America Shakes

America Shakes stages the photo negative of the predominately Eurocentric model of the American summer Shakespeare festival. Instead of going outside with wine and cheese, we look and go inside, into the world of the LA. Blackfriars - a media rich space where the walls can speak, a world slightly out of joint, where audience members must look into each other’s eyes and confront issues that BIPOC and LGBTQIA face everyday in America, as the drama unfolds around and among them. When Shakespeare began to stage his plays at the Blackfriars theater, it represented a technological leap in English theatrical production. Advancements in stage lighting, the use of a deus ex machina and pyrotechnics were all introduced into the staging of Shakespeare’s plays at the Blackfriars. At the LA. Blackfriars, further technological advancements in the production of Shakespeare’s works are taking place as well: the use of 180 degree projected media, as architecture and narrative tool, the incorporation of live music, multilingual dialogue, and the abolition hierarchal theater seating, that was born of the 17th century, that divides the audience along socioeconomic lines, by dividing the house into Box, Pit, and Gallery. At the LA. Blackfriars, there are no seats of privilege. Each audience member shares the same space, as they watch and are watched by their fellow audience members, seated at the feet of a company of actors of color. “Through the languages spoken, the actors, and the media, that theater space transformed into a contact zone, between the form of the tragedy, the cultural capital of Shakespeare, and a political intervention that is critiquing U.S./ Mexican relations and I’m telling you, people were shaken up by it when they walked out of that building.” - Dr. Juan Poblete