Bard of Worcester (spring 2002)
Clark hosts first undergraduate Shakespeare conference By Wendy Linden
"Where shall we three meet
again?"
So asked the three witches from "MacBeth." They were here along with Shakespeare's other
characters when Clark hosted its first Shakespeare Conference on April 13. The conference,
titled "Realizing Shakespeare," brought together more than 50 undergraduate Shakespeare
afficionados from colleges and universities from Central Massachusetts and Connecticut for a day
of panel discussions, acting workshops, speeches and a night out to see a production of "The
Tempest."
The conference is the brainchild of Clark English Professor Virginia Mason
Vaughan. (Read more about Professor Vaughan's research.) She recruited her colleagues at the College of the Holy Cross, Worcester Polytechnic
Institute, Assumption College and Regis College to plan the conference, which is based on one
Vaughan attended at Susquehanna University two years ago. "What makes this conference
unique is that it focuses on undergraduates," says Vaughan. "Not only are the attendees
undergraduates, but so are the presenters." Vaughan and the other conference organizers
solicited proposals from colleges and universities from the region and selected a handful of
students to be panelists. Among those chosen were English majors Layla Coleman '03, Christine
Rizzo '03 and Emily Straub '02. Each participated in a panel discussion with undergraduates
selected from other schools. "I really enjoyed being a part of the panel on ŒFeminist
Realizations of Shakespeare,'" says Coleman, whose proposal focused on male anxiety about female
sexuality in the play "Measure for Measure." "To see other students looking at these works with
a feminist outlook is great. It's always a challenge to look at these texts from a different
viewpoint." In addition to the feminism panel, the conference included panels on "Tragic
Realizations," "Realizing Shakespeare on Film," "Realizing Shakespeare Through Language," and
"Realizing Character through Crossed-Dressing." Bringing
Shakespeare to life The conference's title was chosen to encompass a variety
of ways to interpret and enjoy Shakespeare's works. 'Realizing Shakespeare' can be taken in a
lot of different ways," explains Vaughan. "It can mean realizing in the sense of understanding
the text in terms of its language and historical context. But it can also be taking
Shakespeare's texts and making them come to life through performance or film." To
achieve that mix, the conference included two acting workshops, one of which featured students
from Clark's "Page to Stage" course co-taught by Vaughan and theater Professor Gino Dilorio.
According to Dilorio, "This mixture of historical and literary analysis and performance is at
the essence of Clark's 'Page to Stage' course. We have English majors getting up and acting and
theater majors writing literary critiques." "You get the best of both worlds in Ginger
and Gino's course," says Georgia Rushing, an English master's student whom Vaughan enticed to
Clark after hearing her present a paper at the Susquehanna Conference. "I'm in their 'Page to
Stage' class, and they have an incredible rapport. Because Ginger has the literary side and Gino
has the acting side, you get both perspectives." Coleman, also in the course, adds,
"We're pretty technical about studying the texts with Ginger, but then to get the scene up on
its feet with Gino makes you look at the characters and the whole play in a different way."
During the conference, some class members tried "to show the various stages we go through to
put up a scene," explains Dilorio, "from a rough scene using scripts where we might stop and
start and discuss the scene's possibilities, to a more polished scene." Students from an acting
class at Regis College also performed a scene from "Measure for Measure" in two different
styles. The conference also included a lecture by Professor Russ McDonald from the
University of North Carolina at Greensboro, author of "The Bedford Companion to Shakespeare" and
one of the leading experts on Shakespeare's language. Participants also attended a performance
of "The Tempest" at Holy Cross. Applause for Vaughan and the
Bard "I think Professor Vaughan needs to be applauded for this," says
Coleman. "She really wants us to experience how interesting and exciting Shakespeare can be. We
all grew up reading 'Julius Caesar' and 'Romeo and Juliet' in high school without understanding
the language or why we were even studying them. But Ginger makes the literature so accessible.
And with this conference, she's given us another opportunity to celebrate this wonderful
literature." From Vaughan's perspective, the opportunity for Clark students "to get
together with peers who are passionate about Shakespeare can be a wonderful and empowering
experience for them."
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Christine Rizzo '03 (left), Layla Coleman '03, Professor Virginia Vaughan and Emily Straub '02. Photo by Lisa VanLiew