‘If you can speak Shakespeare, you can tackle any text:’ RWCMD new Shakespeare prize focuses on the importance of the power of language
At a time when opportunities for young people to engage with Shakespeare in performance are becoming more scarce, it’s vital drama schools continue to teach Shakespeare to keep verse speaking alive.
The Royal Welsh College’s new Shakespeare prize celebrates this focus, and the final, on March 27th in London’s Royal Court theatre and featuring the five second year actor finalists, was judged by Sir Ian McKellen, RWCMD graduate and Fellow Rakie Ayola, Sean Mathias, the College’s Director of Drama Performance, Jonathan Munby, and Head of Voice, Alice White.
Congratulations to James Mace, the winner of the £5000 prize. The other finalists were Nathan Kirby, Alyson Handley, Mya Pennicott and Saskia West.
As it’s of such integral value to a drama student to study Shakespeare in depth, the College’s new award celebrates the actors’ technical ability with verse, and connection with character and situation – speaking Shakespeare out loud.
Ian McKellen came to RWCMD last term to launch the prize, workshopping and discussing Shakespeare with second year students, before choosing the five finalists.
‘Working on Shakespeare’s plays gives a depth of craft that is also transferrable to any medium. The different elements of training support each other, challenging and enriching them as actors. If you can speak Shakespeare, you can tackle any text,’ explains Director of Drama Performance Jonathan Munby, who directed Sir Ian in King Lear at the Chichester Festival Theatre in 2017, and again at The Duke of York’s Theatre in the West End in 2018.
‘Speaking Shakespeare’s verse is certainly challenging, but it makes you a better actor, more observant, dextrous, and ultimately more robust. It also teaches us the fundamental value of language. Of course it’s also important that our actors work with a range of writers from diverse backgrounds. We acknowledge that there are many more opportunities for our graduates to work on screen than on stage, and the training needs to reflect this to make our students industry ready.’
Winner James Mace said, ‘I’m very grateful to have won the College’s very first Shakespeare prize. His plays and heightened text require so much of you as an actor. Training in classical work is so important, and this experience has been so useful, learning how to train my imagination while also committing to the truth and circumstances of his characters.’
Judge and RWCMD graduate Rakie Ayola added, ‘I’m thrilled that RWCMD has chosen to demonstrate a commitment to classical training in general, and Shakespeare in particular, in such a bold, no nonsense way.
‘While it’s always been possible to have a successful acting career without uttering a word of Shakespeare, the skills required to analyse, interpret, shape, express and speak the language confidently, will always be useful to any actor, from any background when working on any script in any medium.’
The judging took place in front of an invited audience, including graduates and friends of the College.
The RWCMD Shakespeare Prize has been donated this year by the Mosawi Foundation. It’s part of a wider initiative that includes an annual Shakespeare production, presented by the final-year Richard Burton Company, from which a film, and schools’ workshops will be developed. They’ll be distributed freely to schools and colleges across Wales, helping to address the lack of opportunity for young people to see Shakespeare in performance.
Press photos here. Credit Ellie Kurttz
Editors notes
The College is hugely proud of its graduates’ work with Shakespeare. Recent highlights include: Isobel Thom, who went straight from gradating in acting last summer to their critically acclaimed eponymous performance in I, Joan at The Globe, has just been announced as Helena in The Globe’s new A Midsummer Night’s Dream.
Graduate Katy Stephens is currently leading an all-female Titus Andronicus at Sam Wanamaker Playhouse. She’s also an Associate Artist at the Royal Shakespeare Company.
At the RSC, Thalissa Teixeira is currently appearing as Brutus in the RSC’s Julius Caesar, and Heledd Gwynn was Ariel in its recent production of The Tempest.
Arthur Hughes was the eponymous Richard III last year.
Rakie Ayola on her experience of studying Shakespeare at RWCMD:
‘I arrived at the College as an 18-year-old with a deep-seated loathing of Shakespeare and all things Shakespearian. So much so that when, in my second year, I was cast as Lady Macbeth, I very dramatically slid down the wall in tears. I’d wanted to play a Fairy in ‘The Dream’. I tried in vain to be recast. Yet it was during that second year project that a world of linguistic possibility opened up to me. A world of words, imagery and rhythm. A world that was nothing like my own yet filled with feelings and emotions that I recognised and understood. A world that allowed me to truly enjoy the muscularity of language. Enjoy how it felt in my mouth, how it exercised my jaw and my tongue, how it could soar and fly when coming out of my mouth. A world where eloquence is everything and people have words and phrases at their command ready to use without pause or ponderance.’
The finalists
Nathan Kirby
Nathan grew up in Bexleyheath, Kent. Nathan was interested in acting from young joining a youth theatre called Rising Stars. He then went on to study at Miskin Theatre in Dartford and then completed a Foundation in Acting at Arts Education. Nathan was awarded the Spielman Charitable Trust scholarship upon coming to Royal Welsh College and is currently in his second year.
Mya Pennicott
Mya grew up in north London and did a couple drama clubs when she was younger. She also did a foundation at ArtsEd before coming to study at RWCMD
Alyson Handley
Alyson grew up in Hertfordshire and is still a member of the National Youth Theatre.
Before Royal Welsh she completed a one-year theatre making course in Stratford-Upon-Avon with The Year Out Drama company.
James Mace
James is a proud South Londoner and grew up in Camberwell. He got his first taste of acting at the National Youth Theatre, as they were looking for an actor to open one of their shows by delivering a monologue in Italian, which he claimed he was able to do. He speaks absolutely no Italian. Fortunately, he has been involved in numerous productions with them since. He is the recipient of the Dolan Evans Scholarship.
Saskia West
Saskia grew up in and around Bedfordshire and her first foray into theatre was at the ripe old age of four as a very important snowflake in the Nativity. After that, academia took focus and she went on to study Theology at St John’s College at Cambridge University. Here is where her love of acting was realised as she had the opportunity to take part in the wide range of theatre at Cambridge. Productions here included Julius Caesar and a European tour of Much Ado About Nothing. Since then, her family have relocated to the depths of Cornwall, in Penzance and Saskia is enjoying diving into drama school and the many opportunities that Royal Welsh College is providing her.
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