For director Adam J. Jefferis and writer Rynn Vogel, the draw of the Actors’ Gang is all about the community.
For the last nearly twenty years, the creative duo, who also happen to be a married couple, have been staging family-friendly Shakespeare adaptations with the Actors’ Gang. Past shows have included Much Ado About Pooh, Harry Potter Hamlet, and Toy Story Tempest, among others. They return this Saturday, August 1, with Two Gentlebots of Verona.
Despite being largely focused towards children, when writing her adaptations Vogel strives to maintain as much of Shakespeare’s original dialogue as possible.
“It’s important to preserve that language because I want to introduce people to Shakespeare in a way that makes it fun and engaging,” Vogel said over the phone. “And I try to choose from Shakespeare’s comedies because no one tends to die.”
Beyond those stipulations, Vogel gives herself free range to bring Shakespeare’s work to a young, modern audience.
“I’m always thinking about, ‘What is a kid going to take away from this?’” she said.
That curiosity manifests in modifying characters to represent as many different audience members as possible. Past plays have included nonbinary characters, bilingual characters, the sorts of people that are easy to find in Culver City, but are conspicuously absent in Shakespeare’s works.
“It’s really important to show that these Shakespeare plays are more adaptable than you think,” Vogel said.
They’re adaptable in more ways than just narrative. Many of the students in the Actors’ Gang education program, of which Jefferis is the director, are invited to participate in the production of these summer shows.
“It builds confidence and so much resilience,” Jefferis said. “I feel like high school is getting harder and harder.”
Vogel and Jefferis would know.
“[High school] was hard for us because we were weird kids, obviously, and now look at what we do,” Vogel said. “And we want to give other weird kids that same window of opportunity to show them this isn’t the end. Like, high school is nothing compared to all of the cool stuff you’re going to be able to do in the future.”
That undercurrent of care and community runs through just about every conversation about the Actor’s Gang. Its education department sees its instructors going into schools and teaching ensemble-based work in the classroom, providing free after-school programming and offering tuition-based classes on weekends. They even have a program that brings theater education to incarcerated individuals.
“There’s a lot of wonderful and talented and supportive artists that are in this company and have come through these doors,” Jefferis said. “There’s something about the community that is created here that keeps me sticking around.”
Two Gentlebots of Verona will play every Saturday and Sunday from August 1 through 23, at 11 am at Media Park in Downtown Culver City. Tickets are free, a further demonstration that community and accessibility are the pillars on which the Actors’ Gang is built.
When asked what she hopes people take away from their summer shows, Vogel said, “That Shakespeare is fun, and that it’s okay to participate in a show. Everybody’s approachable, and you can do it too.”
Brett Morrow
Photo credit – Actors’ Gang
