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Director Q&A

The Merry Wives of Windsor

How is Merry Wives of Windsor different from Shakespeare's other comedies?

Shakespeare's most middle-class play in setting. It's probably his most farcical works, using physical gags and linguistic jokes to establish its strong comic tone.

Merry Wives gives an impression of life in an English provincial town as it was lived at the time of the play's first performance. All of his other comedies are located in foreign countries. It is the only play we have that gives us an idea into the people of Shakespeare's own village. It is also the play with the most prose. Other of his comedies use much more verse.

How does the production of the play coincide with the mission of the Department of Theatre?

This is truly a Theatre Department production but one that is upholding the standards of production and performance on a professional level. We believe in quality of programs of study at both graduate and undergraduate levels. We have seven MFA student actors, our Costume Designer and Set Designer are MFA students, and there are ten undergraduate actors in this production. Three of our cast members are local Knoxville professionals and two of our actors are resident artists in the theatre department who also happen to be local residents as well as nationally recognized actors. Our Lighting Designer, Noele Stollmack from Wisconsin and our Sound Designer, Joe Payne from Utah are wonderful nationally recognized artists. The exchange between all of these artists make this production a rich learning environment for our students and fulfills our mission to give our students the opportunity to work with seasoned professionals.

This is a great opportunity for our students to do Shakespeare live, that is not academically or in theory, but practically through the nuts and bolts of hammering of it out through production. Shakespeare involves SO many skills, vocal, language, character development, period movement, special awareness that it is both a challenge and a great opportunity for our students to develop their skills by 'doing' rather than by reading this great playwright.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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