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 Shepherd University Creative Writing Majors. Previous productions include Shakespeare’s Hamlet, King Lear, Twelfth Night, The Tempest, A Midsummer Night’s 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’ Play, Everyman, and Mankind; Greek tragedies such as Antigone, Medea, Trojan Women, and Electra; and fourteen plays by Shepherd University Creative Writing majors. The Rude Mechanicals troupe has performed in the Netherlands, Denmark, Canada, California, Florida, and Washington, DC. For more information about the Rude Mechanicals, contact Dr. Michael Vaclav II, Assistant Professor of English, Shepherd University (mvaclavi@shepherd.edu).
The Rude Mechanicals Medieval and Renaissance Players performed the fifteenth-century medieval comedy The Second Shepherds’ Play at the Wilson College Humanities Conference on February 25th. Shepherd 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’ Play is from an anonymous collection of fifteenth-century northern English biblical cycle plays (sometimes referred to as mystery plays). 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’s 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’s Performance Series. Joseph’s Wedding, an auto-sacramental, is a play that combines religious themes with comedy and social messages about religious tolerance. Shepherd University students who performed include L Harvey, an English major; Dakota DiMarino, an environmental science major; Victoria Fairchild, a photography/computer imagery major; Sadé 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 present Macbeth! In war-torn Scotland, three Weird Sisters herald the rise of an ambitious young warrior and his ruthless wife. Our modern staging of Shakespeare’s classic blends contemporary style with a vintage Metal soundtrack to highlight cyclical systems of violence. The Weird Sisters are the seen-yet-unseen in society—the unhoused and the “essential” workers—who observe the rise and fall of the nobility endlessly funding war and rebellion. Will Macbeth rise above the fray, or will he fall victim to the same gravitational pull that doomed his predecessor? We invite you to witness the drama and the chaos in the Rude Mechanicals’ Macbeth. Performances will be in Studio 112 in the CCA I building. Show times are November 6th, 7th, 8th, 13th, 14th, 15th at 7:00 p.m. and November 9th and 16th at 3:00 p.m. For further information, please contact Dr. Michael Vaclav (mvaclavi@shepherd.edu).