ABSTRACT
Energized language dances; it trips on the tongue, surprising the speaker as well as the listener. It fills the air between the mouth and the ear with suspended energy that connects to a world of ideas that pulse beneath the spoken words. It embodies inspiration: the breath and the thought interconnected so intimately that neither can be extracted without the unraveling the other. This chapter explores the exercises, which are designed to forge an organic response to Shakespeare's language, to encourage thinking on the line and picking Shakespeare's words as the perfect way to make the point. It looks at the structure of verse lines from a performance perspective. The first exercise, Open Mic Poetry, explores the structure of the verse line and keeps the vocal energy sustained from beginning to end. Moving Target: Random Text promotes the impulse-action response and roots the actors deeply in Shakespeare's language while galvanizing the need to speak the text.
