So I teared up a little today.  Don’t think less of me.

I was sitting in while Ryan Crowder rehearsed one of the most beautiful speeches we’ve ever had the pleasure to work on in our adventures with Shakespeare: Henry VI’s molehill speech from ROSE RAGE.  On the page, it’s already spectacular.  In the hands of Ryan Crowder, it’s transcendent.   I listened to it once, then again, and slowly we settled back into it, adjusted, fresh-minted, and it was pure, gorgeous gold.  So I cried a little, right there in a community basketball court (with anxious ballers waiting their turn behind us.)

Ryan will perform this extraordinary speech tonight at Aviary Decor in Austin (S. Lamar and Oltorf) as part of the Creative Fund’s Happy Hour.  The party starts at 6PM, and Ryan’s performance should start around 6:30 or a little thereafter.  The Creative Fund is a wonderful organization filled with cool folks that you’ll want to know, and perhaps even join, so it’s a win-win.

And as for your own possible venture into emotions at Henry’s plea for a simple life, bring a tissue, or at least come armed with your standard excuse of allergies.  Sniff.

– Beth Burns

Ryan Crowder as Henry VI in Rose Rage, photo by Kristen Wrzesniewski

I first encountered Tiffany Stern at the American Shakespeare Center’s Blackfriar’s Conference in Staunton, Virginia.  A sea of geniuses (genii?) watched Ms. Stern’s keynote address with eyes like teenage girls at a Twilight movie. With good reason, too.  This Oxford don, this English lady-Columbo of early modern theatre studies, absolutely slayed the crowd with her insights and new ways of attacking old questions.  She laid waste to her intellectual adversaries with the sweetest smile, and  I loved her straight away.

The following Blackfriars Conference, Ms. Stern had another wide-eyed fan in me, and I squealed a little when she pulled up pictures of an ancient puppet.  Her thoughts on the importance of puppet shows in early modern theatre were incredibly exciting.  How could I see a show like the one that Ms. Stern was describing?  Who would the cool company be who would undertake such a production, and who would get the blessing of such a famous scholar/star like Stern?

Long story short is, the Hidden Room is now after much discussion, finger-crossing, and a trip to Oxford, officially that lucky company.  Let the girlish screams of ecstasy start…now.

Professor Stern was nice enough to agree to collaborate with us on creating an Original Practices puppet show, and our play will be an English translation of the oft-debated “Der Bestrafte Brudermord” or “Fratricide Revenged,” the mysterious German Hamlet.   As the show’s dates and travels are firmed up, we’ll be sure to pass the info along.

On my way back from Oxford this October, elated and exhausted, I stopped at an airport bookstore, trying desperately to stay awake.  I grabbed a book that caught my eye, cracked it open, and discovered that it was about an Oxford fellow who was being courted by a sexy vampire in the recesses of the Bodleian Library.   Reading it on the plane (don’t judge) I couldn’t help but think back to all the screaming sexy vampire fans out there, all of Tiffany Stern’s admiring scholars, and wondering if it could indeed be puppets that will bring those two groups of folks together happily on a fall evening of 2013.   I vote yes.  Squeal!           – Beth Burns