Drums and Puppetry in Macbeth Skip to main content
2016-2017 Season

Drums and Puppetry in Macbeth

by Jessa Cunningham, dramaturg

macbeth-1140x600-1024x539

This production of Macbeth is unique in and of itself. However, something that certainly sets it apart from other productions is our director, Teresa Love, and her decision to make drumming and puppetry and integral element in the show. Many members of the cast will take turns drumming during the show, so Teresa brought in drum consultant Nes Andersen to do some workshops. During his time with the group, he gave them the opportunity to get comfortable with the drums and do some fun exercises. It looks like everyone had a great time! Our wonderful stage manager, MK, took some videos of the workshop, of which you can see one below. Does it get you excited to see how the drumming will be incorporated into the show?

Drum workshop

Certain characters will be played by puppets in this production, so the cast was fortunate to workshop their puppetry with the guest artists from The Last Great HuntThis was a great opportunity for the cast as they explored the new world of puppetry and applied it to those certain characters. Below is a short clip from that workshop.

Puppetry workshop

How will the drums and puppets be used in the show? Come to see Macbeth starting next Wednesday, February 8th, to find out! You won't be disappointed!    

Related Articles

data-content-type="article"

Fiddler on the Roof: Balancing Yesterday and Today

January 21, 2022 06:49 PM
If Anatevka is like a fiddler balancing on a roof, then the show Fiddler on the Roof also performs an impressive balancing act between its cultural specificity and enduring appeal. Whether or not audiences can relate to the practice of arraigned marriages in Orthodox Ashkenazi Jewish communities, they can understand the tension between personal desire and the social expectations around marriage. The relatability of Tevye’s world—made of hay and cows but also the love of family and dreams of wealth—stems from its timelessness. As a show that premiered 78 years ago and takes place half a century before that, Fiddler on the Roof’s greatest feat is that time does not chip at its relevance.
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Fiddler Study Guide Trivia – Answer Key

January 20, 2022 07:14 PM
Here are the answers to the study guide’s trivia questions. How many did you get right?
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=
data-content-type="article"

Tevye the Dairyman

January 17, 2022 07:25 PM
Before there was Fiddler on the Roof there was the collection of short stories by Sholom Aleichem called Tevye the Dairyman. These stories were highly popular which led their to being adapted into the musical we know and love today. That being said there are some significant differences between Fiddler on the Roof and Tevye the Dairyman that I came across while I was preparing research for the actors about the source text for this musical. One major difference that shocked me was that Aleichem wrote the character Yente, the matchmaker, as a man named Ephraim. I was quite surprised to find this as Yente has become such a well-known name in Yiddish English to mean a woman who is a bit of a gossip or a busy body. The use of this word doesn’t date back to Aleichem, as I expected, or even Fiddler. The origin of Yente’s meaning dates back to Yiddish Theatre in the 1920s and a series of comedic sketches that were written about a woman who was the town’s busybody (for more info about the origin of Yente check out this website).
overrideBackgroundColorOrImage= overrideTextColor= promoTextAlignment= overrideCardHideSection= overrideCardHideByline= overrideCardHideDescription= overridebuttonBgColor= overrideButtonText= promoTextAlignment=