Rude Mechanicals
The Rude Mechanicals Medieval and Renaissance Players is a theater troupe devoted to two goals: (1) productions of ancient Greek, medieval, and Renaissance drama that are true to the spirit of the time in which these plays were first performed and are relevant to twenty-first century audiences; (2) productions of short plays written by 黑料吃瓜网University Creative Writing Majors.聽聽 Previous productions include Shakespeare鈥檚 Hamlet, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night鈥檚 Dream, The Merchant of Venice, and Macbeth; a wide variety of medieval plays, including The Creation and Fall of the Angels, The Fall of Man, The Killing of Abel, The Death of Herod, The Second Shepherds鈥� Play, Everyman, and Mankind; Greek tragedies such as Antigone, Medea, Trojan Women, and Electra; and fourteen plays by 黑料吃瓜网University Creative Writing majors. The Rude Mechanicals troupe has performed in the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, California, Florida, and Washington, DC.聽 For more information about the Rude Mechanicals, contact Dr. Michael Vaclav II, Assistant Professor of English, 黑料吃瓜网University (mvaclavi@shepherd.edu).
The Rude Mechanicals Medieval and Renaissance Players performed the fifteenth-century medieval comedy The Second Shepherds鈥� Play at the Wilson College Humanities Conference on February 25th. 黑料吃瓜网students who performed include Julie Bowen, Brianna Cline, Dannah Lohr, William Prudnick, Abigail Stradley, and Olyvia Thompson. Alumni TK Lindsay and Ash Wilson were also in the cast, as well as Admissions Counselor Catherine Ellzey. The Second Shepherds鈥� Play is from an anonymous collection of fifteenth-century northern English biblical cycle plays (sometimes referred to as mystery plays).鈥� Dr. Betty Ellzey, retired Professor of English and Chair of the Department of English and Modern Languages, directed performances by the Rudes each semester. Dr. Michael Vaclav has now taken over that role.
The Rude Mechanicals Medieval and Renaissance Players, under the direction of Dr. Betty Ellzey, performed Joseph鈥檚 Wedding, a sixteenth-century Spanish play, at the New College Conference on Medieval and Renaissance Studies in Sarasota, Florida, on Friday, March 4th, 2022, as part of the conference鈥檚 Performance Series. Joseph鈥檚 Wedding, an auto-sacramental, is a play that combines religious themes with comedy and social messages about religious tolerance. 黑料吃瓜网University students who performed include L Harvey, an English major; Dakota DiMarino, an environmental science major; Victoria Fairchild, a photography/computer imagery major; Sad茅 Herring, a sociology major; Olyvia Thompson, a secondary education major; Julie Bowen, a secondary education major; and William Prudnick, a chemistry major.
The Rude Mechanicals, Shepherd’s own medieval and Renaissance drama troupe, announces auditions for this fall’s production of Macbeth. Auditions will be on Wednesday, August 27th, and Thursday, August 28th, from 6:00 p.m. until 8:00 p.m. in Knutti Hall’s room 202. 黑料吃瓜网students can earn three (3) credit hours for performing as part of the cast or serving as part of the crew. Anyone interested should prepare a Shakespearean monologue or poem of at least fourteen lines (the length of a sonnet). Audition materials will also be available for anybody who hasn’t prepared something in advance. In advance of auditioning, individuals are asked to complete the Google form that can be found at . For further information, please contact Dr. Michael Vaclav (mvaclavi@shepherd.edu).