May 23. Welcome to the Camden Shakespeare Company, a three-month adventure for 16 Duke students assembled in a seaside New England town. For the next nine weeks, we will cook together, clean together, dream together-and hopefully build a theatre company that will fill the 500-seat Camden Opera House for twenty-five performances.
Four recent Duke grads-Eamonn Farrell, Jim Sink, Andrea Davey and Melanie Moyer-cooked up this summer scheme over their senior spring break. Eamonn is directing A Midsummer Night's Dream and Othello; Melanie, formerly of Hoof 'N Horn, is our business manager. Jim, the former artistic director of Brown and Green Theatre, got us our nine-bedroom summer home and a huge amount of community support. Andrea brings extensive experience with Duke dance and theater to Maine to be our choreographer (and Othello's Desdemona).
We arrive like contestants on "Big Brother," unloading our bags, claiming beds, getting roommates, loading the fridge-and then realizing that this was for real. With no safety net, in an unfamiliar state, we have just a few weeks to assemble a three-show Shakespeare season.
June 1. Our show starts in less than a month, and we are working like machines. We have to do our own directing, acting, managing, publicizing, bookkeeping, fundraising and maintenance, not to mention the domestic chores of a family of sixteen. And the dishwasher's broken.
Promotion and advertising are hectic: We set up a website and cajole local businesses to buy ads in our programs. We tack business cards everywhere. We whip up fliers, brochures and table tents, and call area newspapers. To
June 15. These are our current tasks: live on less than $100 a week, cook for 16 people every night, memorize a scene a day, rehearse for eight hours straight, survive Maine's erratic temperatures, sing along to Lynyrd Skynyrd, convince companies to sponsor our show, work the local newspapers, sew, not break dishes in fights over who gets to wash them and make a donkey's head out of foam.
June 23. On opening night for A Midsummer Night's Dream, we have a crowd of about 70 people. The show, our first, is full of dancing, music and energy. Everyone whips across the stage and the company shines (especially the fairies, in glitter gel and sparkle makeup). The reviews are fabulous; the attendance figures are not. We need more people and we know it. We start hitting the streets in costume and set up a ticket table in the middle of Camden, hoping to lure townies and tourists.
June 25. We perform a free show in the Camden Amphitheatre, a green courtyard across from the harbor, drawing 300 spectators. Under a glimmering moon, the wind licks our costumes as we chase after lost loves and donkey heads. Our mission of melding physical action and dance with live theatre is proving successful, as illustrated by the growing list of injuries: Melanie has bruises all over her body from an ill-fated play fight. Amy Mathews-the company's lone non-Dukie, hailing from Ohio's Wittenberg University- has sore ribs from constant jumping. I popped my foot and had to sit out for a day. But there is a certain masochistic satisfaction in the physical pain of performance.
July 4. Happy Independence Day! We barbecue and hold sparklers off the porch. There is a meeting about finances: basically, we have none. We talk about options, agree to take pay cuts if necessary, and proceed as normal. Tensions in the house are rising. After an hour of held breath and steady venting, we go back to work. We start building the Othello set. Eamonn has decided to set the tragedy in the 1920s, so we try on fringe and attempt the Charleston. This should be interesting.
July 6. Aaron Snook, a '98 Duke grad who works in LA, and I teach a Shakespeare workshop at the library. Over thirty kids, aged nine to nineteen, come and dish about Big Willy and his work. Six kids end up in the amphitheatre, screaming Shakespeare to the heavens, and everyone leaves knowing that "ass" is simply another word for donkey. It's amazing to see kids discover Shakespeare, and even more impressive to listen to them play with the text in ways I never considered.
July 7. We run through Othello for the first time today. It's long and intense, and still totally raw. We have a week before it opens and we'll need to use our time well.
But alas, this episode must end on a cliffhanger. Some of us are frolicking in town right now; others are building sets, folding programs and working on the soundtrack. We recently discussed money again-we still have none. But we do have a huge house, tons of food, music and beer-and three more weekends of shows to do. And, for better or worse, we have each other: Sixteen young actors convinced that if we dream it right, we can do anything. Except maybe fix a dishwasher.
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