Interview with Tennessee Shakespeare Company
I met with Stephanie Shine, the General Manager, Education Director (and more!) of the Tennessee Shakespeare Company in Memphis. We talk about their Literary Salons, Elizabethan Feasts, and more in this wide-ranging interview. (More interviews here.)
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TUNE IN: February 26th, 2021, 8pm cst - Click Here
The Dr. Greta McCormick Coger Literary Salon Series:
Inspired by our annual Southern Literary Salons, by our recent digital Decameron Project during the virus shut-down, and our generous long-time friend and scholar Dr. Greta Coger, we offer you a full slate of one-hour (or less) curated readings, scenes, speeches, and discussions that explore important authors and subjects close to home. Presented by TSC’s resident artists on our Owen and Margaret Wellford Tabor Stage, Greta’s Salon Series will engage you in an informal, comfortable, safe atmosphere on either our Tabor Stage or via our digital, paid simulcast.
“This is Illyria, Lady”: Twins, Clowns, and Cross-Dressed Lovers in Twelfth Night
curated by Stephanie Shine
Online Only
February 26 at 8:00 pm
Influenced by the end of Christmas celebrations, Shakespeare’s fantastical tale of unrequited love embraces a comedy and musicality that remain popular for all ages. Twins are separated in a shipwreck and wash ashore in strange Illyria. One twin, Viola, falls in love with Orsino, who swoons for Olivia, who moons over Viola, but is adored by Malvolio. Enter Sebastian, the spitting image of Viola, who…
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If you’d rather read the interview, a rough transcript is below.
Interview with Tennessee Shakespeare Company
Michael Van Osch: Hey, this is Michael at the Hark Journal. Thank you again for joining us. We have our next in the interview series here and I’m so pleased to welcome Stephanie Shine from the Tennessee Shakespeare Company. Hi, Stephanie, how are you?
Stephanie Shine: Hello, Michael. I’m grand. How about yourself?
Michael Van Osch: I’m doing well, but as we were both saying, it’s quite cold these days, so everybody’s getting used to it.
Stephanie Shine: That’s true. It’s what we’re frozen here.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, absolutely. And you’re in Memphis, obviously. And am I right in saying that’s the 13th season for Tennessee Shakes?
Stephanie Shine: You’re exactly right. We are in the midst of our 13th, albeit mostly virtual season.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. And let me tell the folks here, cause you’ve got all these titles.
Let me tell, I mean, resident artist, general manager, education director, feast coordinator, which I want to hear about, and curator of multiple salons. So how long have you been there at Tennessee Shakes? And as you said, most things are virtual, but tell us a little bit about what’s been happening for you guys in the last few months.
Stephanie Shine: Alrighty. I have been a part of Tennessee Shakespeare Company almost since it began. I think I formally started doing consulting work in about 2009 and came on, (or 2008) and came on as a staff member in 2011. So I’ve been here a long while.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. And what’s, what’s happening with you guys these days there?
Due to the pandemic, obviously you know, everybody’s kind of. Well, some theaters have furloughed people, some are working with full staff, some aren’t that kind of thing. Where are you guys in that whole gamut of things?
Stephanie Shine: Thank you for asking. We’ve actually been able to work with our full staff. Nobody’s been furloughed ever since it began and what we have been able to do, especially in the fall.
We were able to hire a company of actors to come and be here with us. They were local actors. And we did a lot of work including live Shakespeare outdoors, but we were able to perform our free Shout Out Shakespeare outside in parks, that, and we were still working within all of course the CDC and County guidelines.
And then as our numbers came up, we moved things into a virtual realm. We were able to do a few bits of a few of our salons indoors with an audience of 50 for one performance only. And even, even though we were able to do that in the fall, we are now doing that virtually. So we won’t have live performances for the remainder of the season.
Michael Van Osch: Like most people. And that makes, makes perfect sense. Okay.
Stephanie Shine: They’re flexible though. So if something were to change, we could. We can open up any moment.
Michael Van Osch: Before, before the pandemic, did you do outdoor performances as well as indoor?
Stephanie Shine: We did. We’ve always done outdoor performance. It’s always been environmental theater has been something that has long been loved by our theater company.
And we have performed a free Shout Out Shakespeare for four seasons outdoors, everywhere we could find within the Memphis area.
Michael Van Osch: And so it took tours around whatever shows you’re doing?
Stephanie Shine: That’ we would come to neighborhoods, even though we have our own theater here in Memphis, we still are able to you know, thought it important.
And part of our message and our mission to travel to neighborhoods who could not get to us. So that space and time was never an access for money it’s free.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Fantastic love to hear it. Well, before we go a little further into some of the programming, I want to highlight some of your bio for people.
Because again, like all the people I interview you’ve done so much and have such an amazing resume, but let me, let me hit on a few highlights for the people so that they know who we’re talking with here. So I mentioned all your titles and obviously, your, your director and directorial credits at the Tennessee Shakespeare company include Ms. Bennett Christmas at Pemberley, Henry the Fifth, Midsummer Night’s Dream, Julius Caesar. It’s a Wonderful Life, Shakespeare’s Greatest Hits, and that goes on and on and on, and also on stage there at TSC you’ve played in The Comedy of Errors. All’s Well That Ends Well, female roles in Unto the Breach and Gertrude in Hamlet.
And I thought this was interesting too. So you, you were on the other side of the country for a number of years. It looks like because prior to joining TSC, you were the artistic director of the Seattle Shakespeare company for, it looks like 13 years and it did a lot of directing and acting there too, including As You Like It.
As you like it for Houston Shakespeare Festival, Taming of the Shrew. And Comedy of Errors for the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. And also this was interesting in the War. The award-winning one woman, internationally touring, Marilyn Monroe, biopic, Marylin Forever Blonde. So you’ve got a lot of things that you’ve done from a directing perspective.
And then. As an actor is there anywhere that you haven’t worked? That’s what it looks like here or you’ve, you’ve done all the great roles. Roslyn lady, Macbeth, Beatrice, I mean, on and on and on for a lot of different theater companies, Shakespeare companies across the town or across the country I should say.
Where did you get your start? And tell us a little bit about that and where you went to school.
Stephanie Shine: Oh, certainly. Thanks for asking about that. I got my start and I have to say it was thanks to my high school drama teacher who sort of shoved me out of my, out of the nest when I graduated from high school and said, okay, you have to go to training school.
And that was something that was unknown to me or my family. And she sent me on to the American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco. Or I trained for summer and that got me to the Pacific Conservatory, Performing Arts in Santa Maria, California, where I was for two years. And that got me to the University of Washington’s professional actor training program, where I got my degree.
It was a graduate program, but I joined the program when I was just, I just turned 20. I was just turning 20 and did not have an undergraduate degree. So I graduated with a BFA. And that is what launched my training. And then from there, I went to New York for a little bit and then settled at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival for a couple of years, and then went back to New York and then settled back in Seattle and sort of made my career there.
Always while traveling when I could, but then I became a parent. And when you become a parent that changes for a while, your ability to travel and be a regional theater actor. So I became more focused in my, in my immediate Seattle area. So that was
Michael Van Osch: how many children do you have?
Stephanie Shine: I have four. I have four children, I just, because it’s a lot.
Michael Van Osch: Fantastic. And, and are they in interested in drama as well?
Stephanie Shine: I love that you asked that question. Yes. Some of them are they’re all very artistic. I’m, I’m very thrilled that my, my daughter, I have three sons and a daughter. My daughter is currently earning her. Master’s in Theater Management and Social Policy at University College, Dublin.
Wow. My, my youngest twins are musicians. My oldest son’s a musician as well, so they, they’re all musicians and sort of interested in that I have yet to see one of them want to be an actor. But I had their artistic and I believe my daughter will run a theater company. We think she’ll probably inherit this one.
Michael Van Osch: Nice. I like it. I like it. And where you are in your life right now? What’s what do you enjoy? More the acting side of things or the directing side of things. If you had to choose one or the other.
Stephanie Shine: Wow. You know? Hmm. I’ve never had to choose. I’ve been able to balance that. And quite frankly, the balance has been. The most delightful.
And I would add that with the managerial positions I take as well. I learned at a very early age that acting alone, wasn’t going to make me happy. I needed to do more than that. And so I became a director and I became a manager and it’s been, it’s doing all of it. That is the most fun for me.
And, but to speak truthfully to that, if it’s been too long, since I’ve been on stage or I’ve been able to act. I really miss it and I need to do it. And if I haven’t mantled a full production, I really need to direct something or I need to we have an incredible artistic outlet here. The the literary salons we do, which are very challenging, but so much fun to do.
So I am lucky and that I curate those and that always keeps me learning and growing and fashioning from a material that wasn’t necessarily meant to be at theatrical something, the theatrical so it’s very artistically fulfilling. So I find that that balance is what keeps me motivated and happy as I’m looking at nearly. Oh, my goodness gracious. Well, nearly 40 years in this business. So no 40 years in this business. Yikes. But I’m, I’m still, you know, I’m not cynical and I’m still really excited about stuff that we do. So I think it’s the balance that has done that.
Michael Van Osch: We lost you there for a second. What was the last thing you said?
Stephanie Shine: I just said, I believe that it has been the balance that for me personally has helped me maintain 40 years through four children and everything else in this business. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Van Osch: Fantastic. Well, you hit on something there that I really want to talk about today is probably the main thing I want to talk about and, and have you tell us about, and that is these salons that you have, and I don’t know that the full name for them, but when I was, when I was discovering you and your theater there, I saw the title.
This is Illyria Lady. Twins, clowns. I’m looking at it here. Twins, clowns, cross-dress lovers and Twelfth Night. And so tell us what the salons are and then take us through this one, because this sounds very interesting.
Stephanie Shine: Oh, thank you. The idea of a salon was born several years ago. And we started with an Irish literary salon and the idea is that in the, we would take bits of material that w interested us and weave and find a way for them to weave thematically to arrive at either some really good questions for our audiences to partake in or to excite them about going further into their own study or enjoyment within a certain genre. And to open conversation, to have a conversation about a writer.
And this was a way for us to, after we did the Irish literary salon, which we did because we did Irish because I love Irish literature. And I, I have a cousin who’s a well-known actor who was in the United States. So we brought, so we took advantage of that and, and utilized his goodwill and great talent to embark on an adventure.
And then we sort of settled into them being of a Southern nature exploring and celebrating the many, many writers from the Southern part of the United States. You’re in the Southern part of the United States. I’m here now, but in I’m new to this area, even though I’ve been here for 10 years, it makes me very new.
So we have explored a variety of mainstream and even some not so known. Southern writers taking about an hour of their material. And then dramatizing it when I say dramatizing it, I mean, adapting it so that it, it works for the spoken voice for the the speaking voice. And it sounds like a play. It may sound like a play as we read even though it is not.
And then we’ll have a discussion afterwards about the material and it’s so much fun because it’s a way to really integrate it, to engage with your audience immediately and to have them enter into a collaboration with you about ideas regarding a writer. And we all go away a richer for the experience now, and with the virtual, since we’ve had to move on to a virtual format for.
Some of these, we’ve done 10, this will be our 10th salon this year in lieu of full productions.
And one was Carson McCullers. Am I right?
Yes. We just, we just explored her last month and that was my first real experience with her. And it was just divine.
Michael Van Osch: I didn’t mean to interrupt you, but can, can people see that somewhere?
Is it recorded so they can go back and see it? Or is it a one-time thing?
Stephanie Shine: No, they, well, there were one-time thing and I believe we will be uploading them for purchase for viewing purchase on our online Academy, which has been something we’ve spent a good deal of time with in the past eight months, developing all of a huge online presence with this online Academy so that we can be in touch and you can still teach Shakespeare to people with actors as part of it, you know, if you’re in a classroom virtual classroom.
So I think we’re adding them to that. They will be present. So anyway, so the difference with, with the virtual is that we don’t have the immediate response with our audience. But it’s all delivered for them to be inquisitive and inquire and to go forward with this new information, or perhaps they’ve spent time with a writer they know really well, but because they’ve listened to the word spoken rather than read, read than themselves, it’s a whole new experience.
Yeah, interpretation to it. So it’s still an interpretive art and I am just thankful for them. They last about an hour. So it’s, it’s about culling and condensing, which is why with This Is Illyria I have a stray hair that is just not going to work in the day. Thank goodness. We’re casual today, Michael.
Thank you. This is Illyria is an hour. There’s the play Twelfth Night offers so many different storylines that one could follow. So we chose to store to really follow the cross-dress lover, which would be Viola and the idea of twins and how the twins work within this play. And then focus on a clown.
And I chose Feste to focus on for this. Knowing that many people would be looking for Malvolio. Malvolio has the most exposure. And, and that was the way the play was, was first received, you know, Malvolio that character was so was so immediately latched on upon that the play for many years was known as Malvolio
So, so I thought, okay, well then I’m not going to touch him instead. Let’s follow the journey of Feste and then a little bit about how Shakespeare had developed fools after Will Kemp left his performing company and Robert Armin came in, then he’s writing a whole different Fool for that actor. And so that’s been sort of there’s a little bit of exploration, but I tried very much to approach this with as much text as possible because the text will answer all of our questions and I never claimed to be a scholar. I am a Shakespeare practitioner. I just live it and love it. So I just say, Hey, this is what interests me. This is what I noticed. And this is some things, what do you think? And here’s some texts to support that or to further explore that.
So it’s not lecture-y at all. It really is just, Hey, let’s, let’s gather and discuss this the way salons used to be held in the last century. We, when people would gather in somebody’s living room casually and discuss it or hear poetry or, or hear one of their friends sing and play the piano.
That’s the idea behind a salon.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, I love it. Absolutely. So when is, when is when is this one coming out, and because I know it’s on a specific date, is it not?
Stephanie Shine: It is it airs on, I’m looking through my calendar on Friday the 26th at 8:00 PM central standard time. And you’re able to buy, I think the tickets are $15 and you’re able to buy a ticket and they’ll give you a link to it.
And then we’ll will see the This is Illyria salon.
Michael Van Osch: Fantastic. So from a staff perspective, then how many people are involved? It’s it, can’t be just yourself with all that work.
Stephanie Shine: I’m playing every role. You might’ve noticed by my multiple titles that Well, you might not notice that because of that, but my multiple titles teach you something about the managerial aesthetic of Tennessee Shakespeare company.
We are a company of artists managers. We’d like to think that we’re fashioning ourselves after Shakespeare, but it is a, it’s a managerial picture that I had in effect when I was at, in Seattle as well. It’s something I enjoy where actors are in managerial roles. So a good number of my staff are actors.
So every single actor on staff is in this and that would, I think there are six of us and I had to throw myself in there because I ran out of people. So I think there’ll be seven performers still keeping ourselves far apart from one another and coming in and out of camera frame. So that we are safe because we still, even though it’s virtual, we still here as a company need to maintain our COVID-19 safety, precautions, and procedures so that we stay safe and we’ve had very good luck with that.
Michael Van Osch: So, yeah, it makes sense. And it looks to me like from reading on the website that you have a, is it a patron that sponsors these salons?
Stephanie Shine: We do Dr. Gretta McCormick Coger loves these and she has been our patron for them, which is a fabulous thing, just that for needed a patron, every theater company needs a patron, especially during a time when there’s so little earned revenue right now.
I mean, that’s what we’re all struggling with. Is that how do we earn any revenue at all during this time when we can’t do it, we are made to do so. This is our way to have minute income stream that’s earned, but also to keep creating and to keep serving and to keep engaging with our, our audience and the virtual.
I mean, the virtual experience does mean that you are able to invite people who aren’t in the Memphis area to join into your conversation. So there are pluses to that. I mean, and that, I hope we’re taking advantage of that as well. That may be people who, who are looking for something to watch or stream on Friday, the 26th might join us and have a new look at Twelfth Night.
Or hear, hear the words because we missed hearing spoken words and listening to actors, talk to each other. And you know, so we’re hoping that that that will be the experience for people and give them something new to think about.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, absolutely. So that’s Friday, February 26. I’ll put this in the show notes with a link to that and all that good stuff so that people can tune in.
I know I will be. So there’s I want to ask you about another one of your titles here, and that is feast coordinator. Tell us what that is because it sounds delicious.
Stephanie Shine: Well, I am the company caterer. We have an annual event. That is our largest fundraiser per education program, which is the, the biggest thing that we do here.
And there’s an idea about, about companies and budgets. You can always tell what they care about by where they put their staff and their budget. You know, what they fund, and this company funds education and outreach of our staff members of four of us are devoted to education or at least 25% of me is because of the other titles I wear.
But for the size of company, we are, it’s our education and outreach that that fuels our mission. So we have a large fundraiser and for years it was a gala because they do that in the South. They love them. And we did them, you know, with an auction and, and we had for many years, a variety of famous Broadway singers would come and sing for us.
And then last year we transitioned into an Elizabethan feast, but then COVID came. So it was the no-go feast. So this year we will do a virtual entertainment for our friends and it will be a feast for the eyes and ears until, you know, I’ll be back together again when the feast will include a marvelous meal as well.
But I used to be the gala coordinator because I like events. Yeah. You’d have a tendency to understand what people work well to, you know, w where your talents are here. Not only as an artist, but just in the managerial world and how those independent skills serve the organization.
So I have been the gala coordinator now, fees coordinator for several, several years.
Michael Van Osch: Love it. Love it. Yeah, it continues to be an interesting balancing act with the pandemic as it is for all theater companies and other entertainment venues as well, but, you know, theater companies to be able to get that, that support coming in.
And then, like you said, also to do what we love to do and offer it to our patrons. I mean, it’s just a, do you think you’ll keep any of what you’ve learned during the COVID time and the way you’ve done things when we hopefully go back to a more normal live theater,
Stephanie Shine: I do. I think that well we’ve always done salons and we’ll probably do more of them because they’re, they’re fun and we might grow them to be more than one performance-only opportunities.
Yeah. Because we when we’re able to produce, we produce with unions, it would probably, that’s probably going to change what we’re able to do as far as always inviting a virtual audience in, unless our unions find a way to, to fairly expand that gap. But we will probably continue to be lean and mean for a few years so that we can be flexible.
My guess is that we will continue to grow our local talent. We’d often been from the very beginning a company that brought in actors from out of town as well, and integrated within a company, you know, local actors and out of town actors. But I think until things are more stable we’ll probably stay closer to home and continue to engage and encourage that growth there.
And I think that our continued sense of service as only just deepened and we’ll continue a lot of the things that we’ve done this year have touched upon the issues that we have been facing as a country. As a people. Yeah. I think that we will continue knowing artistic director, to work in that vein to be speaking to our time.
And it doesn’t mean that I don’t love the plays and the art for art’s sake, but my guess is there will always be something relevant that speaks to now in hopes of illuminating or comforting or finding reasons or ways to live with our certain situations or be a motivation for change. I think that’s, we’ll be headed even more firmly in that direction after this incredible experience we’ve all had in the past 12 months,
Michael Van Osch: that kind of leads me into what the next question I want to ask you and we can start to wrap up here, but From what you know, and your experience and your feelings and who you are, what do you feel that Shakespeare brings to us in this current day and age as a people
Stephanie Shine: Context. I think, I think we’re given a base for human feelings, the wealth of them, the depth of them and human response. And we are given within the plays examples of positive choices and negative choices. And I think the context with where I find comfort myself in that context is knowing that that those human responses go across centuries.
And grow, go across, you know, all sorts of different individual experience. There were still at the root of it something common that is shared. And that shared experience, I think is the best thing we have with Shakespeare because we find each other in it. We find ourselves and we find each other, we find the commonality and I like feeling connected.
I don’t want to feel alone. I don’t want to feel like I’m the only one who’s felt the way I feel. I love knowing that these characters have felt this way. And then on top of the emotional responses, we have, you have heightened ways of expressing yourself, of being heard and understood. And a dear friend of mine always said that Shakespeare allows us to speak our mind and,
I love that I can speak my mind with these grand words and it makes me in my own life yeah, achieve for greater clarity and better purpose with my words. I’m aware of how powerful words are thanks to Shakespeare. And I’m very careful with them. And I, I appreciate that. So I think that’s another great thing that there’s us.
Michael Van Osch: All great reasons to continue to introduce people that may not like Shakespeare or may not have any exposure to it or those types of things. And I think right now from a couple of people that I’ve talked to and myself, we seem to be experiencing a bit of a Renaissance in, in interest in Shakespeare.
Let’s hope so.
Stephanie Shine: Let’s hope so. And I really, what I wish for everybody is the experience of speaking, speaking texts, because I think that’s where, where you really get inside of it and you don’t have to be an actor, you know, just speak the words and see where they take you. I wish that for everybody, I know whenever I’m blue, if I just speak a little text, suddenly I’m, everything is a little better, you know, I wish that for everybody, we all speak it.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. I love it. That’s great. Well, thank you so much, Stephanie shine. This has been fantastic. I’ll put all the information down in the notes about Tennessee Shakespeare Company and everything that you guys are doing and it’s exciting stuff. And I’m looking forward to that upcoming salon as well. My final question that I ask everybody that I talked to is a fun one, and that is if Shakespeare was on this zoom call with us and you got to ask him one question.
What would you ask him?
Stephanie Shine: It would be, how, how do you do this? How do you do this? What do you see when you write these plays? How I want to, how precisely?
And since he is the father of twins and twins are dear to my heart. I have a pair of myself. Yes. I’d love to share twin stories with them.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Well, that’s great. Well, Stephanie, thank you so much again, it’s been a pleasure meeting you. I’m looking forward to seeing more stuff that Tennessee Shakespeare company does and all the best as we get through this crazy time.
And let’s keep in touch.
Stephanie Shine: Thank you. And thank you for your work and your contribution.
Michael Van Osch: Okay. Appreciate it. Thank you. Take care. Bye-bye
Stephanie Shine: Bye.
