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Last August she and the Short Shakespeareans were feted at a
gala silver-anniversary celebration in the Wenatchee Convention
Center, along with current and former cast members. One wall of the
large banquet room was lined with two dozen placards, each
featuring cast and candid photos for each year.
Schreck draws on the creative talents of hundreds of people—set
builders, costume makers, painters, and promoters. She’s witnessed
the rapport that has developed among involved families. She knows
of no other children’s drama troupe in the country that is more
developed or counts as many consecutive years as hers.
“Once you get involved with Sherry Schreck and her Short
Shakespeareans, you are in it for life,” says John Renn, a set
designer-builder who has volunteered his time from the
beginning.
Schreck was inspired by her mentors at Washington State University
during the 1960s. Janice Miller taught speech, coached the debate
team, and directed Readers’ Theater. Bruce Anawalt taught
Shakespeare for 36 years. Ed Vandivort, Bud Carlson, and Paul
Wadleigh helped shape her life in the dramatic arts. Wadleigh
founded WSU’s Summer Palace Theatre in 1966, and that year cast her
in the lead in East Lynne.
From Miller and Anawalt, Schreck gained her appreciation of
Shakespeare. Long after she graduated from WSU (’68 Speech, ’71
M.A. Speech), both mentors continued to follow her career. They
attended the gala and the play in August.
A Midsummer Night’s Dream opens with the anticipation
of a wedding festival in the Palace of Theseus, Athens. But
conflict is at the core, too. Hermia refuses to marry Demetrius.
She is smitten instead by the gallant young Lysander. The two
lovers decide to elope. The ending is raucous. The spirit world
infringes upon the mortal world—and wins. All of the seasons are in
disorder. Pranks are played on the lovers and the workmen by elves
and fairies.
“The children are completely into the spirit of it,” Anawalt
said after watching the performance. “They create a world that is
real to them while they are doing it.”
Instead of looking for the absolutely right way of interpreting
scripts, Schreck and the children find what works. “We tap into our
own imagination.”
She wants the children to “loosen their tent pegs and widen
their perspective—to have them open themselves up to new ideas and
approaches to acting out the scene.”
At the end of one scene in A Midsummer Night’s Dream,
two little fairies give each other “high fives” before exiting the
stage with happy smiles. Shakespeare allows the director to make
modifications in the staging “to fit the age of the actors,” says
Schreck.
Her daughter, Heidi Schreck, one of the original Short Shakes,
remembers early performances as “a chance to be silly and have your
parents think you were doing something wonderful.” Since then,
she’s gone on to perform in Seattle and New York. Other Short
Shakes are in Hollywood, have appeared on television and in movies,
and performed with the Shakespearean companies in Ashland and
Berkeley.
The creative action of the play, the blocking, hand gestures,
and usage of props are things that she really works at, says Sherry
Schreck. She remembers struggling to develop a lesson plan to use
for Romeo and Juliet at Eastmont Junior High in 1978. That
summer she attended a workshop at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival
and was taken by two elementary students performing a scene from
The Taming of the Shrew.
“Everything just clicked,” she says. “I knew I wanted that
experience for my own children.” Back home, she worked on scripts,
dyed wigs, made headdresses, and then directed Heidi and a few
friends in a couple of short scenes. The kids were hooked. So was
their director.
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