September 26, 2006

WIU Theatre Students Present "Bard in the Barn" Sept. 29-Oct. 1

MACOMB, IL - - - Area residents are invited to capture the spirit of an Elizabethan production, including actor and audience communication and interaction, during the “Bard in the Barn” weekend Saturday-Sunday, Sept. 29-30 east of Macomb.

“Bard in the Barn” is part of a University Research Grant-sponsored project of Western Illinois University Associate Theatre Professor Bill Kincaid, which is being performed in conjunction with Barnacopia, a Macomb Convention and Visitors Bureau’s celebration of barn history.

Two productions are scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 30: “A Winter’s Tale” (romance) at 1 p.m. and “A Comedy of Errors” (comedy) at 5 p.m. “Julius Caesar” (tragedy) will be performed at 2 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 1. All productions will be at the Redman Barn, located east of Macomb at 1300N and 1600E. Audience members are encouraged to bring lawn chairs, blankets and picnic lunches.

Some 30 actors in Western Illinois University’s theatre department will be performing the plays; however, the plays will not have been rehearsed, and the actors will be given only their lines to study in advance plus the last four syllables of the line preceding their own. This leads to a startling degree of spontaneity in performance, because many actors will not understand what is happening to their character in the plot of the play until they are onstage in front of the audience, Kincaid explained.

“In order to intensify the spontaneity of the experience, I’ve also asked the actors to avoid reading the full scripts of the plays before the performances,” he added. “Performing Shakespeare unrehearsed sounds, at first, like a recipe for chaos, but actually there are specific techniques that actors can study to prepare for such an event.”

Kincaid, who trained in the technique for two seasons at the New England Shakespeare Festival, has given the student actors a crash course in the technique.

Fight sequences and dances will be choreographed in advance for the actors’ safety, but only about 1- to 2-hours before the performance. Associate Theatre Professor D.C.Wright, head of movement and stage combat, will choreograph the fights; and MFA student Jamie McCoy will choreograph the dance in “Winter’s Tale.”

General admission tickets are $5, and tickets for children and all students – elementary through college – are $2. All proceeds will go to the Lori Haney Memorial Scholarship Fund for the Western Illinois theatre and dance department.

Tickets are available in the College of Fine Arts and Communication Dean’s Office, Browne Hall 117, telephone 309/298-1552; and at the Macomb Area Convention and Visitors Bureau (MACVB), 201 S. Lafayette, telephone 309/833-1315.

Barnacopica also includes live music and demonstrations from 1-7 p.m. Sept. 30-Oct. 1 at the Flack Barn, 1200N and 1600E, and the Hodges Barn, 1300N and 1800E. For more information, visit the MACVB website, www.makeitmacomb.com.


Copy By: Bonnie Barker, University Relations
Phone: (309) 298-1993 * Fax: (309) 298-1606