Touring And General Information

Der Bestrafte BRUDERMORD, or Hamlet Prince of Denmark

Brudermord performancePrint-friendly Touring Brochure

An anonymous work found in 1710, performed as a puppet show with new English translation by Christine Schmidle, per the research of Oxford’s Tiffany Stern in collaboration with the Hidden Room.
BREAKING NEWS! Brudermord wins BEST PRODUCTION OF A COMEDY at the Austin Critics Table Awards. Nominated for BEST LEADING ACTOR, BEST COSTUMES, & BEST DIRECTOR.
AND MORE BREAKING NEWS! Brudermord wins B Iden Payne awards: BEST PRODUCTION OF A COMEDY, BEST ENSEMBLE, BEST DIRECTOR, and is nominated for BEST PUPPETRY, BEST COSTUMES, BEST SET, & BEST SOUND DESIGN.

 

  • Available For Touring: 2018 / 2019
  • Running Time: 75 mins, no intermission.
  • Age Suitability: 10+

Project Synopsis

The mysterious origins of Der Bestrafte Brudermord are being put to the test in this rarely seen 1710 adaptation of Hamlet, performed as it may have been intended: a puppet show.

 

Acting as a laboratory for Professor Stern’s research, the Hidden Room uses a new English translation by Christine Schmidle with puppets created by Mystery Bird Puppet Show and style and costumed by Jennifer Davis to imagine the staging conditions of a an early 18th Century puppet play. Live music, fireworks and onstage narration accompany this most unusual, and at times outrageously slapstick version of Hamlet that includes added characters and scenes, yet still enjoys a brisk running time of just over an hour.

 

Brudermord was developed with the support from the American Shakespeare Center and Oxford University. It premiered in October 2013 at the ASC’s prestigious Blackfriars Conference, ahead of a full season in Austin, Texas from January to February in 2014.  The show went on to tour the US East Coast, then travel overseas for a sold out weekend at Shakespeare’s Globe in London, and shows at Oxford University, Shakespeare Institute in Stratford-Upon-Avon.  A clip from the show ran on a loop at the British Library’s exhibit Shakespeare in Ten, which was seen by over 10,000 guests in the summer of 2016.  We are now thrilled to take Brudermord to the West Coast where we are accepting dates for 2018/2019.

Creative Credits:

  • Director: Beth Burns
  • Translator: Christine Schmidle
  • Research Director: Tiffany Stern
  • Narrators: Judd Farris, Jason Newman
  • Puppeteers: Joseph Garlock, Jeff Mills, Cami Alys
  • Music, Styling and Costume: Jennifer Rose Davis
  • Puppet Design & Construction: Mystery Bird Puppet Show
  • Puppet Styling Team: Jennifer Rose Davis
  • Costumes, Set, and Props: Jennifer Rose Davis
  • Puppet Theater Set Design: James Barnes, Jennifer Rose Davis, Jim Strain
  • Puppet Theater Set Construction: James Barnes, Jay Baum, Ia Estera, Scott Jones

Basic Venue Requirements: (Tech Specifications with further detail per request)

Style of Venue:

Very versatile – thrust stage, proscenium arch, ballroom, or other. Ideally Puppet Theater Set is raised so the puppets are at chest or head height of actors somewhere around 4 feet off the stage. Ceiling clearance must accommodate the set height plus any raise desired.

 

  • Puppet Theater Set Height: 9-ft not including risers
  • Puppet Theater Set Area: 5.5 x 12-ft not including wings or backstage
  • Riser or Sawhorse Height: 2 to 4.5-ft, depends on site lines and safety
  • Min Stage Performance Area: 8 x 16-ft including wings & backstage
  • Preferred Performance Area: 9.5 x 20-ft including wings & backstage
  • Largest Pieces to Move In: 6 x 2.5 x 1-ft puppeteer walkway
  • 5 x 4-ft flats and frames
  • Other useful notes: If receiving Puppet Theater Set as a crated item – it will be 2 crates about 7 x 4 x 4-ft tall. Modified puppet theatre can also be built at venue to suit.

Touring Company:

  • 1 x Director/Company Manager
  • 2 x Actors
  • 3 x Puppeteers
  • 1 x Musician/Dresser/Wardrobe, Puppet, Effects and Properties Manager
  • 1 x Stage Manager/Backstage Technician (can be in-house based)

Performances Per Week:

7-8. 2 maximum per day. By negotiation. Same day load in.

Quotes & Reviews

Available Workshops:

  • PAGE TO STAGE: TURNING OLD THEATRE INTO NEW WORKS (60 mins) The Hidden Room’s collaborations with scholar/heroes from around the world have yielded internationally recognized award-winning productions. Using Brudermord as a model, this discussion focuses on ways that practitioners might foster relationships with scholars and use their research to infuse old plays with new life.
  • SICILIAN ROD MARIONETTES: A HANDS-ON WORKSHOP (60 mins) The puppeteers from Brudermord bring in a few puppets to share ways of making these little figures live as fully as possible, as we explore character building techniques to apply to actors and to puppets.
  • IMPROVISATION AND SHAKESPEARE: USING GROUNDLINGS-STYLE IMPROV TO EMBOLDEN YOUR APPROACH TO EARLY MODERN TEXTS (120 mins) Beth Burns taught improvisation at LA’s famous Groundlings Theatre for over ten years, and now uses those techniques joyfully in the Hidden Room, while maintaining a strict adherence to the text. This theatre-exercise based workshop gets people on their feet, learning to live in the moment, make strong choices based on small clues, and enjoy the listening and responding that makes Shakespeare breathe.
  • SHAKESPEARE’S VERSE: (120 mins) Beth Burns brings the Rising Iambic technique to actors and scholars alike to increase understanding, engagement, and joy in speaking Shakespeare’s verse.  Explore vocal variety, relish the language, and build strong characters using small clues that will all make your Shakespeare sing.

Performance History:

  • American Shakespeare Center’s 2013 Blackfriars Conference Staunton, Virginia 26 Oct 2013
  • York Rite Masonic Hall Austin, Texas 17 Jan – 8 Feb 2014
  • Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre, London, May 2015
  • Shakespeare Institute, Stratford Upon Avon, May 2015
  • Oxford Magdalene College, May 2015
  • East Coast US tour, May 2016
  • British Library Feature, London, April – Sept 2016

Features

Video

Promotional Video

Full Performance Video (password “hearmehamlet” to play)

Backstage Performance Video (password “hearmehamlet” to play)

Images

Company Information

  • THE HIDDEN ROOM Austin, Texas
  • hiddenroomtheatre.com
  • Contact: Kim Turner, Company Tour Manager
  • [email protected]
  • 1-512-2030704
  • or
  • Contact:  Beth Burns, Artistic Director / Theatrical Deviser
  • [email protected]
  • 1-818-237-6303

 

HIDDEN ROOM BIO

The Hidden Room is an award-winning company that straddles the line between the past and the future of theatre. We rely on collaboration with some of the world’s top scholars, tech thinkers, and theatrical innovators. We have expanded and revolutionized the walls of theatre by rehearsing, performing, and presenting our productions across America and all around the world. Our work has received the attention of the US State Department, PBS, the BBC, and NPR, and at home been listed at the tops of critics’ lists, named as a Best in Austin organization, and earned the number one spot of the Top Ten Theatrical Wonders of Austin.

 

Rose Rage (a collaboration with UK’s Propeller) introduced our “Foreign Exchange Program” in which we used digital technology to work with overseas actors and scholars, later incorporating the full team for live performances. This 5½ hour conflation of Shakespeare’s Henry VI trilogy was Austin’s most awarded production of the year. 2012 also saw the The Girl With Time In Her Eyes for SXSW Interactive, a revolutionary crime-noir mystery that allows audience members to use mobile device to scan QR codes on people and props, thereby receiving clues to push forward the narrative. Development continues for a full-immersion production in a three-story building where audience can roam and interact freely within the story. Other productions have relied on scholars from the Globe Theatre in London, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Mary Baldwin College of Shakespeare and Performance, to list a few, and our current project der Bestrafte Brudermord has enjoyed a close partnership with Tiffany Stern of Oxford, and support of the American Shakespeare Center.

 

TIFFANY STERN is the Professor of Early Modern Drama, CUF Lecturer and Tutorial at Oxford University, University College, where she works on theatre history from the sixteenth to the eighteenth century, and specializes in the works of Shakespeare and his contemporaries. Her research for a book on early modern theatre and popular entertainment, Playing Fair: Fairs and Drama in 16th-18th Century London, for Cambridge University Press, brought her to Brudermord, which brought the Hidden Room to Stern. The Hidden Room (already admirers of Professor Stern) offered to act as a laboratory to help test her notion that Brudermord was actually at one point a puppet show. The result is our production, the result of two years of collaborative research with Stern, various rehearsal trials, and the use of period materials and puppeteering techniques to imagine an 18th century puppet Hamlet.