THE STUDY GUIDE IS HERE!

It's been worth the wait! Our gorgeous new study guide features the work of illustrator David Heatley, behind-the-scenes info on our production, post-workshop lesson plans for teachers, and more!

While only those schools participating in our program have exclusive access to our study guide, we'll be giving you a sneak-peek of some of David's work here on our blog, beginning with the cover illustration.

Much Ado about WORDS

With 1,062 lines, Much Ado About Nothing is Shakespeare’s tenth longest play and third longest comedy (ours is shortened to an hour and a half!). With any play of this length, it can be easy to be overwhelmed by the language and complex plot.

We at the Young Company found a cool way to uncover important themes and patterns in the play through a WORDLE! Through the magic of the Internet, we created this Wordle which shows you how often specific words are used. Believe it or not, every single word used in Much Ado is represented in this image, and the size of the words is indicative of the amount a word is used.

Go to http://www.wordle.net/ to create your own!

Inside the Young Company Studio...

An exclusive update from JIMMY MAIZE, the director of MUCH ADO ABOUT NOTHING:

"We are nearing the end of week two in our rehearsal process for MUCH ADO and making great strides. We devoted the entire first week to table-work, where we we were able to read through every scene and parse out each character's intension, making sense of any confusing language, and then come up with the characters' individual histories and relationships. We also spent some time looking at New Orleans of 1920 (which is where I've set our production) so we can better create the distinct world of the play. To this aim, the design team provided images and sketches of both the proposed set and costume designs, and we played recordings of the jazz music that will eventually be provided by the live band.

This past week we have been working fast to block the play (meaning we decide where and when the actors will move on stage), and in a few days we will put the pieces together to have our first stumble-through (the first time we try out all of the blocking at once.) The cast is working incredibly fast in the hopes that we will be able to run the show, fine-tuning and expanding on the scenework, with run-throughs (where we'll rehearse the show from start to finish without stopping) for the entire final week before tech (where we'll stop rehearsing in a studio room and start rehearsing in CSC's theater instead, adding all of the technical elements like lighting and sound cues.)

Meanwhile, tomorrow is the first full rehearsal with the band, and they will eventually be incorporated with the actors (adding choreography, aka planning our dance moves) in that final week. The music will be such an integral part of the staging, so we are all very excited to put these two elements together!

We are off to a tremendous start, and looking forward to seeing how the play grows in the few remaining weeks!

- Jimmy"