The Merchant of Venice!

Yesterday some friends and I returned to Staunton, Virginia to the Blackfriar's Shakespeare Playhouse.  (Last year we also went to this theater and watched Hamlet and The Importance of Being Earnest. You can read about my experience last year by clicking here.)

 This time we did it a little differently.  We got there earlier so that we could take a tour of the theater before anyone was there and then we saw the matinee showing of The Merchant of Venice.  It was pretty awesome!  Don't worry I took lots of pictures during the tour ;) 

 Me on the balcony of the theater.  Look how small the theater is.  Pretty much anywhere you sat you had a good seat.  This is about where we sat for The Merchant of Venice.

Looking at the side seats from the other side.  Look at the cool lights that look like candlesticks but lit by electricity.  For the play, they kept all of the lights on (even the ones on the audience), which is the way they would have done it in Shakespeare's time. 

 The men's dressing room.

 The ladies' dressing room.

 We got to hang out on stage while our our guide talked about the theater some more.

 Looking up at the balcony where we sat from the stage. 

 See that brown door on the ceiling?!  Well it's the trap door on the ceiling.  The tour guide said they have ever only used it once because they ran out of money before they could finish making all of the equipment to make it safe to use. 

Listening intently to our tour guide.  (The guy in the green shirt is the tour guide.)  The tour was very interesting. We learned about the history of the theater and about Shakespeare and about the Blackfriar's theater in London as well as the Globe in London.

 Annie, Chelsey, Rachel, Diana (the one who organized the trip), and Mandy.  They are sitting on the chairs on the stage, which people sat on during the actual performance.  The actors would occasionally interact with the people in the chairs.  It was pretty funny :)

 During the play they don't use backdrops and they use very minimal props.  (Like it would have been in Shakespeare's time.) 

Our whole group.  Rachel, Annie, Mandy, Chelsey, Diana, Kara, Jessica, Whitney, Austin, Emma, and me. 
Overall the day was awesome! Awesome play, awesome theater, awesome friends!  I am so glad I was able to go again this year :)

P.S. I had never read nor seen The Merchant of Venice before and it was fascinating.  It was funny and sad and interesting.  I hope to do a post about my thoughts on one speech in particular from the play.