Who we are:

Based in Seattle, Washington, Tedious Brief Theatre Company is mainly comprised of 1 adult and 25 kids who for three weeks each summer commit themselves to conceiving, rehearsing, and performing a Shakespeare musical (last summer we did A Midsummer Night's Dream). The orginal songs are all composed by the director (and adult), Jesse P. Howard, in the months before the show -- so you get to see the original cast production! The kids, from private and public schools all over Seattle, carry out everything involved in theatre -- from set, costume, and lighting design to the actual acting in the show. Also helping out a lot this year are Kirsten Geier, dance choreography, and Quinn Thomsen, fencing choreography. And adding immensely to the shows is the incredible band, with Todd Howard playing bass and Don Gunn on the drums. The theatre used (in the Seattle Academy Arts Satellite - click here for directions) has a unique bow-tie shaped stage allowing many kinds of set design and choreography not possible in normal theatres. And most importantly, the process is an amazing, fun experience for the actors!

The Story of T.B.T.C.

     by Alice Moore
 

Last summer, a group of middle school and high school kids got together at the Seattle Academy arts satellite to rehearse and perform a play.  With Jesse P. Howard, then drama teacher at Seattle Academy of Arts and Sciences (SAAS) as director, they would perform Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream.  The summer program would last three weeks.  Usually, when participants described it to friends and relatives, they would do so slowly, to let the words sink in: eighteen kids... with two adults supervising... doing Shakespeare... as a musical... in three weeks.

"HA ha ha ha ha!" was the usual response.

However, I was one of those eighteen, and I can testify that we did it.  The setup was this.  Jesse Howard and Mark Hoover, the music director at SAAS, were the two adults who directed and supervised.  The script was abridged (thank goodness, otherwise Oberon's locquaciousness would have had the audience departing for home in the wee hours of the morning) otherwise unchanged.  The music for the show was all original, written by Jesse, but the lyrics were mostly from the play -- speeches turned into songs and true to form (for the most part).  The playbill read, "Music by Jesse P. Howard, Lyrics by William Shakespeare and Jesse P. Howard, Based on the play by William Shakespeare."  The "based on" is appropriate because although the play did use Shakespeare's language, the music lent it a quality all its own.  A snippet of lyrics from a song sung by Bottom and his gang of "rude mechanicals" are a good example:

Bottom: {spoken} We will meet, and there we may rehearse most obscenely and courageously.

All: {sung} We will... meet!
We'll meet and then rehearse
Rehearse it most obscenely
Obscenely and courageous
But mostly obscenely!
Obscenely we'll rehearse
Then we'll rehearse again
And if we are courageous
We'll all be made MEN!

This, and other songs, definitely matched the comical element of the text of Midsummers.  However, there was a lot of hard work involved, and -- appropriately -- a fair amount of tedium ("Blockinnggg..."); but everyone made huge contributions to the show.  In addition to playing a character -- or two -- many actors also had a tech job such as lighting, costumes, or set design.  This meant that we were busy most of the time during camp and much of the time at home (Jesse's camp motto is "for three weeks you will eat, drink, and breathe Shakespeare").  It also meant that everyone was intensely involved in the play and the magic of cooperating.  The result was a completely original play for the audience and a completely wonderful experience for the actors.

All this has, believe it or not, a purpose other than allowing me to reminisce.  The quote at the beginning and this description of last year's program were meant to illustrate the reasons behind the name of our theatre company, which we have kept even though it doesn't directly pertain to this year's play.

In this year's play, the same ideas are involved: twenty-five kids, three weeks, original music, and a production of one of Shakespeare's plays.  This time the play is Romeo & Juliet, and actors from SAAS, Seattle Country Day, Bush, Lakeside, Northwest, Roosevelt, Ballard, and the University of Washington Early Entrance Program are all in the mix.  I won't go into detail about this year's production (see "Concept"), but I will state that although it is true that the name 'Tedious Brief Theatre Company' does not pertain as much to this year's play as to A Midsummer Night's Dream (no character in Romeo and Juliet utters the phrase "tedious brief," much to our dismay) it definitely keeps some significance; With such things to consider as costume meetings, long song rehearsals, calling various schools, universities, and companies in search of lockers to use for the set (my personal experience) and blocking twenty-five people into a party scene, the work for this play has already proved that it can be tedious -- but we know that when it is over the program will have seemed much too brief.