Qualla: American Shakespeare Center

American Shakespeare Center: Introduction

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manicpixiedreamworld, CC BY-SA 4.0. Walk into the Blackfriars Playhouse in Staunton and the first surprise is the light. There is no dimming when the show starts. The house never goes dark. Actors and audience share the same chandeliers, the same plain candle-yellow glow that English playgoers knew in 1608. Then comes the second surprise. There is no curtain, no offstage. Actors sit on benches at the edges of the stage between scenes, in costume, watching the play with you. By the end of the first act you understand why the American Shakespeare Center spent $3.7 million to build a playhouse that worked this way: it changes how the plays land. Lines that read flat on the page suddenly snap when an actor delivers them looking directly at a member of the audience three feet away.

Image: Manicpixiedreamworld | CC BY-SA 4.0

American Shakespeare Center: From a Touring Truck to a World First

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manicpixiedreamworld, CC BY-SA 4.0. The company started in 1988 as the Shenandoah Shakespeare EXPRESS, founded by James Madison University professor Ralph Alan Cohen and director Jim Warren. Their first show was Richard III, performed fourteen times in rural Virginia by a young ensemble drawn from JMU students and ...

Image: Manicpixiedreamworld | CC BY-SA 4.0

American Shakespeare Center: Building Blackfriars

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States, CC BY-SA 2.0. The original Blackfriars Theatre stood in London from 1596 until it was demolished in 1655 - the indoor counterpart to the Globe, where Shakespeare's company spent its winters. No reliable plans survive. To rebuild it in Staunton, architect Tom McLaughlin worked from plans of oth...

Image: Doug Kerr from Albany, NY, United States | CC BY-SA 2.0

American Shakespeare Center: Doing It Like the King's Men

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manicpixiedreamworld, CC BY-SA 4.0. The American Shakespeare Center commits to what scholars call Original Practices. Universal lighting - audiences and actors share illumination throughout. Doubling - actors play multiple roles. Cross-gender casting. Minimal sets and props. No interval between scenes; the action f...

Image: Manicpixiedreamworld | CC BY-SA 4.0

American Shakespeare Center: More Than Shakespeare

Sun, 31 May 2026 00:00:00 GMT

Photo credit Manicpixiedreamworld, CC BY-SA 4.0. The ASC produces eight to nine shows a year, with seasons that include Shakespeare's contemporaries - Ben Jonson, Christopher Marlowe, Beaumont and Fletcher - alongside more modern work, like a staged Pride and Prejudice or a comic Dracula. In 2017, the center launched Shakespear...