Photo Credit: Lauren Miller
Katie Merriman is the founder of Bard and Bourbon.
As an undergraduate theatre major, Katie Merriman fell in love with Shakespeare. She soon grew keenly aware of the lack of Shakespeare performance opportunities, especially for women. She’d drive from Sheboygan to Milwaukee for Milwaukee Shakespeare’s shows, but that company closed in 2008. She admires Optimist Theatre, best known now for summer Shakespeare in the Park at the Marcus Center, but they do just one show annually. Summit Players Theatre only offers summer Shakespeare in State Parks. So, in 2014, Merriman founded Bard and Bourbon in Milwaukee to fill this gap. Off the Cuff talked to her about it.
How did you start?
I wanted a Shakespeare company that was open to casting all genders in any role. I decided to start with Hamlet, because why not? I was able to cut it to six parts. I asked five friends to join me in the cast and asked them to choose the part they wanted to play. It didn’t matter what body type, gender or anything else. The one man in the group was fourth to pick. He chose Hamlet. The rest of the cast were women. You see different things when you don’t let gender become an issue. It creates different tensions, puts the focus on different themes in the play.
Your shows are fully staged and memorized. Do you cut the texts?
Shakespeare often gives you four hours, but he repeats a lot of stuff because his audience was easily distracted. We do closer to two or two and a half and hope our modern audiences are paying attention. We do a lot of text analysis in rehearsal. We try to cut repetitions. We try not to be harsh, not to cut in the middle of the iambic pentameter, not to interrupt the beautiful flow of the words.
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And the bourbon?
It started as a bit of a gimmick and also just self-indulgence. I knew about the Drunk Shakespeare Society in New York—they’re one of the first to do it formally—and I happen to love whiskey and I love Shakespeare and I thought let’s do it, it sounds like a fun time. But doing it, we realized how much letting everybody just relax with Shakespeare—the audience as well as the cast—brings people to access Shakespeare who might not be able to otherwise, because he’s put up on a pedestal and treated so formally. We heard from many audience members that this was the first time they’d understood Shakespeare or the first time they’d enjoyed it. And many of the scenes are performed without drink; it’s just Shakespeare.
Only one actor drinks?
Once in a while, there are two, if they don’t interact much. We had two for Twelfth Night because of the theme of twins. Zach Woods, the director for our upcoming Julius Caesar, is using two for some performances.
How drunk do they get?
Quite. We set a limit of twelve drinks over the course of the evening because we want to make sure our actors are safe. It’s primarily whiskey and that’s a lot of whiskey. We don’t ask anyone to do that more than one night. The other actors are sober specifically to help maintain the safety of the drunk actor. If it seems like it’s getting too much, they’ll say nope, you’re done. I always say, it’s safety first, Shakespeare second and drinking as an afterthought.
How is the actor chosen?
Sometimes, it’s the role. If we’re doing Hamlet, we’d ideally like to see Hamlet drunk. Roles will be offered with the added contingency that this is a drunk role, will you accept it? Or this is not a drunk role, will you accept it? We often have four or five performances with sometimes eight to 11 actors. We’ll never force someone who doesn’t want to do it. The director will decide which parts make the most sense. The actors know well in advance. We make sure they can take off work the next morning, that they have a designated driver and they’re completely prepared, that they’ve had a good meal and they have all the water they need.
How does it change the performance?
It adds an element of surprise, so you start to lean in and listen more carefully. And alcohol lowers inhibitions, so the acting can become so raw, so immediate. We had an almost all-female cast for Romeo and Juliet and the reaction to Juliet’s death by the man who played the Nurse drunk was so personal, so genuinely felt you could hear a pin drop.
Julius Caesar runs March 14-17 at the Marcus Center’s Rehearsal Hall A, with a March 13 pay-what-you-can preview. Visit bardandbourbon.com for more information.
