By DrFran Babcock
On Sunday August 25, 2013 the Annual Bard on the Beach was
held on the Nowhereville sim. Over 40 audience members watched in delight as
several avatars read pieces, comic and tragic, from the works of William
Shakespeare.
Many of the performers were from the Avatar Repertory
Theater (ART) group who have provided years of Shakespeare productions in
Second Life™. The event itself was part of Storyfests SL and Stories Unlimited.
The offerings were diverse, and even included a scene from The Merchant of
Venice performed in Spanish.
Crap Mariner, who owns the Nowhereville sim, provided a
Stratford-on-Avon based stage, and the seating was arranged by Mr. Mariner and
Cale (Caledonia Skytower). The audience had been told to silence all noisy
gestures, to sit, and to remove HUDS, etc. The amazing thing was how
well-behaved and respectful the crowd was. I have been to hundreds of SL
events, and there is always someone who disturbs the calm, but not at Bard on
the Beach.
A lot of the credit for this goes to the organizer and Emcee Cale, for setting the tone, appearing in a lovely gown, and role
modeling the reverence towards the players. Her leadership had us all sitting
on the edge of our pillows, listening and learning.
Freda Frostbite provided a Sonnet Break twice, with
selections of some of the more well known poems, and some more obscure. Of
course, she recited Sonnet 18: “Shall I compare thee to a summer’s day,” in
honor of it being August.
Crap was the finale, with a serious and superb reading of
Prospero’s soliloquy from The Tempest. He then suggested a Sonnet Challenge in
which the audience called out numbers of sonnets to perform. Members of the
company did their readings of the requested sonnets. The “Sonnet Smackdown” was
excellent fun. Cale suggested that it be a weekly event, and be entitled: The
Challenge of the Hams. The crowd was unable to pick a winner, because they all
were so good, but finally settled on the honey-voiced Corwyn Allen after a
sudden-death reading of Sonnet 151 against the other finalist, Crap Mariner.
Speaking of Crap: He read his Prospero monologue like the
pro he is, but couldn’t help bringing the Angel of Death and Elvis on stage
while he performed in the Sonnet Challenge.
Good, wholesome culture, and great fun.
Here is what was on the menu I hope you can make it next
year:
Scenes from The Merry
Wives of Windsor (Act II, Scene 1) and King John (Act II, Scene 1):
with Ada Radius and Avajean Westland
Sonnet Break!: with Freda Frostbite
"The Duke of Bridgewater presents his interpretation of
Hamlet's Soliloquy" from Mark
Twain's Huckleberry Finn: with BigRed Coyote
A Midsummer Night's
Dream (Act II, Scene 1): with Ada Radius and Avajean Westland
The Merchant of
Venice (Act I, Scene 2): with Ada Radius and Avajean Westland
The Merchant of
Venice (Act I, Scene 3): with Yunus Nyn (In Spanish, English translation
provided)
Sonnet Break!:
with Freda Frostbite
Titus Andronicus (Act
III, Scene 1): with Kayden Oconnell
Hamlet (Act III,
Scene 3): with Caledonia Skytower and Em Jannings
As You Like It (Act 3, Scene 2): with Bhelanna Blaze and
Roderic Unplugged
MacBeth (Act I,
Scene 7): with Gyro Muggins
Scenes from Much Ado
About Nothing "How Two Wayward Wits Fall in Love": with
Caledonia Skytower and Kayden Oconnell
Selection from The
Tempest Prospero’s sililoquy: with Crap Mariner
StoryFest:
http://storyfest2011.blogspot.com/
Children of War:
http://www.warchild.ca
The charity for the event.
DrFran Babcock
