Hand puppets, stuffed alligators and broomstick swords aren’t just for playrooms anymore.
From July 21 to 31, these props joined poor Yorick’s skull on the Bloomington High School South auditorium stage for “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged).” All profits benefited the Monroe County Community School Corporation’s extracurricular activities fund.
The Foundation of Monroe County Community Schools announced June 20 its goal to raise $750,000 for MCCSC by Aug. 1.
As of press time, $651,749 has been raised for the fund thanks to private donors and fundraisers like the Shakespeare performance.
The production starred University of Minnesota sophomore and IDS guest columnist Nate Stanger, IU sophomore Megan Salisbury and BHSS graduate Kali Greenberg. All three are alumni of BHSS drama club Theatre South, directed by BHSS theater teacher Catharine Rademacher.
Rademacher said Theatre South originally performed this show during the 2007-08 school year. The idea to reprise it as a fundraiser was brought to her attention about two weeks ago by Stanger, who was a member of the original cast.
Stanger said he talked to his mother, Sheila Butler, about the school system’s financial troubles. Butler, also the show’s producer, has been involved with the theater department before and thought of putting on a show to raise money.
Stanger contacted Rademacher and the rest of the cast.
“He approached me two weeks ago to say ‘Can we do it?’ and I thought, ‘Well, the question is, can you guys do it?’” Rademacher said. “I said, ‘Sure, I’ll do whatever needs to be done to make it happen for you.’”
Salisbury, who was also in the original Theatre South cast, said she agreed to come back because of her fond memories of the theater department.
“I think (theater)’s a great place for anybody,” she said. “So when they said the theater department was in jeopardy, I was like, ‘That’s miserable, and I don’t know what to do about it.’ … I was just happy to help.”
The group had just two weeks of preparation time. Salisbury said the cast rehearsed for six hours a day for a week and a half before opening night.
“In two days, they had it memorized,” Rademacher added. “They are just so committed. It’s just cool. I mean, it’s the coolest thing.”
Greenberg said her initial stress level was high.
“I’d go home and cry,” she joked. “It was kind of intimidating, though. … (Stanger and Salisbury) had already done it before … I was replacing someone that was really good, so it was kind of nerve-wracking. But after I started getting going on the lines — and started tuning this lute,” she said, gesturing to the wooden prop in her hands, “that’s when everything fell into place.”
34 plays, 2 acts …
“The Complete Works…” was originally written and performed by the Reduced Shakespeare Company in 1987. However, pop culture references throughout the show make the script adaptable to contemporary audiences.
“They actually say at the beginning of the script that they promote changing the script to modernize it,” Stanger said.
Some of the changes include replacing outdated political references, as well as mentioning vampires and “LOST.”
The cast agreed that “newer” jokes got the most laughs, such as when Salisbury yells “Expelliarmus!” to relinquish a sword from Greenberg. However, older gags still kept the audience in stitches, such as the gruesome “Titus Andronicus” portrayed as a cooking show with Salisbury imitating Julia Child.
“Never apologize!” Salisbury said during the scene while brandishing a meat cleaver.
Slapstick also permeated the show, including outrageous costume changes, lewd gestures and silly string.
“It’s like running a marathon,” said Stanger, who at one point donned a blue lace dress and blonde wig to play Juliet. “The first act is very physical, and there’s running and falling, getting hit — lots of stuff like that.”
The first act consisted of condensed versions, or mentions, of most of Shakespeare’s plays, including “Romeo and Juliet,” “Titus Andronicus,” “Othello,” “Macbeth,” and “Julius Caesar” — as well as all 16 comedies reduced to one convoluted plotline.
The second act of the show consisted entirely of several renditions of “Hamlet,” including performing the play backwards.
“Be sure to listen for the satanic messages,” Salisbury said before slumping to the floor as Hamlet’s corpse.
“Hamlet” presented slightly different challenges to the cast members’ acting. Stanger, Greenberg and Salisbury agreed it was the more difficult act, involving more of Shakespeare’s original words.
“Timing in ‘Hamlet’ is a lot more important because you can’t really get away as much if you drop a line — it’s important to have it there,” Salisbury said. “There weren’t as many built-in gimmicks in the second act, so we had to find a way to — whether by our actions, voices, faces — just make it more enjoyable for the audience.”
… 1 cause
Many audience members had more than one reason for attending the show. Bloomington resident Phyllis Schwitzer came out to support MCCSC and to have fun as well.
“I have granddaughters in MCCSC, and this is a great show,” she said.
BHSS sophomore Claire Glomm said she came to the show with her parents to help raise money.
“I think it’ll be all right because of the fundraising we’ve done,” she said of the outlook for extracurricular activities. “But there are some clubs that aren’t as popular that I’m not sure how they’re gonna do.”
The cast hoped the show would be able to make a difference for the fund and publicized the performance at other fundraising events and the Bloomington Farmers Market.
“It seemed like every night, the attendance went up,” Rademacher said. Saturday’s final performance saw about 80 people in attendance, she said, as well as a standing ovation.
“We raised just over $3,500, which was short of our original goal of $5,000, but we got almost half of it with today’s show and the concession money from the run,” Butler said. “We had many larger donations at (Saturday)’s show.”
The last few days of the FMCCS fundraiser have seen a huge overall push to meet its goal. The fund’s website showed donations shot up about $100,000 on Thursday alone, and Friday and Saturday saw dramatic increases as well.
“There was a point where I thought, ‘We’re never gonna get there,’ but I still have hope,” Rademacher said Friday. “Just the very fact that we’ve been able to raise this much money in a month says so much about the community, and it makes me feel so great, even if we don’t make that goal.”
Rademacher said she is optimistic about the future of Theatre South. She plans to continue the club, especially now that 87 percent of the funding goal is available for the coming year.
“Honestly, at this point, that will be fine,” Rademacher said. “I’ll make it work somehow. I’ll just make it work, because it’s too important to not do just because of financial reasons. It’s just too important.”