Playing HAMLET Roulette

by Mark Jackson (Editor)

In the hit 2016 Shotgun Players production of Hamlet, seven actors learned all the roles. Each night, in front of the audience, they drew from Yorick's skull the characters they would play, then had five minutes to get ready before show time. PLAYING HAMLET ROULETTE explores what eventually emerged as the production's true subjects: failure, expectation, possibility, and democracy. In these pages, the production's director, actors, designers, and audience explore the wide ranging implications of these subjects both in and out of theatre. How might a critical consideration of creative experiences with failure expand our expectations of what is possible in our democratic societies? Theatre makers, goers, students, and teachers alike will enjoy the book for its exploration of rehearsal processes and of the impact theatre performances can have on audiences, as well as its uniquely poly-vocal analysis of Shakespeare's play, Hamlet.

306 pages, Paperback

Published November 21, 2017

About the author

Mark Jackson is a playwright, director, and performer. He was Artistic Director of Art Street Theatre, San Francisco, from 1995 to 2004, during which time he wrote, directed and performed in numerous productions for the company. His plays have been developed at American Conservatory Theater, Capital Stage, EXIT Theatre, Playwrights Foundation, Magic Theatre, and Z Space. In 2010 Mark was invited to be a company member of The Shotgun Players.

Mark has been a resident playwright of English Theatre Berlin (Germany) and the Djerassi Resident Artists Program, where he was awarded the William and Flora Hewlett Foundation Honorary Fellowship. He is a German Chancellor Fellow of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, which took him to Berlin, Germany, to work with Mime Centrum Berlin, a practical research center for physical theater. Mark was named “Best Director” by the East Bay Express in 2009 and 2004, “Best Theatrical Auteur” by the SF Weekly in 2007, and one of the “Top 100 Bay Area Artists” by San Francisco Magazine in 2002. Other awards and honors include the Edgerton Foundation New American Plays Award, a Magic Theater / Z Space New Works Initiative commission, three Bay Area Theater Critics Circle Awards, three SFBG Upstage/Downstage Awards, and two Theater Bay Area CA$H Grants. Mark’s writing has benefited numerous times from the generosity of the Tournesol Project, a granting program for the development of new work.

Mark graduated magna cum laude from San Francisco State University, where he was awarded the Theatre Arts Department Award for Outstanding Achievement in Directing.

Reviews

[Lisa Bettini · Rating 5 out of 5]

Mark Jackson is nothing short of a GENIUS. I've had the honor of taking his Shakespeare class, walking in thinking I knew it all because I was able to understand the Bard's words when I was very young, I left my first class with nothing short of absolute awe for Mark and his understanding and ability to distill the words to be a modern, amazing, mind-blowing adaptation and take on the words Shakespeare wrote. Yes, yes, yes!

This book is about the brilliant undertaking his company took in drawing slips of paper out of Yorik's skull every night before a performance, one hour before, in fact, that told them what character they would be playing that evening, then they had an hour before curtain to get the lines down. People attended not just one performance, but many since every night was vastly different.

I've always had a special understanding of Hamlet, a simpatico, and when Mark said "everyone is Hamlet, everyone can play Hamlet" he won over my heart. I'm a life-long devotee of Mark's from that moment on and have taken other classes of his, and found them all to be amazing and I've turned my friends over to him and after a movement class, having been cast together in a play, we tried to work Mark's genius into our performance...If you think I can't say enough glowing things about Mark, you're right.

This book is not like every other book that gives tired, dated info about the characters and plays. This is like nothing you've ever read. IF you think. you know Hamlet, or Shakespeare, prepare to have your eyes opened.