performance report 1

Taylor Ellett
Professor Young
Music 1306
Introduction
I went to the Shakespeare in Song on march 27, 2010 at 8:00 in the evening.
It was located in the Jonsson performance hall in a not large sized
theatre viewing a stage that is big enough to hold a piano, a bleacher like
setup, and space for acting. The performers were all students of the
University of Texas Dallas and most likely all part of the theatre class or
club that is offered that is also part of the School of Arts and
Humanities. The performing arts school performs many live acts and so you
can imagine that this was well done, with little mistakes.

Music
How the performance was setup was a director, pianist, choir, and a lead
singer/soloist from time to time. Including all songs, the performance
went up to Act V Scene 1 which was enough time to fit 17 songs into the
night. Some of the songs including solo performances, other requiring
acting and singing, and others with the whole choir and the pianist. There
was not one real rhythm to the whole performance and there were a mixture
of textures depending on who was performing. The men and women sang in
harmony, most of the time singing different lyrics than the other which
obviously displayed talent in the performers.

Performers

The performers like said, were UT Dallas students enrolled in the School of
Arts and Humanities. The director of the UT Dallas chamber singers was
Kathryn Evans, who is the Associate Dean for the School of Arts and
Humanities. The accompanist was Michael McVay, an accompanist is the
person that is playing the piano for the choir. There were few visual
effects but they had an effect on the overall feeling of the performance.
There was a projector screen pulled down for the songs and info about the
songs to appear on. There were also many props used in this performance.
Every member of the choir including the director was wearing an outfit that
would have been worn at the time Shakespeare based his story. The members
of the choir when they were acting out a particular part of a song they
used props like empty bottles etc to convey their character’s attitude in a
more meaningful way.

Audience

Anyone could attend this event; most of the audience was composed of
students that were most likely there for a class of theirs. But, there
were older folks none the less, meaning that people come there to see the
choir perform because of their interest in the performance and not because
they are being graded on it. The audience participated in the applause of
each song but that was about it, no unique audience involvement and there
was most definitely not a feeling of insider or outsider within the
performance hall.

Time and Space

The time and space played a factor in how much I could enjoy the
performance, to be honest. The fact that it was inside a school made it
less enjoyable. The audience didn’t really make the act more energetic,
the choir and piano with frequent additions of solos made the performance
plenty energetic. One thing that I noticed was that a good amount of the
seats were taken which means that their effort to make the performance free
most definitely brought more people to the campus event.

Conclusion

The Shakespeare in Song performance turned out to be a very well
coordinated showing of a choir, director, soloists, and accompanist. The
chamber choir of the UT Dallas performing arts school under the direction
of the Associate Dean for the School of Arts and Humanities by Kathryn
Evans performed the five acts on March 27th.

Works Cited

Evans, Kathryn. Shakespeare in Song.3/27/2010.Richardon: Jonsson Performance Hall.Evans