Center Stage

For Brandon Carter ’10, it started with Julius Caesar, but it was Othello that really did it. Tracie Steger Skipper ’96 got hooked by A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

And as imagination bodies forth The forms of things unknown, the poet’s pen Turns them into shapes and gives to airy nothing A local habitation and a name.

—THESEUS, A Midsummer Night’s Dream

Those who love Shakespeare come to it in different ways, whether through the drama of a tragedy like King Lear or the playfulness of All’s Well That Ends Well. But those who love it never seem to lose that feeling—often returning again and again to the plays for inspiration or guidance and for their enduring wisdom.

How often can one ponder “tomorrow, and tomorrow, and tomorrow”?

For four Longwood alumni who work in various roles at the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, the answer is every day. One by one, they all found their way to the Bard, whether they were initially inspired by a high-school performance or a trip abroad. And one by one, their passion grew at Longwood, nurtured by faculty members who often saw something in them they didn’t even see in themselves.

They contribute in various ways to the tragedies, histories and comedies played out on the stage of ASC’s Blackfriars Playhouse, one of the premier classical theaters on the East Coast and patterned on Shakespeare’s original theater of the same name, which burned in 1666 in the Great Fire of London. Three of the Longwood graduates are full-time members of the small production team, while another is a member of the 12-person acting ensemble. Uniting them is the thrill of live theater, a devotion to bringing Shakespeare’s words to life and a passion for the stage that came to fruition at Longwood.

ACT I, SCENE II

Flourish.

Enter BRANDON CARTER.

“I got cast as Caesar in my senior high-school English class, and the teacher told me I was either going to read it or fail the class. So, of course, I sat down and read it,” said Carter, who plays Cassius, the devious conspirator and ringleader, in the company’s summer season production of Julius Caesar. “I didn’t know what any of the words meant, but I still felt like I knew what the characters were saying, as weird as that sounds. But that was the beginning.”

From those humble beginnings grew a love of Shakespeare that has persisted to this day. And little did Carter know that 15 years later he’d be starring as one of the two main villains in the same play, this time as a professional actor.

Men at some times are masters of their fates. The fault, dear Brutus, is not in our stars, but in ourselves, that we are underlings.

—CASSIUS, Julius Caesar

Carter also couldn’t foresee that his fate would mean spending his precious time off between seasons not relaxing but on the stage, practicing his lines when the 15-by-12 foot wooden space is not in use.

“I can’t lose momentum,” he said. “I’m always trying to stay on top of it.”

Staying on top of it is critical—Carter is appearing in three shows this summer. The American Shakespeare Center performs in a uniquely Elizabethan way—with a lot of encouraged audience interaction and even inviting some of the guests to sit on the stage to watch the performance.

Enter TRACIE STEGER SKIPPER ’96.

“These actors have to really be in the moment,” said Skipper, ASC’s technical director/operations manager. “There’s no fourth wall—if an audience member coughs or laughs, the actors will often acknowledge it and say something to them. It can get pretty fun—and Brandon is one of the best at playing that role.”

“That’s really the thing I love about live theater,” said Carter. “There’s an energy that I really feed on, and, when you are live, you have to problem solve in the moment. It’s magical. A lot of people say about theater that the audience only experiences that performance once—but at Blackfriars Playhouse it’s actually the case. Every performance is different, and that really feeds something inside me.”

Exit SKIPPER.

Carter’s is an unlikely story. Born into a family of Northern Neck fishermen, his future seemed laid out until he decided at the last minute to change his major at Longwood to theatre. During his senior year, he was cast in Othello, and, while learning his lines on a fishing boat, he decided that he would make stage acting his only priority. That determination in mind, he graduated and went on to earn a master’s degree in acting from Penn State.

“That was it,” he said. “That was the moment that I knew I had to make it.”

Exit CARTER.

ACT II, SCENE II

Enter ADRIENNE JOHNSON BUTLER ’13.

Butler hates the spotlight. If you cast her as Lady Macbeth, she’d turn you down. But she is an expert at helping actors bring characters to life.

“The work that actors do is hard,” said Butler, who is the resident assistant stage manager. “Standing in front of people and letting them judge you is really difficult, and I have a lot of respect for them. I can’t control every audience member or every cell phone that isn’t turned off, but I can control the backstage area. If an actor can come offstage and feel comfortable and confident that everything is in the right place, I know that I’ve done my part to make the production a success. In that way, I get to help them do that hard work, which is really fulfilling.”

Butler facilitates much of the backstage operation—coordinating costume changes, special effects, props and sets moving on and off stage; making sure actors are ready to enter on cue; and handling a thousand other roles that literally are behind the scenes and often unnoticed.

As in a theatre, the eyes of men, after a well-graced actor leaves the stage, are idly bent on him that enters next.

—DUKE OF YORK, Richard II

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