Spring Shakespeare performance brings audience members to their feet at Mississippi College

Renowned playwright William Shakespeare was known for his clever dialogue and innovative plotlines that kept his Elizabethan audience members – known as Groundlings – on their feet.

Those attending Mississippi College’s Pittman Shakespeare Festival production this spring will share a similar experience.

The MC Department of Communication and the MC Department of English and Philosophy will present “Shakespearean Scenes and Things: An Immersive Theatrical Experience!” at 5 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday, April 5 and 6, starting at the Piazza outside Jennings Hall on the Clinton campus. The performances are free of charge, but donations are appreciated.

Directed by Sarah Hankins, an MC Department of Communication adjunct faculty member, the production will lead the audience to several campus locations, including the Kugel and the fountain inside the Jennings Hall Courtyard. Hankins said attendees should wear comfortable shoes for the “mobile” style of theater.

“Unlike usual productions where the audience remains stationary for the entire performance, our audience will start by enjoying some refreshments and desserts in the Piazza and will move about with the actors,” she said. “There’s going to be more actor-audience interaction.

“Shakespeare was innovative in his endeavors back during the Renaissance, so this is something we wanted to try. Rather than doing a full-length Shakespearean show, we wanted to do short scenes rather than being in one place all the time.

“We figured, why not try something new?”

Most of the performers will be Mississippi College undergraduate and graduate students, but one scene will include students in the Competitive Theater Group from Clinton High School.

Hankins chose to include famous scenes from some of “the Bard’s” most well-known works – like “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet” – as well as a few less-appreciated gems from “Much Ado About Nothing” and “The Taming of the Shrew.” The performance will also include a short monologue from “King Lear” and a sonnet recitation.

Hankins said some of the scenes will be performed in “full Shakespearean fashion” while in others, actors will wear modern costumes or speak in a more modern dialogue. A reimagined scene from “Romeo and Juliet” was adapted by Taylor Smith, a Clinton High School student, as part of a class project.

“I hope the audience experiences something that’s fun and innovative and different,” Hankins said. “Shakespeare is supposed to be interactive. We study him in high school and college and his work can sometimes seem like it’s just words on a page. I want these characters to come alive and for the audience to have that interactive experience that Groundlings would have had back during the Renaissance.”

The production is part of the MC English Department’s George and Alicia Pittman Shakespeare Festival, which honors a pair of MC graduates who founded MC’s annual festival in 1978 and supported the spring event for decades.

“George Pittman taught Shakespeare for many years,” said Kristi Melancon, MC professor and chair of the Department of English and Philosophy. “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.”

Hankins enjoys the challenge of bringing the works of Shakespeare to a modern audience.

“There is a language barrier because the dialogue is written in iambic pentameter,” she said. “I challenge my actors to really know what they’re saying. If they’re just saying the words, the audience won’t understand what they’re performing.

“These characters, they are us. Shakespeare wrote about the people around him, and that hasn’t changed throughout the years. Only the language has.”

For more information about the production, email Hankins at shankins@mc.edu.