STS2025
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STS
STS2

Speak the Speech

$350.00

Nemesis’s flagship course returns for the first time since 2023! Join Nemesis Artistic Director Melon Wedick for a deep-dive into the fundamentals of speaking Shakespeare knowledgeably and conversationally!

This class covers:

  • paraphrasing (restating Shakespeare’s words in modern vernacular, to help with understanding and gaining ownership over his complex language)
  • operatives (the key information the audience HAS to hear)
  • phrasing (parceling the text into units of meaning)
  • imagery (developing specific and vivid imagery and using intonation and physicality to convey it to an audience), and
  • scansion (understanding what the meter of the lines tells you about character, stage directions, and pacing).

These skills combine to give you all the tools you need to speak Shakespeare’s words as naturally as if they were your own. At the end of the class, students will have a memorized and prepared verse monologue suitable for use in auditions.

Ages 16 & up. In cases of financial hardship we can offer a limited number of scholarships or installment payment plans. Contact melon [at] nemesistheatre.com for more information.

Mondays AND Thursdays, November 17–December 18, 7-9:30pm at Attic Salt Studios, 2002 Riverside Drive Studio 42-O, Asheville NC. There is NO class on Thanksgiving (Nov 27).

 

Past students have said:

“This was a wonderful experience that I would GLADLY recommend to others. I now feel confident in tackling Shakespeare with the tools I learned. “

“I loved this class!! Midway I had the biggest Shakespeare breakthrough and I got so excited!”

“The instructor was amazing: thorough, talented as a communicator, knowledgeable, engaging, and witty.”

Out of stock

SKU: Speak2025-11-1 Categories: , Tag:

Description

About the Instructor

Melon Wedick, founder and artistic director of Nemesis Theatre Company, has been studying, teaching, performing, and directing Shakespeare since 1999. Melon holds a BA in theatre from Oberlin College, a Master’s Degree in Urban and Regional Planning from the University of Michigan, a certificate in nonprofit management from Duke University, and completed an apprenticeship in set design at Mountview Academy of Theatre Arts in London, UK. A founding member of the Certain Players of Randolph, VT, and co-founder and managing director of the Greenville Shakespeare Festival (Greenville, NH), Melon moved to Asheville in 2014 with partner Jon Stockdale, and founded Nemesis in 2020. For Nemesis, Melon has taught introductory acting classes, several iterations of Speak the Speech, and Scene Study Skills. Melon’s Shakespeare directing credits include productions of Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Coriolanus, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream (Midsummer for Haters), Cymbeline, Twelfth Night, and Romeo and Juliet .

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