We decided last Friday to spend some time exploring parts of the play that interest us on our feet, and a few people came in tonight with ideas of things to work! We began with Act V scene i, the ubiquitous sleepwalking scene with Lady Macbeth. The woman reading Lady pulled two others in to play the Gentlewoman and the Doctor, and they did not hold back. The woman playing the Gentlewoman was super sassy! We loved it. The woman reading Lady clearly understood what she was doing intellectually, although she rushed through her lines. Even so, we got a lot out of the scene.

We moved on from the Porter into the rest of Act II scene iii tonight. In this scene, the murder of Duncan is discovered, Macbeth kills the guards, and Malcolm and Donalbain flee. As we finished reading, one woman said, “Hey, there’s three again!” calling our attention to Macbeth having now killed three people. The conversation focused on interpreting Macbeth’s and Lady’s actions. “He’s actually thinking for himself and not just doing what his wife tells him to,” said one woman. “Maybe killing Duncan triggered something for him,” said another. “Maybe he liked [the thrill of getting away with something].” I suggested that maybe he wasn’t thinking clearly, still traumatized from murdering Duncan. “Maybe he is thinking clearly,” mused the first woman. “It makes sense to kill them so they can’t expose him… Why didn’t Lady Macbeth think of this?”

Tonight began with an ensemble member who is about to go home stopping by to return her books and say goodbye. She said that Shakespeare was the best part of her time in prison, that she felt that she’d grown because of it, and she thanked me. And I thanked her! We talked a bit about the kind of progress she made last year, and it is clear that her work in Shakespeare has made a difference. We’ll miss her, but it’s very exciting that she’s going home. We wish her the best of luck!

We begin and end every meeting with our Ring exercise, in which we lower a ring of positive light and energy and spread it around the room. As we finished lowering and spread out, an inmate poked her head into the auditorium to watch. “I wanna be in this class!” she exclaimed. We began by reviewing Act I Scene vii, as a number of people left early on Friday and missed much of our discussion. A new member recommended reading the contemporary language before each session because that has made it easier for her to grasp the Shakespeare when it’s read aloud. “You’ll be like, ‘Oh, my God!’” she said.

We got right down to reading tonight, beginning with Act I scene iv, in which Duncan praises Macbeth and Banquo and makes Malcolm the Prince of Cumberland. It’s a brief scene, and we were struck by Macbeth’s immediate response to Malcolm’s promotion; he sort of talks around what he’s thinking about. “All these dark things are in his mind, but he doesn’t want to say it yet,” said one woman. Others remarked how much Duncan likes Macbeth. A long time member smiled sardonically and said, “Yeah, Othello liked Iago, too.”

It was great to officially get started tonight! We had a meeting last week to give our newbies a sense of what the group is all about and how we operate, and most of them were back. We began with our now-traditional “three questions:” What brings you to Shakespeare? What do you hope to get out of this experience? What is the gift that you bring?

From July 10-21, 2017, Assistant Director Kyle Grant, with frequent support from Director Frannie Shepherd-Bates, facilitated SIP’s first-ever program with incarcerated men at Parnall Correctonal Facility in Jackson, Michigan. These are Frannie’s reflections on the experience. Kyle’s are in the entry below this one. Following Kyle’s beautiful recap about our first ever program with men, I wanted to share some thoughts as well! I was not able to be present for every meeting, but I was there quite a bit. I felt completely folded into the ensemble, honored to be a part of the work, and deeply moved by the whole experience.

From July 10-21, 2017, Assistant Director Kyle Grant, with frequent support from Director Frannie Shepherd-Bates, facilitated SIP’s first-ever program with incarcerated men at Parnall Correctonal Facility in Jackson, Michigan. These are Kyle’s reflections on the experience. It’s difficult to sum up the entirety of the experience over these past two weeks. I can only start by reiterating the same sentiment I and the other facilitators have rehashed a hundred times over the past couple years: I am completely humbled by the privilege of working with Shakespeare in Prison.

Our third performance was the smoothest yet! We flew through the play with very few hiccups and still managed to finish with plenty of time to get our supplies organized to take back out. The ensemble worked together beautifully as a team, as usual. To be completely honest, though, I was in a bit of a fog, having just learned of the passing of one of our past co-facilitators, and I am having trouble remembering specific anecdotes to tell you. I do think it’s notable, though, that even as I’m having trouble remembering specific things that were positive, I don’t remember anything negative at all.

Everyone arrived tonight nervous but eager to perform. We got things organized, got into costume, and circled up to remind each other to have fun and focus on just getting from the beginning of the play to the end. We got started on time and launched enthusiastically into the performance in front of a smiling and upbeat audience.

This final week of dress rehearsal saw some of the calmest and most empathic collaboration that I have witnessed in the past five years of being in this ensemble. We had a couple of unexpected absences and early departures on Tuesday, and both the ensemble members and the facilitators threw ourselves into quick thinking to fill the gaps so the play could keep moving. We are getting more solid on the logistics of costumes, props, and scene transitions, so we were able to cut time off of our run again, although we didn’t quite finish the play. I encouraged the group not to stress out – that continuing to cut time is a very good thing, and that, now that our transitions have sped up, we can focus on picking up the pace in our line delivery and responses to one another. I continued to push the idea that as long as we can make it from beginning to end, we will have done our jobs. I asked if everyone would be in favor of doing a “speed through” on Friday, and we all agreed that that was a good idea.

We brought costumes and props in tonight, which is always exciting even if a little chaotic. As we began to unload and set up, one of the ensemble members approached me and let me know that our Anne got in some trouble and might not be able to perform with us. When Anne arrived, she confirmed this; the exact timeline going forward is unclear, but she will almost definitely not be present for all three performances.

We were thrilled tonight to welcome some folks from a local news station as we began a work-through of the play. Although some of us were nervous to begin with, we found it relatively easy to get past that and have a great rehearsal. I was running around quite a bit and didn’t take many notes, but the theme of the night was patience and team work. We’ve been away from some of these scenes for a while, and people took good care of each other as we refreshed and refined. Some ensemble members are also becoming more and more aware of how scenes are functioning artistically. “We’re getting all bunched up,” one woman said at one point, encouraging the others on stage with her to spread out in a way that would be more visually pleasing.

We continued our work through of the play tonight, arriving at the final scenes in Richard’s and Richmond’s camps and on the battle field. These scenes are pretty straightforward, so most of our work was simply reviewing and refining blocking – we initially staged these scenes in the classroom where we sometimes work, and we needed to get on the same page about some details.

Facilitators were held up for a while at security today, which usually promises a delayed start for the group. With so much to do before performance, there wasn’t time to waste, so facilitators hustled over to the programs building, anxious to make up the time. Inside the auditorium, the curtains were drawn and a scene was being rehearsed: a conversation between Hastings and Catesby that sets up Hastings’s demise. The two women were speaking with confidence and poise, but then a voice cut in at a key moment: “Wait. Who are you saying that to?”

Tonight I had a series of individual conversations with members of our ensemble while Kyle got the group going by reviewing the scene we ended with on Friday. That strengthened, we moved on to the scene in which the Murderers come for Clarence. We were missing our First Murderer, but we decided to work the scene anyway.

Tonight began with a discussion about our options for next season’s play. We reviewed the themes of each play we were considering and then did an anonymous vote. We ended up in a tie between Macbeth and As You Like It, with three people voting for other plays. The ensemble wanted an immediate decision, and our general policy is that decisions get made by the people in the room (unless it predominantly affects one person), so those three ensemble members voted again to break the tie. We ended up with Macbeth. Most of us are very excited about it. Others are a little disappointed, but no one threatened to leave the group or anything! One woman is upset only because she will be leaving prison before the final performance, and she is really intrigued by the play. I hope she’ll stay with us for the exploration part of the season.

Before we began tonight, I checked in the woman who, at this point, has been in the group longer than anyone but me. I had some questions for her about ways in which the group has changed operationally over the last few years, and she provided a lot of insight, as she always does. She was very firm about the positive impact that the program has had on her, saying, “It’s given me humanity,” and that, as she is going home soon, she is already grieving its loss. She said that prison hasn’t been an entirely negative experience for her – “Certainly not the worst time in my life,” she said. She feels that she created the chaos that led her here, and she is confident that, because of the skills she’s learned in prison (including in Shakespeare), she will not be coming back.

Tonight we were thrilled to welcome Patrick Hanley for a visit. Patrick is a stage combat choreographer, and he volunteered to choreograph the big showdown between Richard and Richmond. Everyone got a taste of fencing and had a great time. The ensemble decided that this fight should be solely between Richard and Richmond – they felt that any other fighting would be distracting. So while the three of them worked, the rest of us huddled up to resolve some casting issues.

I was out of town during our last meeting, and I used some of my time to put together a list of potential cuts to the script. I have sensed the group wanting to move forward more quickly with staging, and growing frustration with the cutting process. They verified this when I asked them if my instinct was correct. I made sure to note to everyone that this was a list of suggestions, and that any/all of them could be rejected.