Forget beer, bring your own bard instead

BYOB might have certain connotations on a college campus, but for Shakespeare in the Parks, it means Bring Your Own Bard. Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks presents BYOB (Bring Your Own Bard)

Today at Té Café

2000 Murray Ave.

pittsburghshakespeare.com

BYOB might have certain connotations on a college campus, but for Shakespeare in the Parks, it means Bring Your Own Bard.

The event is a series of once-a-month informal meetings in which Shakespeare fans from across the city gather in cafés to read their favorite monologues and sonnets from the bard — aka William Shakespeare. The program, an extension of the Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks series, typically runs from January to June, with each month having its own theme. January’s theme is “Shakespeare’s Favorites,” and the gathering takes place today at Té Café in Squirrel Hill.

Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks began in 2005, when founder and artistic director Jennifer Tober moved to Pittsburgh from New York, where she spent a lot of time doing outdoor Shakespeare.

“I was doing yoga in Frick Park, and there seemed to be a really wonderful natural amphitheater over there. And I thought, this would be a great place for a show,” Tober said, describing the creation of the Pittsburgh program.

What followed were seven seasons of the free-of-charge and minimalistic Shakespeare shows. The BYOB events serve as a warm-up for the summer show.

“We don’t have set or lights or a sound system,” Tober said. She added that it is up to the actors to make the shows memorable without these tools.

Fancy costumes aren’t needed to get Shakespeare’s point across either.

“People tend to say, ‘I never understood that play before, but now I get it!’” Tober said.

Part of this understanding comes from the fact that Shakespeare is, in many respects, meant primarily for listening, according to Pitt english literature professor Curtis Breight.

“If you ponder the conditions of 16th century theater in which there were few props and limited costumes, you realize that Shakespeare’s audience was a listening audience. This does not mean that the visual or active aspect of drama was irrelevant, but it does mean that Shakespeare and other dramatists relied upon the audience’s imagination to construct some kind of world that corresponds to Shakespeare’s poetry,” he said in an e-mail.

The BYOB sessions epitomize the informality that the Pittsburgh Shakespeare in the Parks program uses. Steel City residents of all ages and theater skill levels are invited to come and perform their favorite scenes.

“I think a lot of people, maybe more so here than in New York … tend to think of Shakespeare as being formal,” Tober said.

She said the plays in Shakespeare’s time were very informal and accessible. “They were bawdy,” she said.

BYOB’s program organizer Alan Irvine believes that people usually experience Shakespeare from the viewpoint of a modern audience, but that the BYOB sessions open the bard’s work in a new way.

“In a way, it kind of enhances the fun of everything,” Irvine said.

People of all ages read Shakespeare, including “adorable” children who “can’t act,” Tober said.

Breight agrees with the assertion that Shakespeare has widespread appeal.

“People of all ages love his plays and sonnets, I think, because of Shakespeare’s sheer range … Shakespeare inserts humor or comic relief even into the heaviest of productions,” he said.

During the BYOB sessions, participants have the chance to perform more obscure scenes that haven’t been performed repetitively, Tober said. She explained that she likes to spread awareness of one of Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays, “Cymbeline,” by performing scenes featuring her favorite character from the play, Imogen.

“It’s definitely a time for people to experiment,” she said.

The BYOB sessions also provide an opportunity for impromptu acting. Tober said that some professional actors come from CMU to perform. Irvine added that some people come prepared to do scenes, and others are spontaneously brought up on stage.

The organizers will say they have a scene that can be performed with, for example, three people, and then they will bring three people up who had originally come just to listen. It’s a way of interacting with the audience, and Irvine said that anyone who comes becomes inspired.

The best part of BYOB, he said, is that “you don’t have to be a great Shakespearian actor to do this.”