Interview with The Atlanta Shakespeare Company
I met with both Laura Cole, Director of Education, and Kati Grace Brown, Associate Director of Education Sales, of the Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse. We talked about how they’ve dealt successfully with Covid to keep the theatre going plus two new productions coming up. Lots going on in Atlanta. (More interviews here.)
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Website: Atlanta Shakespeare Co/Shakespeare Tavern
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Twitter: @shakespearetav
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Website: Prague Shakespeare Company
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If you’d rather read the interview, a rough transcript is below.
Atlanta Shakespeare Company Interview
Michael Van Osch: Hey, this is Michael Van Osch with the HARK Journal. Welcome back to our interview series. As you know, the HARK Journal is where we email you a two-minute meditation based on Shakespeare’s wisdom every day, so that you can get through the day, have a better career, and hopefully have a better life.
And thanks for joining us again. And today it’s very appropriate that we’re staying in Atlanta and it’s international women’s day that we have two very accomplished ladies with us. Please welcome Kati Grace Brown and Laura Cole from the Atlanta Shakespeare Company at the Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse ladies, how are you?
Laura Cole: Good.
Kati Grace Brown: Happy to be here.
Michael Van Osch: Let me turn up my volume a little bit, so good to see you. Thanks for being here. So what’s been going on since COVID? Maybe you can or both of you, maybe tell us a little bit, you know, I mean, we’ve been for what almost a year now, and, and you know, the Atlanta Shakespeare company there at the Tavern, you guys still seem to be going very strong, which, you know, congrats.
That’s great. So tell us what it’s been like and how you’ve kind of made it this far.
Laura Cole: Well I’ll start because our last show, the last event was March 15th. I think it was, and it was opening weekend of much to do about nothing. And we had just finished our capital campaign to improve the theater side of the company and buy and renovate an education, a whole new education wing called the Academy and offices and some artists housing and entertainment space.
And then we shut down for a week and then it just stayed shut down. From my perspective, I think that education went into a kind of overdrive and then hyperdrive to make sure that the contracts for services and tours and educational materials and events that we had already signed up with teachers for, with different government funding, entity entities, all got covered.
And within a week, two weeks we were videotaping our current tour shows, so we could offer those, you know, to everyone that had already reserved a ticket. And that went really smoothly. It was pretty thrilling to watch the team come together. And I did some online zooming into classrooms because zoom, all of a sudden, and Kati Grace continued with the filming and then hatched a couple of other ideas.
And my job as director of education and training very often is to say very, very assuring and noble things and then say, yes, do that. So I said, yes, Kati Grace does that. I will help. And she can take it from here cause she did. She basically did it.
Kati Grace Brown: Sorry, the next project was to figure out… our camp is a really vibrant time of year for us.
We have summer camp her mean from ages four, all the way to rising college freshmen, that all of a sudden we’re not tenable. With the current state of the world. And it says my internet connection is unstable. So I apologize. if I pop in and out, but we were able to pivot and put eight weeks of summer camp for second to eighth-graders, virtual and happening over zoom with some prerecorded material, but a lot of face-to-face interaction throughout the day to give students that infrastructure.
To, to fill their days with some Shakespeare enrichment. And then we also launched two different sessions of our high school program, where they filmed themselves and we edited together so that they could do a final Shakespeare performance. We learned a lot, doing those weeks of summer camp. And so we’re able to continue that virtual learning into zoom workshops and residencies throughout the school year, including a couple of days ago, we did a really great two-hour stage combat workshop over zoom for Gwinnett County theater students.
So that was really fun. And we did learn a lot in those first films. Our first film productions were just, let’s set up a wide shot in the back and get it. And then the film company Up the Hill who are wonderful friends of ours were like, you know, what we could do and, and had great ways to innovate.
And so we got back into the Tavern for education doing Macbeth 60, and R&J 60 to have a more high-quality product available for our teachers. And Jeff who is also like Laura is very good at just saying yes, go for it. Allowed us to do two main stage films as well.
Michael Van Osch: Fantastic. And Jeff is Jeff walk-ins the artistic director there.
Laura Cole: Yup. Yup. One, one marvelous thing. Just as an aside, we had no idea what the funding community, our, our private donors, our audiences, or government entities would be able to do or could do, and money is not dropping out of the skies by any means, but there were a couple, there was a handful of concerned audience members, long time donors, and a couple of government managers who you know, out of the blue, Hey, we’ve got this.
What could you use it for knowing full well, we were closed down everyone, you know, wasn’t working. And so we were able to more fully produce what we wanted to get done in a way that was you know, supportive of actors that, you know, they go from job to job and there hasn’t been a job in a year.
For me, one of the biggest thrills was seeing how many artists we could support and give work to, sustained work, as we always have tried to through thick and thin. And that was, that was great, yes, we’re doing it. I’m kind of feeling for me and something that is kind of a company backbone and a, and a value.
And I know that values are only good when they always work when they fulfill what they’re supposed to when they make a difference when things aren’t good. And that clearly is one of our tested and true time-honored values. And I’m pretty happy about that. Cause that early on when Jeff and I, when I’ve started the education department, one of the first things we agreed on is that we’re going to give jobs to actors.
We’re going to try to pay them as good as we can and keep people employed. And that, that has stayed true. And that’s pretty thrilling.
Michael Van Osch: That is thrilling and congrats to you too. Both of you and the rest of the team there for doing so much in the last year, you know, I mean, the city of Atlanta and all the artists certainly appreciate it.
Absolutely. Before I ask you a little bit about the history. I do want to touch on both of your bios because I want to get you introduced properly here. So Laura I’ll start with Laura I’ll start with you. You’re an actor, director, original practices specialist, and director of education and training there at the Atlanta Shakespeare company.
And a bit about your history. You have a Bachelor of Science in acting from Northwestern. And you’ve been a professional actor for over 35 years, 10 in Atlanta theater. And when you had started your own theater company and run it successfully, and seven years of highly specialized training in Shakespeare performance and text analysis with Shakespeare and Company and artistic director of Tina packer, up there in Western Mass.
Fantastic. Yep. You’d studied various areas of teaching artistry, acting Shakespeare and nonprofit arts administration all over from the Lincoln center to Exeter College at Oxford University, the Folger Library, others and you performed, performed almost every major female role in the canon plus a number of other female and male roles.
So fantastic. And you, I mean, you’ve taught Shakespeare to youngsters and adults for over 20 years in places like New York Classical Theater, Shakespeare and Company, the Folger, Georgia Theater conference Columbus State University, it goes on and on folks. I can’t read it all whenever we get through this.
Yeah. But this is also interesting too, and I’ll end with this, but you’re also a leading text coach and seasonal actor with the international company called the Prague Shakespeare Company. And you teach every July in Prague and the Czech Republic and That’s pretty fascinating too. I want to hear more about that.
Let me introduce Kati Grace next, Kati. Grace Brown. Thank you for joining us. You’ve been an actor with the Atlanta Shakespeare company since your apprenticeship in ’07 -’08. And since then you have done everything. An actor, a choreographer, a teaching artist, a summer camp manager, box office attendant, assistant stage manager, director, which we’re going to hear more about.
So currently your title is associate director of sales and associate producer and staff intimacy, choreography, choreographer. I want to hear about that. And a lot of the roles, I mean, favorite roles that you have down here are Helena in Midsummer. Beatrice in Much Ado the countess and Edward III Edward.
And directing credits, you’ve loved. It says A Mid-Summer, A Midsummer night’s dream. I remember that, Bronte and Twelfth Night, and you’ve got some really cool stuff coming up too. So thanks again for joining us. Both of you. Laura, tell us a little bit about how this amazing place started and people, if you’re watching this and you and you live in Atlanta or you’re coming to Atlanta and you’ve never been there, you have to because there’s nothing like it.
I mean, English pub food, great performances. But tell us a little bit about how it got started and when that was, please.
Laura Cole: Well, Jeff Watkins the founding artistic director showed up in Atlanta sometime in the early to mid-eighties. Maybe a little sooner and he, you know, bopped around doing different theater.
He was interested in Shakespeare because he had done it in New York and in studied mime and in Europe someplace and, you know, had a real eclectic early grounding and a lot of the more physical, a lot of the more vital arts. And when he got to Atlanta, eventually he hooked up with a company, small, small company that was doing Shakespeare you know, kind of off the cuff a little bit guerilla.
And when that founding director, when she decided to leave and move to New York, he took over the $2,000 in debt that they had and wrote a grant. And he wrote a grant for enough money to do a show. And one thing led to another and he was hanging out at Manuel’s Tavern, which we know is where actors have used to hang out a lot.
And he was talking about doing Shakespeare and he said, we should do it here. Cause you know, it was really lively and there’s this food and there was a stage in the old building and a lady that was about to do a fundraiser for Manuel Maloof who was running for, I guess, Dekalb County CEO. She said, Hey, that sounds fun.
So they opened it, you know, there were barely any lights. He had to hire actors that were not too tall because they would hit the lights that were hung on the stage. And they did the first act. Everybody got more drinks and food. They did the second act and it was incredibly well-received. And CNN called New York times called the Washington Post or a couple of other national organizations called, but it was only that one weekend. And after the third call of “No we’re only gonna cover it. If it’s, you know, live and ongoing”, he said, we’re doing it next weekend. And he did. And again, he sold every ticket and kind of fast-forward a couple of years.
And, when I graduated from college, I ended up at one of those performances, at least one, I don’t remember where it was or what it was, but I know I saw one of the pre Tavern building performances, which is kind of neat. I was young and just, just got to Atlanta.
So fast forward to there’s a building, right downtown. It’s completely unimproved, but there are bathrooms and you can get in the back. You can get in the front and he took it over and a team of artists and artisans built the stage, you know it’s a bigger building now than it was. Cause we have a restaurant sorry, the kitchen off the back.
When it used to be, the kitchen was actually two doors down and you had to tote all the food into the back of the Tavern to serve it from there. And now we’re twice, almost twice as big with the addition of the building next to us, 497 Peachtree Street. And that’s where we have more pub space, lecture and talk backspace, upstairs is going to be a very modest museum with some early modern materials, including pages from the first, the second folio Shakespeare, which is a 1633 era artifact. That’s an amazing resource. And then upstairs is offices, stuff like that.
So we’ve, we’ve grown tremendously, but it’s been pretty steady, pretty deliberate. This past year of break it has been really interesting, but as I said, what our, what our core values are, have remained true. Which is, it was pretty good pretty exciting. So we’re still kind of a medium-sized theater company here in Atlanta.
Hoping to get back on stage indoor, y’all drinking beer and us wearing pretty costumes and speaking some Shakespeare. Yeah. But it’s nice to think that we didn’t really stop this past year.
Michael Van Osch: Absolutely. That’s fantastic. And speaking of that, you’ve got some very cool things going on right now. Kati Grace, let’s go to you.
And I want to hear about the virtual production that’s happening right now. And I think, are you directing it? Are you in it? I can’t remember. They tell us all about it.
Kati Grace Brown: I’ll be playing Helena. I am playing Helena. It’s open now it’s All’s Well, That Ends Well, which is directed by Chris Hecke. Chris Hecke is a Brazilian immigrant.
He’s actually our first ever Latin x main stage director. And he had a very interesting take on all. Well, it has some light hints of a Brazilian carnival in there. Gender really had no meaning in casting. He was looking at the spirit of the human with the spirit of the role. So we have men playing women, women playing men to a greater degree than we already were doing.
It’s definitely been amplified and that is An hour and 45 minute cut of the show. It is, it’s not for children. Our, our job as Shakespeare actors, it’s to make Shakespeare’s intention and text very clear. And I can definitely speak to O’Neil Delapenha’s performance of Parolles that he makes that character’s intentions very clear and they are not G-rated.
But it’s really I like that it is up and available for sale on Vimeo. We have our own Vimeo account during women’s history month because it’s classified as one of the problem plays. And it certainly can be a problem in thematic and some of Its themes, but it does center around a very strong, capable woman doctor who begins that journey by deciding to take it upon herself to cure the King who is dying.
Bringing up a lot of questions of the succession, which would have been very poignant and meaningful for Shakespeare’s audiences at that time. without But putting it in France. So it’s less offensive than talking about our queen is dying. What’s going to happen?
You know, we take it and we put it in France and then. You know, we’re not making the commentary that we’re actually making. So that, that very kind of serious through-line is going on and spurned love and betrayal and things like that. While Parolles is on a journey to really distinguish himself in the Wars, even though he’s a terrible coward and those, those two sort of disparate plots come back together in the end, in a very Jerry Springer episode-esque reconciliation that we, we had a lot of fun with, so that is, that is on sale to rent or to purchase. If you think you might want to watch it again or show it to a group. And we were able to launch that on March 4th and it will be available on sale until March 28th.
Michael Van Osch: Great. Great. And it’ll all be in the show notes too, but what is the, what is your website really quick?
Kati Grace Brown: Shakespeare tavern.com for all of our main stage programming. And then also teachers can go to Atlanta shakespeare.org for any Shakespeare educational resources.
Michael Van Osch: Great. Thank you. And again, I’ll put all that in the show notes, people get your tickets and check this out because having been to the Tavern, a number of times, I know this is going to be a lot of fun.
So I’m looking forward to that. And then Laura, tell us what you’ve got going on because something else is coming up that I believe is an all-female-driven cast. You take it away. Tell us what we’ve got.
Laura Cole: So Kati grace had mentioned, you know let’s do it. I can’t even remember, but whatever she mentioned, I kind of went -yes. And then I kind of changed my mind about how and it’s going to be outdoor. With our friends at the Atlanta contemporary museum, they have an outdoor space and I know Veronica Kessenich, the executive director there from another organization that actually has kind of closed down for now.
But they were very much about bringing arts leaders together and encouraging any, any Working together, any, any co programming that we could do. And, you know, we have a definite place where we do our work and it’s, it’s very branded and it’s specific to the architecture of our stage. But she said, I’ve got this space, you all, aren’t performing.
And I was like, Ooh, it’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. And as I put it, and I actually in a meeting with Kati Grace and Jeff, I said, Hey, it’s going to be single-gender. Which is an original practices term because Shakespeare’s original company was a single-gender. Happened it was all men. I’ve never been overly interested in an all-men production of anything, but I have always been interested in the dynamic when it’s only one gender.
And how does that play? What is the physicality? What how do we look at jokes about women and jokes about men when it’s all the same gender and I’m, I’m really excited because Kati grace is producing it. We’ve already had auditions. It’s cast and it’s some serious Shakespeare talent some real OG actresses working together.
Ah, really OG like so exciting. And then I handful of young artists, new to town, new to the Tavern not necessarily new to Shakespeare by any means. So it’s gonna, it’s gonna be eye-opening for that rehearsal process. We do all our rehearsal processes masked and distanced and that kind of thing.
And I’m not going to really lean into the, we can’t be too close to each other. It’s a big space not any bigger or smaller than the Tavern stage, but it’s all flat. It’s outdoor. We’re going to have some suggestive set material set pieces that I’m making or managing. And there’ll be music and singing and all the things that you expect from a Tavern production, except for there won’t be any a Shepherd’s pie beforehand, because yeah, but we’ll be back with that pretty soon.
And it’s going to be a fairly swift rehearsal process. A lot of the actresses are familiar with the play. I mean, it’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. I’ve been in it multiple times. Never directed it strangely enough, but I’ve, I played Titania a bunch. Kati Grace, you’ve directed it though. You just directed it the last time we did it.
Kati Grace Brown: Yeah. I directed it after playing Helena a bunch.
Laura Cole: And we’ll have some student matinees or daytime matinees that we hope you know, some, some families can come and see, and then we have evening productions of it that, that whole one week. And we have some rain dates, which are right after the weekend dates, but hopefully by May, what May 13th is when it starts?
Kati Grace Brown: May 13 through 16.
Laura Cole: The weather will be lovely, not too hot, not too cold. And it’s going to be really interesting. I have worked outdoors. I have directed outdoors, but as a company, we’re not an outdoor company, so we’ll see. Fantastic.
Kati Grace Brown: Sorry, the museum will also be showcasing their Atlanta biennial exhibit during that time. And they invite everyone in the audience to come in and take a look at the exhibit while they’re there, which we’re really excited about. Yeah. Yeah.
Michael Van Osch: And it’s a great place. We love it. Yeah. All right. So I’ll put that in the show notes too, but that’s May 13th through 16th, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Looking forward to that as well. Last question quickly Laura, tell us a little bit about Prague and the and the Shakespeare company or the Prague Shakespeare Company that you work with.
Laura Cole: So there’s an organization it’s international, it’s called the Shakespeare Theater Association and the Tavern has been members, Prague Shakespeare are members.
So it’s, it’s Shakespeare companies that produce, it’s not scholarly. I mean, it is kind of scholarly, but it’s producers of Shakespeare and Guy Roberts is the artistic director and he’s from Texas and he got his start with one of the founders of STA and then went to Prague for a professional job and fell in love.
And it’s easy to see why, because Prague is gorgeous. And it’s very easy for us single language Americans to deal with because there’s a lot of English language speaking. It is a very places, parts of it are very tourist friendly and they have a very thriving theater scene. Some of the most famous theaters in Europe are there.
The state’s theaters where Mozart premiered Don Giovanni. I have stood on that stage. And that is overwhelming. Let me tell you cause these are 17th-century theaters, they’re gorgeous. Anyway, I am new Guy and his wife, Jessica through STA and I one year, like four years ago, I taught an original practices program during the conference and Guy was there and he was familiar with OP, familiar with me as a colleague, but he’d never seen my work. And he said you have got to come to Prague. And I was like, Oh yeah, yeah, I’ll write that down. Sure. You know, and then a week, a month later, he said, I’m coming through America. His daughter goes to UGA and he said, can we talk about you coming to Prague?
And I went, Oh my God. So I took him to Manny’s and he loved it. It just so happened a band, the Marching Abominables came through for some reason while we were there. And he said this feels very European. So I went over, I was supposed to be there, of course, last summer, but they’re as closed down as we are. But it’s, it’s a four-week training program for young professionals, experienced professionals, equity actors, as well as college students.
And you, you come out of there with one or two or maybe three professional credits. It’s an equity theater for Europe. And it’s a mix of, of European actors, actors from all over the world. Really. And I have, I was in Julius Caesar and teaching, and then I was In 2019, I was Titania and much Mary God, all the m’s, Midsummer as well as continuing to teach.
And next year, summer or Christmas, we’re not sure. I will probably be directing a Henry the Sixth Part Two. It’s kind of up in the air because they rely on people coming to Prague, but it is an amazing company. And although their aesthetic is much more modern than what we do the directly addressing the audience and the actors really, really understanding the text and being immersed in the whole production and rehearsal and practice of Shakespeare is very much kin to the way we do it.
So it’s a real thrill. And then you’re in this gorgeous European city. And I, I could not afford to travel like that when I was young or right out of college. But this way I’ve, I’ve been able to see some sites while I teach Shakespeare, which is…
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. The best of all worlds. Right?
Laura Cole: Yeah. Best of all worlds.
Michael Van Osch: Well, I’ll include information on that too, so people can check that out. Do they have a website? They must.
Laura Cole: I think it’s Prague Shakespeare, but if you Google projects for your company, PSC, you’ll go right to the website, and all the information about the summer and winter programs is already on there.
They started rolling very early for there’s some discounts you can get and progs easy to get to compared to some European cities. So and they put you up the students up, you get fed it’s amazing. It’s really amazing.
Michael Van Osch: I think we’re all going now. Sounds great. Well, thank you so much, both of you before we go and stay on the line after we say goodbye, by the way.
But before we go have the final question that I ask everybody that I interview and Kati Grace, let’s start with you. And then we’ll move to Laura. The question is if Shakespeare was on this zoom call with us and you got to ask him one question, what would you ask him?
Kati Grace Brown: Oh, I, I would want to know if, if his very spirited, smart, capable women that he wrote about were based on a real person that he knew and interacted with.
I’ve had the privilege of playing. I can’t even, I probably can’t say what Jeff calls my, my type. But these very, I will say sassy, liberated women. I’ve had to now play Helen in All’s Well, Helena and Midsummer, Beatrice. And I just feel like there’s such a common thread there. That was so unusual for that time period in what I understand of how gender hierarchy works.
I want to know who that girl was or who those women were. And I want him to have a beer with me and tell me all about them.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, it’s a great question. Sounds good. All right, Laura, you’re up?
Laura Cole: I really liked what Kati gray said. That’s been floating around. But mine’s a little more, I’ve always wondered about how the apprentices and they would have been young men, 12, 13, 14 year old boys.
What was that teaching? Like, what was that, you know, they didn’t get directed necessarily, but just the rehearsal process with really young people and then incredibly famous, you know, movie stars of their day actors. I wouldn’t, I wouldn’t rag him about not having women on stage. I understand their rules from then, but I would have been really interested in the rehearsal process and how long it took. And what did you think about it? And did you tell people what to do? Cause I don’t think you would have let them go on stage without advising them. And maybe kind of, part of that would be, which was your favorite play? You know, I get that asked all the time and I say, it’s whatever play I’m working on at the time.
Cause it really is. But I’m curious what, what was near and dear to his heart as a producer and an actor and probably a director of Shakespeare. I’m real curious about that.
Michael Van Osch: I like it. I like it sounds great. Two good questions. I wish we could get them answered. Who knows? Well, thank you again so much.
Laura Cole, Kati Grace Brown. Thank you so much for joining us. Keep doing the great work here in Atlanta. We really appreciate it. Looking forward to it. I’ll put all the notes in in the, in the show notes here about how people can watch these shows and go to them. Hopefully we’ll be out and about in May.
I’m sure we will. So stay on the line, but anyway, thank you so much. And take care. We’ll talk to you soon.
Kati Grace Brown: Thank you.
Michael Van Osch: Bye-bye.
