Bielecki presents Shakespeare for senior theatre performance

Jill Powers- Staff Writer

2/3/12

All students at William Jewell College experience challenges in their majors at one time or another. For William Jewell’s theatre majors, the most pressing challenge is to cast, direct and star in a production of their choosing during their senior year. Karina Bielecki, senior, has decided to face that challenge with two performances of The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), tonight and tomorrow at 7 p.m.

This work jams all 37 of the famous playwright’s scripts into about an hour and a half. Many of the individual plays normally take over two hours to perform by themselves, so the condensed version of all that comedy, history, romance and tragedy naturally lends itself to extra laughs and lightheartedness. Bielecki said that this is “right up [her] alley.”

Bielecki has been involved in performance since she was in elementary school, when she took part in a production of Annie.

“I’m still doing it in college, so I must like it,” she said.

She thinks of theatre as visually telling a story so that the audience gets something out of it, whether that means drawing attention to important world issues, to particular people or even changing lives.

“Sometimes it is just entertaining making people happy for a while,” Bielecki said.

As for this weekend’s show, laughter is the main goal. When choosing which play to do for her senior performance, she had a lot of freedom with just a couple of guidelines to keep in mind. For example, a show with more than four characters would become too difficult to act in and direct at the same time. More importantly, she had to choose a show she was no less than in love with, because she would be devoting a tremendous amount of time and effort to this production. Bielecki considered the drama Doubt, which involves a suspected scandal at a Catholic school, but after Dr. Kim Harris, theatre director, mentioned that it was strange no one had done The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged) as a senior production although it had the perfectly sized cast, her thoughts began racing in this comedic, fast-paced direction.

“It’s easy to go to rehearsal every night when you know you’re going to make yourself laugh,” she said.

Throughout her college career, Bielecki has acted in productions of The Misanthrope and Macbeth in addition to providing a lot of behind-the-scenes help for other shows. She also has been involved with the College’s improvisation team, studied in England for two months and served as vice president of her sorority, Alpha Delta Pi, for two years. After all of that, she was able to find a couple of cast members, Peter Hanman and Whitney Jury, juniors, who share her joy in this production. Hanman has been involved in theatre since before he started high school. Last semester when he heard about Bielecki’s performance, he knew he had to audition for it.
“I loved the idea of making Shakespeare approachable. I had to be a part of it. I just had to,” Hanman said.
Jury began performing in high school and has gotten much more involved in theatre during her time at William Jewell. Recently, she travelled to England and “fell in love with everything Shakespeare.” She viewed this performance as a chance to get more acquainted with her newfound interest.

All three actors are excited to get the audience involved in their show.

“I’m an entertainer,” Jury said. “I’m ready to make people laugh.”

“Those who come will not only be watching but be a part of the show,” Hanman said.

For Bielecki, audience participation is the most important element.

“That’s going to make or break the show,” she said.