The Actor's Guide
An Actor's (and Intelligent Reader's) Guide to the Language of Shakespeare
by Richard DiPrima.
Read more about the book that developed out of YSP's Focused Workshops.

Focused Workshops

HA! HA! KEEP TIME!* Understanding Rhythm and Stress in Shakespeare’s Verse
 *This topic – the rhythm of Shakespeare’s verse -- is the only one with a second, more advanced version: “That Would Be Scann’d,” which will be offered about once every two years.

WHEN WE TALK OF HORSES: Understanding, Seeing, and Conveying Shakespeare's Imagery

O, IT CAME O’ER MY EAR! Understanding the Use of Sound in Shakespeare

THE WORD AGAINST THE WORD: Understanding and Using Antithetical Figures in
Shakespeare

THE CAVE WHERE ECHO LIES: Understanding and Using Shakespeare’s Figures of Repetition

FAIN WOULD I DWELL ON FORM: The Architecture of Shakespeare’s Writing

THAT WOULD BE SCANN’D: An Advanced Workshop on Rhythm, Stress, and
Scansion in Shakespeare (prerequisite: Ha! Ha! Keep Time!)

GUARDS AND GARDENERS, ATTENDANTS AND APOTHECARIES: Understanding and Performing the Small Parts in Shakespeare

Focused Workshops on Shakespeare's Languageysp logo

 

YSP's popular Focused Workshops are dedicated to basic aspects of Shakespeare’s craft, such as understanding, scanning, and using the rhythm of Shakespeare's verse to let him "direct" us; how to conceive, phrase, and deliver his beautiful long speeches; how to work "with" him to understand and create his small characters, etc.

In the early 1980s, Richard DiPrima began to develop a special in-depth model to aid in understanding, reading, and acting Shakespeare. The model, RISARA, is an acronym made up of the first letters of six critical elements of Shakespeare’s great writing:

  1. the Rhythm, stress, and scansion of his verse
  2. his glorious Imagery
  3. his uses of Sound
  4. his use of Antithetical balanced figures
  5. his uses of Repetition in its many rhetorical forms
  6. the Architecture of the way he designed long (and short) passages

There is a Focused Workshop for each of these elements, plus an advanced workshop on scansion and one for conceiving and acting the wonderful “bit” parts in Shakespeare. Much more information about RISARA can also be found in DiPrima's book, An Actor's (and Intelligent Reader's) Guide to the Language of Shakespeare, which details each of its elements.

Special Notes:

1) Focused Workshops are scheduled as actors request them. A minimum of 3 actors are needed. YSP usually does 3-4 per year.

2) Each Focused Workshop will be limited to no more than eight participants.
 
3) Focused Workshop participants may be of any age (including adults), and should have participated in at least one YSP Shakespeare production (workshop or full play).
 
4) Format (unless otherwise noted):
 
Four seminar-like meetings (usually once a week) from 5:00 pm to 8:00 pm, and a fifth, final meeting for a rehearsal followed by a brief (about an hour) performance (memorization not required).  The performance begins at 8 pm.

5) YSP encourages anyone who plans to do repeated productions at YSP to participate in as many of the Focused Workshops as possible (participation is required for anyone planning to apprentice or to intern).