen Elizabeth, Dec. 8-16; and Romeo and Juliet for Valentine’s weekend, Feb. 9 and 10.
The Shakespeare Project remains in the service of the text and the actors who speak those words. "There are a lot of producers who try to figure out how not to have to pay Equity actors," says Polster. "We are about employing only Equity actors and making sure they’re paid an Equity wage."
For more information about The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, call 773/334-TSP1.