That Shakespeare Voice

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Samuel Taylor (author of My Life with the Shakespeare Cult, Blueprints for a Shakespeare Cult, and co-founder of the Back Room Shakespeare Project) and Jasmine Bracey (actor, teacher, and stakeholder in Back Room Shakes) talk about their new online class, “Spitting Out the ‘Shakespeare Voice'”, which breaks down the racist and colonizing ways in which speaking Shakespeare’s language is taught — and gives students and actors new ways of finding and utilizing their authentic voices. Featuring a breakdown (in every sense) of the teachings of Edith Skinner; delighting in Shakespeare’s language like jazz; the danger of asserting the dominance of a certain culture; the frustration of overcoming barriers to authenticity in a world of pretend; showing multiple facets of an actor’s diamond; possible textual evidence for the only two characters in the canon who can legitimately use a “mid-Atlantic” accent; the importance of not being complicit; the beauty of experiencing and speaking Shakespeare’s words authentically, especially if he’s the greatest playwright in the English-speaking western canon; the distinction of holding the mirror up to nature but not telling you what to see in it; and breaking down the idea that there’s only one correct way to speak the speech. Speak YOUR speech! (Length 33:46)

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