Performing Shakespeare Unrehearsed: A Practical Guide to Acting and Producing Spontaneous Shakespeare

Performing Shakespeare Unrehearsed: A Practical Guide to Acting and Producing Spontaneous Shakespeare outlines how Shakespeare’s plays can be performed effectively without rehearsal, if all the actors understand a set of performance guidelines and put them into practice.

Each chapter is devoted to a specific guideline, demonstrating through examples how it can be applied to pieces of text from Shakespeare’s First Folio, how it creates blocking and stage business, and how it enhances story clarity. Once the guidelines have been established, practical means of production are discussed, providing the reader with sufficient step-by-step instruction to prepare for Unrehearsed performances.

This book is written for the actor and performer.

Bill Kincaid is a Professor of Theatre at Western Illinois University, and founder of Bard in the Barn, an event that has mounted Unrehearsed productions of 17 of Shakespeare’s plays. He has acted in Shakespeare productions at the Williamstown Theatre Festival, the New England Shakespeare Festival, and Chicago’s Vitalist Theatre, and directs regularly at the Crossroads Repertory Theatre in Indiana and New York’s Cortland Repertory Theatre. He is a three-time recipient of the Classical Acting Coach Award from the National Partners― American Theatre, and was presented with the Illinois Theatre Association’s Award of Honor in 2014.