SCHOOL TOURING PRODUCTION OF HAMLET
Acorn Productions offers high schools in Southern Maine a 90 minute touring version of the quintessential tragedy, directed by Acorn's Producing Director Michael Levine and Shakespeare Ensemble co-director Michael Howard. The cast features company member Keith Anctil in the title role, with supporting work by Karen Ball, Paul Haley, Heather Scamman and Randall Tuttle. The production also features atmospheric original live music written and performed by Denis Nye.
Although Acorn's version of Hamlet is substantially shorter than the original play, with several actors playing multiple roles, the essential story remains intact, with several of Hamlet's famous soliloquies included. As with all productions that are part of the Shakespeare Ensemble’s “Naked Shakespeare” series, the actors use minimal sets, lights and costumes in order to focus attention on the power of Shakespeare’s language and imagery. Acorn's edited text focuses on Hamlet's inability to act on what he knows to be true, while raising questions about the justice of revenge as a means of emotional closure. The duel at the end of the play between Hamlet and Laertes is choreographed by Mark Bedell, the owner of the Maine Academy of Staged Combat.
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PRODUCTION STAFF
Keith Anctil has been seen on stages from Biddeford to Camden for the past seven seasons. His most recent performance was a one-man tour-de-force in Open Water's presentation of The Fever.He is often involved in productions at The Theater Project in Brunswick, where he was last seen in a night of short comedies entitled Winter Cabaret. Other local work includes four seasons with The Stage at Spring Point, and roles with Mad Horse Theater Company, Good Theater, as well as Naked Shakespeare. Keith also works at Wescott Jr. High in Westbrook where he is a special educator and founder of the Wescott Theater Company.
Karen Ball is a recent graduate of University of Southern Maine with a B.A. in theatre where her acting credits include The Cop in The Laramie Project, Martha in Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf, and Lady Macbeth. She has worked with Two Lights Theatre Ensemble as Zoe in Purple Breasts, Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus as Tamora, as well as Don Arias in Corneille’s El Cid. As a member of Acorn Productions’ "Naked Shakespeare Ensemble," she’s had the opportunity to play such characters as Lady Macbeth, Portia, Titania, and Miranda. In addition to short films, she has three feature length film credits which are Catherine in The Same Side of Rejection Street, Erin in Winging It , and Delia in Such.
Paul Haley has performed in Twelfth Night with The Stage at Spring Point and Macbeth with Lucid Productions in addition to working in the productions, scene presentations and staged readings of the Acorn Shakespeare Ensemble. He has worked in the Maine Short Play Festival, in productions with the American Irish Repertory Ensemble in Portland and the recently established Lanyard Theater Company in Bath.
Michael Howard has worked extensively both on stage and as a director and acting teacher in Maine and New York City. He holds M.F.A. degrees from Brooklyn College and Southwest Texas State University. Michael has directed for many companies, including Acorn Productions, Mad Horse Theater Company, University of Southern Maine and Portland Players. His teachers include F. Murray Abraham, Uta Hagen, Kristen Linklater, and Spalding Gray.
Michael Levine is the co-founder of Oak Street Theatre and Acorn Productions. He has directed many productions for Acorn, including The Cocktail Hour, Measure for Measure, Burn This, Buried Child, and Much Ado About Nothing. He taught acting classes for adults at the Acorn School for the Performing Arts and for teenage and middle school students at Sacopee Valley High School in Hiram. Mike is a graduate of M.I.T., where he studied playwrighting with A.R. Gurney, and acting with Kristen Linklater, and Shakespeare and Company. He has worked at Portland Stage Company and the New Repertory Theatre and is currently an English teacher at Gorham High School.
Denis Nye received a B.A. from the University of Chicago in composition and theory. He has created and performed music for many theatres, including New Crime Theatre in Chicago and Moxie Lab in Portland. Denis was award a Jeff Award in Chicago for Music for an Independent Theatre Company. His compositions has been heard in Chicago, Minneapolis, Eau Claire, New York and Portland. Locally, he has been a regular performer at the annual “Sacred and Profane” festival on Peaks Island, as well as being a regular with Naked Shakespeare for the past two years.
Heather Scamman is an apprentice of Naked Shakespeare as well as a junior theatre major at the University of Southern Maine, where she recently appeared as Miranda in The Tempest, guest directed by Christopher Price. Other acting credits, outside of USM, include: Cherie in Bus Stop at Portland Lyric, Raina in Arms and the Man, and Mary-Catherine Davis in The Dancers.
Randall Tuttle is a longtime member of Acorn's Naked Shakespeare Ensemble making his début in Acorn's production of Much Ado About Nothing, as Don John and also appearing as the Friar in Romeo and Juliet with the Mad Horse Theater Company. As well as a Shakespearean actor, Randall has undertaken other more contemporary plays, such as Our Town, Under Milkwood, The Dining Room as well as participating for several years in the Maine Short Play Festival.
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