Actors From The London Stage have traveled to John Carroll University for the past 20 years to bring the works of Shakespeare to life in Kulas Auditorium. This year, the Actors transported audience members to Elsinore Castle in Denmark for their minimalistic performance of “Hamlet” on Feb. 20–22.
Founded in 1975 by University of California Professor Homer Swander and acclaimed actor Sir Patrick Stewart, the goal of the company is to bring Shakespeare’s work to life the way it was originally intended.
Five classically trained British actors perform with minimal props and set pieces with each actor portraying multiple characters. With the actors directing themselves, the focus of the performance is to enhance and highlight Shakespeare’s language and storytelling for the modern age.
In addition to the performances, the Actors participate in classes during the day across many academic disciplines. Throughout their week-long residency, the five actors made appearances in classes ranging from Legal Environment of Business to Elementary Statistics to Advanced Poetry, connecting with approximately 600 students along the way.
Becca Cigany ’27, a student who participated in one of the Actors class visits, told The Carroll News, “I had Joanna [Clarke] come to my Broadway stage class and it was such a cool experience to have a London touring actress come to my college class. She led us through different character development exercises, different stretches and more. It was so cool to listen to a professional for tips on how to play our own characters in ‘Legally Blonde.’”
Jean Feerick, who holds a doctorate in English, is John Carroll’s resident Shakespeare scholar and oversaw the initiative of organizing the visit. She voiced how the Actors not only leave an impression on students but faculty members as well.
“This is my fourth time being [the] general manager, and it’s really changed the way that I think of what I do. After experiencing the magic that they can bring into a classroom, I started to lean more into performance,” said Feerick. In her Introduction to Shakespeare class, students are assigned scenes from Shakespeare to act out, tapping into an element of performance that the Actors exemplify.
No matter the academic discipline, the Actors show that communication, in all its forms, is integral to becoming successful in the professional world. “They are skilled communicators themselves and they use their bodies a lot more than we tend to use in classrooms. They get the students to sample that,” said Feerick.
AFTLS member Jack Whitam, who played Claudius and the Ghost, said, “There is something about the work and the skills you pick up as an actor that are translatable to so many different areas of life.”
Over the course of three evening performances, both JCU students and community members gathered for the AFTLS interpretation of “Hamlet.” Students from local high schools, such as Hathaway Brown, attended the event which brought the total number of audience members across three nights up to 500 attendees.
Similar to the ghost of Hamlet’s father, the Actors’ spirits now linger in Kulas as a reminder of how theater can express and reflect modern times, no matter how long ago a work was written.
“‘Hamlet’ is itself a play about power plays. It’s about power grabs and a court that tries to mandate certain forms of discourse so there’s a lot of spying and hidden concealments of truth happening. And so it really kind of invites us as audience members to think about dynamics of power,” said Feerick.
