This session began with a reunion. One ensemble member was the first to arrive, and I was especially excited to see her after she had taken a short break from the program. As we caught up, I told our new facilitators, Lulu and Olivia, about her talent for writing lyrics. Almost immediately, that turned into an idea: what if King Lear began with a rap that summarized the story?

It was only one idea, but it was a preview of where the ensemble would take us that night.

Once we gathered in the ring, ensemble members introduced themselves to Lulu and Olivia by sharing some of their experiences with Shakespeare in Prison. One participant reflected, “I always wanted to act since I was a little kid and now I have the courage to do so.” Another shared, “I got out of my comfort zone,” while someone who had never acted before SIP explained, “Before this I never did any acting, but this is really fun.”

These introductions became small reminders of how differently people enter this ensemble. Some arrive with years of interest in theatre. Others have never acted before. Some discover confidence they did not know they had. What connects them is the willingness to keep showing up and trying.

“I wanna talk about Shakespeare,” she announced. “I dreamed it. I want it to be creative.”

And she meant it.

The conversation quickly became a brainstorming session about what King Lear could look and feel like. Another ensemble member reflected on the differences she had noticed between audiences for our Shakespeare productions and this summer’s original writing performance: “They fell asleep in Shakespeare. But they loved the summer.”

The response from across the room was immediate: “We gotta start with action!”

So we began imagining how we could.

What if we opened King Lear with a fight pulled from later in the play before returning to the beginning? What if there were songs? Raps? Dance? What if we took some of what the ensemble discovered while creating original work this summer and carried that freedom back into Shakespeare?

One ensemble member demonstrated exactly what she meant by singing a monologue from Richard III. Her advice to everyone else was simple: “Act stupid, have fun.”

Soon another participant was singing along, and the group encouraged her to experiment with Antony’s speech as a song. As she played with the words, something changed. When we asked how it felt, she said, “It’s so active. I love it. It paints more of a picture.”

An ensemble member offered another observation: “You remember the words more when you sing it.”

Suddenly, adding music wasn’t just about making King Lear entertaining. The ensemble was discovering another way into Shakespeare’s language.

That question of accessibility continued when we talked about memorization. “The crowd is tired of us using our scripts,” one ensemble member said. It was both a challenge and an artistic goal. If we want the audience to connect more deeply to the work, how can we become more connected to it ourselves?

The night also reminded us that everyone enters Shakespeare from a different starting point. One ensemble member asked what a monologue was, opening a conversation about monologues, dialogue, and some of the basic theatrical vocabulary that more experienced members now use instinctively. Other ensemble members helped explain, offered resources, and shared what they knew.

Later, that same ensemble member volunteered to try Jacques. After her first reading, the group immediately stepped in to help unpack the context. Multiple members offered explanations, and we experimented with ways she might approach the speech differently. At first, adding direction seemed confusing. I suggested imagining that she was explaining the human life cycle to a classroom, while another ensemble member suggested giving each stage its own vocal quality.

She tried it again.

This time, she began incorporating different sounds and phrases to distinguish the stages, pulling directly from the suggestion another ensemble member had given her.

It was a small moment, but it represented so much of what we hope happens in this room: someone tries something unfamiliar, the ensemble helps her understand it, another artist offers an idea, and she decides what she can use to make the work her own.

We are still at the very beginning of King Lear. We don’t know yet whether there will be a rap prologue, a fight at the top of the show, songs, dances, paper costumes, or any of the other ideas that filled the room that night. We do know that the ensemble is already asking how we can make this Shakespeare our own.

“I wanna talk about Shakespeare. I dreamed it. I want it to be creative.”

That’s a pretty good place to start.