Hi, I'm Daniel. A recent graduate of Elon University's BFA Acting program, I am here to help you with all your Shakespeare needs. Are you auditioning for your school's production of Macbeth? Are you having trouble understanding the verse of Romeo and Juliet? I can help you. There is a preconceived notion about Shakespeare that his dialogue and words are incredibly hard to understand and only people who have committed their lives to an understanding of these words will be able to perform them...
Hi, I'm Daniel. A recent graduate of Elon University's BFA Acting program, I am here to help you with all your Shakespeare needs. Are you auditioning for your school's production of Macbeth? Are you having trouble understanding the verse of Romeo and Juliet? I can help you. There is a preconceived notion about Shakespeare that his dialogue and words are incredibly hard to understand and only people who have committed their lives to an understanding of these words will be able to perform them on stage. This is not the case. Shakespeare wrote his plays to be heard by the masses. The early modern theatre was entertainment for everyone, a place where the lowly and forgotten of society could pay to see fantastic and imaginative stories played out onstage. The same is the case today. We may not speak as people did at that time, but the words still carry as much meaning today as they did then. And everyone can do it.
It is my goal to help you better understand the words of the Bard. If you do not know what the words you are speaking mean, there is no way for your audience to know either. Shakespeare is a labor of love, and understanding him is easier than you'd think. My approach to learning Shakespeare is to first understand the circumstances in which his plays exist and how that translates to our day and time. Then we focus on the meter of the verse, what literary devices he uses and how this verse informs the actor of the character's status and intention. In no time you'll be sight reading Shakespeare and acing whatever audition or project you're working on.
I have studied under some of the best Shakespearean actors and teachers today, including Ben Naylor of the Central School of Speech and Drama in London and several actors from the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA: Rick Blunt, Patrick Midgley, Rene Thornton Jr. and many more. I was a member of the inaugural cast of the new Hoosier Shakespeare Theatre in Marion, IN where I worked with Greg and Jeremy Fiebig, both great Shakespearean scholars.
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