Interactive Performances Bring Shakespeare to Life During MC’s 45th Annual Festival Showcase

John Henry Sullivan, a Mississippi College student, performs as Prospero in MC’s 2020 Shakespeare Festival production of “The Tempest.” (Photo courtesy of Madison Brown Dean)

The Shakespeare Festival Showcase, celebrating 45 years of the annual festival at Mississippi College, promises to be unlike any theatrical presentation of the renowned English playwright’s sonnets and scenes ever witnessed in Clinton.

A soliloquy in Klingon. Andy Griffith’s take on Romeo and Juliet. Poems set to modern music and dance.

The performance of some of William Shakespeare’s best-known work, scheduled for 7:30 p.m. on Tuesday, Feb. 28, in the Jean Pittman Williams Recital Hall in Aven Hall, is an effort to bring the 16th century’s greatest showman to life for a 21st-century audience.

David G. Miller, professor in the Department of English and Philosophy and director of the Honors Program at MC, will be the Master of Ceremonies to introduce each act, which will be taken primarily from Shakespeare’s sonnets and plays – but with a twist.

“We will have some performers in the audience,” said Victoria Hendren Myers, assistant director of the showcase. The senior English literature major and theatre and Spanish minor from Millington, Tennessee, fondly remembers attending a performance of “Much Ado About Nothing” that did the same. “When it’s their cue, the actors will stand up and start performing. We don’t want a ‘fourth wall,’ so they will be among the audience.

“We don’t want the actors just to be performing on stage. We want the audience to have a much more engaging experience.”

It’s a radical approach that Shakespeare himself would approve of, according to Phyllis W. Seawright, assistant professor of theater in the Department of Communication at MC and director of the showcase. After all, he was among the first to break the fourth wall regularly in his plays.

“Many people are intimidated by Shakespeare because of the language, and they don’t find it to be much fun,“ said Seawright, a board member of the Arts Council of Clinton and the Brick Street Players. “We want to make Shakespeare more relatable. Having different forms of his work, songs, and dance shows Shakespeare can be fun and easy to understand.”

While discussing Shakespeare with her colleagues and students, Seawright discovered individuals with unique perspectives on the “Unshaven Maven of Stratford-Upon-Avon.” Robert Burgess, assistant library director and electronic resources librarian in the Leland Speed Library, could deliver a killer version of Hamlet in the Klingon language. Edward L. Mahaffey, professor of Christian Studies, could render a hilarious look into Shakespeare’s most famous love story as told by one of America’s most beloved television stars.

They will both appear in the production, as will a number of other faculty, staff, students, and children of MC employees. Music composed by Claire Holley for MC’s 2020 production of “The Tempest” will be used, as will new music inspired by Shakespeare’s Sonnet 44 composed by M. Wright Whitney using Garageband, originally for an Introduction to Theatre class at MC.

“We plan to interweave song, dance, and monologue throughout the performance,” Seawright said. “We’ll keep the rhythm going and change the tempo - it’ll be lively and we’ll maintain the energy.

“The evening will start with comedy, move toward more serious monologues and themes, and end with something that will make the audience feel good and leave them wanting more.”

She said the performance is the sole fund-raiser for MC’s Shakespeare Festival Fund, which supports campus performances and lectures by visiting professors. Myers said the fund helps students discover Shakespeare isn’t as distant as he may seem.

“A lot of the topics he writes about are still relevant today,” she said. “We use a lot of his language, and his insults and comedic phrases are woven into our English.”

Some of these expressions, for example: Seen better days. Cruel to be kind. The be-all and end-all. Foregone conclusion. Wild-goose chase. The world is his oyster. Eaten out of house and home.

“We do find that some theater students are intimidated by Shakespeare and don’t even audition,” Seawright said. “This showcase is a way to demonstrate to our students that Shakespeare can be a lot of fun.”

George and Alicia Pittman founded MC’s annual Shakespeare Festival in 1978. George Pittman taught Shakespeare for many years; his classroom in Nelson Hall eventually became a replica of the Globe Theatre because of all the class projects created in it by his students.

Following the performance, cake will be served in the foyer of Aven Hall in tribute to Pittman, who enjoyed the British tradition of strawberries and cream at outdoor performances he attended during his frequent travels to England. Attendees are not required to dress in period attire, but Shakespeare-era cosplay is welcome.

General admission tickets cost $10 or $5 each for students, MC employees, and senior adults. For more information or to purchase tickets, call 601.925.3453 or email Seawright at seawrigh@mc.edu.