Seniors Faith Liu and Daniel Negri are looking to shake things up in this year’s Shakespeare in the Arb production.
Liu and Negri will direct Shakespeare’s “Macbeth” for Shakespeare in the Arb’s 13th year. From the play they selected to how they will take advantage of the arboretum, the duo is planning to make some changes to how Shakespeare in the Arb is usually run.
“We haven’t done a serious tragedy in a while and I think it’s about time,” Liu said. “There is tragic potential in the arb.”
Shakespeare in the Arb always runs in the Slayton Arboretum during one of the final weekends of the spring semester. In the past, productions have run in the middle of the day, but Liu said they are considering moving the play to later in the afternoon.
“We could utilize sundown,” Liu said. “We might even be able to get some lights up and have some fun lighting. With ‘Macbeth’ everything just gets darker, so I think it would be fun to utilize the sunset.”
Liu would also said she would like to use torches — if they are allowed in the arboretum.
Liu and Negri said they also hope to take advantage of the space the arboretum provides.
“Most people just have the play up on the rise and then maybe use the tower in the arb, but we’d like to be using more of the space available to us,” Negri said.
Liu and Negri will hold auditions from 6 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 12 and from 7 to 9 p.m. on Dec. 13 in the Hames room in the Sage Center for the Arts. Liu said they won’t start blocking the play until after spring break to allow actors in the Tower Players’ “Mother Courage” to also perform in “Macbeth.”
“We’re not asking anyone to prepare a monologue unless they want to,” Liu said. “We’ll probably have everybody read a couple parts at the very least.”
Liu said she hopes having auditions in the Hames room sets the tone for potential cast members.
“It gives it a little bit more of a serious feel, and we want people to know that what we’re doing is serious,” Liu said. “We want to make sure we set a tone that this is going to be — it won’t be a very long time commitment — but it’s a time commitment and we expect you to be there.”
Liu and Negri plan on casting more than just three people as the witches.
“Part of our overarching concept is that we want to talk about the pervasive nature of evil and how it penetrates every level of society and how it can spread to just about anywhere,” Liu said. “To that end, our witches will not be the same three people every scene. They’re going to represent different parts of society, different parts of culture.”
Liu said she asked Assistant Professor of English Dwight Lindley, Assistant Professor of History Matthew Gaetano, and Assistant Professor of Philosophy Lee Cole if they wanted to be the witches for one of the scenes. She received a positive answer from all of them.
“It’s really fun to bring in professors because they have experience,” Liu said. “We’ll definitely prioritize students, but if a professor can, and if a professor has time, and a professor is really good, we’ll cast him as well.”
Liu said they have also asked Professor of Philosophy James Stephens if he wants to play the role of King Duncan.
Liu and Negri said they have been looking to direct “Macbeth” since their freshman year, so they took advantage when the opportunity arose.
“We knew that we wanted to do some fashion of a production of the play,” Negri said. “We gave up on it by the end of sophomore year, and then for some reason we both got involved with Shakespeare in the Arb last spring. They were looking for a new set of directors and we’d only heard rumors of people but nobody we knew was stepping up, so we thought, ‘Well maybe there’s a chance of this happening after all.’”
