The Vagina Monologues

You'll have to pardon my lack of recent updates to the blog, while Bad Quarto doesn't have much planned for the stage right now, there are a lot of exciting things happening behind the scenes that will enable us to bring you more awesome shows in the future. That said, we do have an offering coming up this weekend. As part of V-Day 2011, Bad Quarto Productions and the New Directions Center of Staunton, VA will present Eve Ensler's play The Vagina Monologues this Sunday evening from 7:30 to 9 in Staunton's Masonic Building (7-13 W. Beverly St) on the 5th Floor. If you need directions, please visit http://www.badquarto.org.

I know what you're thinking, what does The Vagina Monologues have to do with quartos and the theatre of 1599? Honestly, not a hell of a lot, but the way we're rehearsing it does. Tiffany Stern has posited (in her excellent Making Shakespeare) that the actors of Renaissance London would be left largely to their own devices to learn their roles. They might occasionally meet with a director (Stern uses the term "instructor") to discuss what they were going to do on stage, but would typically only rehearse together once or twice. That's how we're rehearsing Vagina Monologues.

I, for one, am eager to see how this experiment in Shakespeare's original rehearsal conditions plays out. I'll be sure to keep you posted on that and other developments.