Hamlet: Blood In the Brain (The Hamlet Project)
In Hamlet: Blood in the Brain—the first major project of
the New Works/New Communities Initiative—Cal Shakes partnered with
renowned playwright Naomi Iizuka and San Francisco’s innovative
theater ensemble Campo Santo, the resident company at Intersection for
the Arts. This powerful new play emerged from an unprecedented artistic
partnership between playwright Naomi Iizuka and co-writers Sean San José,
Ryan Peters, Ricky Marshall, and Tommy Shepherd, and a three-year process
of grass-roots community engagement.
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Sean San Jose, Tommy Shepherd
& Margo Hall |
We set out to create a new play that re-locates Shakespeare’s Hamlet to the drug-ravaged world of Oakland in the mid-1980s. Directed by Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, our October 2006 world premiere of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain sold out its eight-week run to rapt audiences at Intersection for the Arts in San Francisco.
Over the course of the project, we held community dialogues, and conducted multiple interviews with figures from Shakespearean scholars to former drug lords. We also held writing workshops with young writers in schools, juvenile halls, churches and other community-based locations. It was during a writing workshop with members of theater ensemble Colored Ink that Naomi Iizuka met Ryan Peters and Ricky Marshall. She was so impressed by these two young writers that she invited them – along with Campo Santo’s Sean San José and Tommy Shepherd – to join her as co-writers of Hamlet: Blood in the Brain. All four have emerged as lead artists on the Hamlet Project; Ryan and Ricky have also contributed to Cal Shakes’ work in the classroom as Teaching Artists.
This work has led to ongoing relationships with community organizations including LoveLife Foundation, Allen Temple Baptist Church, The Beat Within, and Colored Ink (see links below). On December 16, we presented the play for a final performance at Laney College in Oakland, in combination with a day of free performance workshops for Oakland youth, to celebrate the play and the community members who helped bring this work to life.
The talk-back with actors following the performance was vigorous and
poignant. Audience members recounted their own sorrows, and expressed
how accurately the play portrayed the tension within families, the shattering
impacts of violence and drugs on the community, and the anguish of individuals
trapped by circumstance. Many in the audience were dismayed to hear this
was the last performance, and the conversation focused for some time on
how we might keep it alive, especially in and for Oakland. It was an inspiring
and gratifying exchange, and we are now exploring how we can build on
their investment in this work.
Hamlet: Blood in the Brain is supported in part by an award from the National
Endowment for the Arts, which believes that a great nation deserves great
art. Additional support comes from the Columbia Foundation, The James
Irvine Foundation, The Clorox Company Foundation, East Bay Community Foundation,
The San Francisco Foundation, The L. J. Skaggs and Mary C. Skaggs Foundation,
Theatre Communications Group/MetLife Foundation Extended Collaboration
Grants, The Zellerbach Family Foundation, UCSB Summer Theatre Lab, Intersection
for the Arts’ New Works Fund and Intersection’s Artist Residency
Program, and numerous individual contributors: Barbara Fleming and Gregg
Schnepple, Patrick Golden and Susan Overhauser, Jeff and Janie Green,
Karen Hawkins and Bill Taggert, Philip and Gloria Meads, Carole and Steven
Rathfon, Mark and Claire Roberts, and Jean Simpson.
Read articles about Hamlet: Blood in the Brain:
A Hamlet of One's Own, American Theater Magazine
The Marquez Factor, American Theater Magazine
