All We Want In The World Is More Folks Making Shakespeare
At Elsewhere, we believe that more Shakespeare is always a good thing. Given how tight resources (especially time and money) can be, we wanted to share things that we think might make it easier for other folks to create Shakespeare. Some of them we’ve created (like our script cuttings and production notes) and some are things we’ve discovered and found very useful. We will update this section as often as we have new things to add.
You have blanket permission to use anything of ours. You don’t have to credit or acknowledge Elsewhere when you use our resources, but if you’d like to link to our site or shoot us an email saying hello and thanking us, that’d be awesome.
Performance Workshops
Text Work
Production Resources
Tutorials & Guides
From making props to cutting scripts, here’s where you’ll find our assorted how-tos and guides
“I just about lost my mind”
“The tire drum was absolutely nuts! When they started playing it during the final fight scene, I just about lost my mind.”
90-Minute Script Cuttings
We’ve cut the text of these shows down to a 90-minute runtime and included doubling charts as well as some notes about the general changes made to the show to accommodate the shortened run.
“The Perfect Choice”
“Using Elsewhere’s cut of ‘Macbeth’ was the perfect choice for our production.”
Literature & Scholarship
My Life With The Shakespeare Cult
Production-facing, We highly recommend Samuel Taylor’s book My Life with the Shakespeare Cult. It gives a practical yet scholarly perspective on doing what his company Backroom Shakespeare calls “Old School Shakespeare,” which is very close to what we call “Fast and Loose Shakespeare.”
The Play’s The Thing
Audience-facing, Mac published a small book called The Play’s the Thing: A Beginner’s Guide to Seeing and Enjoying Shakespeare. It serves as a useful introduction for audience members before seeing their first live Shakespeare play. It consists of an introduction to live theatre generally and Shakespeare specifically, and then a two-page spread covering each play in the canon, with a plot synopsis, some general analysis, as well as an examination of the most famous moment or speech in the play.
image from Diacritik
“Fascinating And Informative”
“Mac’s fascinating and informative Introduction and his lively two-page analysis of each play are sure to increase your engagement with every play you get to see being performed. In fact, thanks to Mac’s infectious enthusiasm, you may find this book so readable that you end up ignoring his advice to use it simply as a reference when you are planning to attend a particular play, and instead do what I did, and read the entire book straight through from All’s Well That Ends Well to The Winter’s Tale.”
–Jean Hegland, Author of “Still Time” and “Into The Forest”
fundraising
For small theatre companies, we highly recommend applying to be a member of Fractured Atlas. Fractured Atlas is an umbrella non-profit that covers small arts organizations. Becoming a member of Fractured Atlas confers a lot of the same benefits as being a 501c3 — such as enabling you to accept tax-deductible donations — without all the hassle and bureaucratic red tape that comes from applying for 501c3 status. Fractured Atlas membership has some limitations, but we’ve found it to be a godsend for the kind of work we do and the small scale of our organization.