The Reduced Shakespeare Company
is an American acting troupe that writes and performs unsubtle, fast-paced, seemingly improvisational condensations of huge topics.
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REDUCED SHAKESPEARE COMPANY TICKETS
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Overview
The Company was founded in 1981 by
Daniel Singer, who wrote a 25-minute, 4-actor version of
William Shakespeare's
Hamlet
, to be performed at the original
Renaissance Pleasure Faire in
Novato, California. He cast himself as Polonius, Horatio, and Laertes;
Jess Borgeson as the title character;
Michael Fleming as Bernardo, Claudius, and the Ghost of Hamlet's father; and
Barbara Reinertson as Ophelia and Gertrude. When Reinertson broke her ankle three weeks into the run, Borgeson suggested that school-chum
Adam Long fill in for her in
drag. A wig was procured, and Long's performance was described as "uncanny." The show won high praise and developed a large following.
Borgeson returned to college in 1983 to pursue a degree in
English literature, leaving Singer and Long to continue under the RSC banner. They penned a twenty-minute version of Shakespeare's
Romeo and Juliet
, which they performed at Renaissance Fairs, on street-corners, beaches, and at private events. Crowds were amazed to see two men arrive with a small basket of costumes, two fencing foils, two bottles of poison, a rose, a dagger, a wig and a dummy, and proceed to enact the entire story with the zany style of a
Marx Brothers movie. Taking the advice of some fellow street-performers, Long and Singer expanded the comedy in the act and solicited for tips afterwards; their solicitations proved generally successful.
Borgeson rejoined the troupe in 1985, and so Singer's version of
Hamlet
was resurrected into the repertoire. Several actors had come and gone in the roles of Bernardo, the Ghost, and Claudius; the last in the series excused himself when his daughter was born. The three-man RSC was born at that time, with Long taking over those roles. In 1987, a friend of the company suggested that they'd find a welcome reception at the famous
Edinburgh Festival Fringe in
Scotland. The ideal show length being about an hour, they decided they needed about twenty more minutes of material, and proposed doing Shakespeare's other 35 plays to round out an abridgement of everything the bard wrote in less than one hour.
The resulting script successfully premiered in an open-framed barn at the Paramount Ranch in Agoura, adjacent to the site of the Renaissance Faire. It then moved to Edinburgh proper, being performed in a church basement at 10:30 a.m. for a three-week run to generally sold-out houses. After that, the show (expanded to 97 minutes) toured theatres and festivals around the world.
The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (Abridged)
ran for nine record-breaking years at the
Criterion Theatre in London's West End. It has become one of the world's most popular shows, playing frequently in a variety of languages. A video version was released on
DVD in 2001.
Singer left the Company in 1989 and was replaced by
Reed Martin; Borgeson left in 1992 and was replaced by
Austin Tichenor. Long has also retired from the company, and was replaced by Matthew Croke, who has also since departed. In 1994 Tichenor, Long and Martin created a six-part radio series called
The Reduced Shakespeare Radio Show
. It was broadcast on the
BBC World Service from May 11 to June 22, 1994. In 1994 they also produced
The Ring Reduced
, a half-hour version of
Richard Wagner's operatic
Ring Cycle, as part of
Channel 4's Wagner season.
In the mid 1990s Martin and Tichenor wrote the company's second play,
The Complete History of America (abridged)
. They followed this up with
The Bible: The Complete Word of God (abridged)
. For the turn of the century Martin and Tichenor wrote
The Complete Millennium Musical (abridged)
.
All the Great Books (abridged)
was next in the early 2000s.
Completely Hollywood (abridged)
is the troupe's most recent show, and a seventh show, "The Complete World of Sports (abridged)," is currently being written and will begin touring in Autumn 2010.
In 1995, the RSC recorded
The Reduced Shakespeare Company Christmas
, a
take on
Christmas and other December-related
holidays.
In August 2005, at the Sebatiani Theatre in
Sonoma, California, the Reduced Shakespeare Company recorded its second show on DVD,
The Complete History of America (abridged)
.
On August 8th 2006,
George Lucas gave permission for the Reduced Shakespeare Company to produce a 20-minute stage comedy version of his six-film
Star Wars
saga.