CMU alumni Kazuo Salazar is prepared to walk in William Shakespeare’s footsteps as he takes the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre in London this spring. He was given this performance opportunity as part of his Master of Fine Arts (MFA) at the East 15 Acting School at the University of Essex.
“It is probably the most recognizable name in theater history,” Salazar said about the Globe.
The Globe is a modern reconstruction of the theatre once owned in part by Shakespeare himself, which opened in 1599. The theater burned down in 1614 and promptly rebuilt. It was then closed by an English parliamentary act in 1642, which banned theatre across the country as a result of the first English Civil War. It remained closed for over 300 years.
Its modern counterpart opened in 1997, and according to the London Museum of Archaeology, sits only 750 meters (approx. 230 feet) from the original location.
“When it came to the reconstruction of the Globe Theater, a lot of the sources that they had to rebuild it were stuff that they couldn’t entirely rely upon because they were sketches of sketches,” Lou Belsar, Salazar’s roommate and classmate said as she recounted a lecture on its history.
The Globe nonetheless stands as an accurate depiction of a 16th-century theater. The stage and audience is outdoors, surrounded by a circular wall with a tiered seating system. The upper class would sit in seats in the upper wall while the lower class located on the ground in front of the stage.
According to Salazar, they will be performing an educational cut of Hamlet in The Globe. An educational cut refers to a version of a show intended for instructional purposes, rather than a normal production. This educational cut is led by director in the London area, Dickon Tyrell, who reportedly uses it and other educational productions to find new talent.
Belsar described the competitive nature of theater grad school in London.
“There are some people who were in that casting pool that she made it very clear that she would never work with them again. And if it was an actual rehearsal space, they would have been kicked out. But because I had a very positive experience, I have her number,” Belsar said.
Salazar’s strides in grad school and the acting scene of London were influenced by his undergrad journey at CMU.
“Having just come from a very movement-heavy rehearsal day, I think a lot of the prep that feels very usable and comfortable and applicable out here that I picked up from CMU was the physical process and trusting my own physical instincts,” Salazar said.
He went on to describe how CMU’s acting classes are movement-heavy and focus on the physical characteristics of portraying a character.
This focus on physical acting is one major difference that Salazar highlighted between acting schools in America and the UK.
“A lot of what I’ve heard or seen from American programs is that either you are the character 100%. There is no distinction between you and Hamlet,” Salazar said.
He said British acting programs tend to approach the subject differently.
“A lot of what I was struggling with early on was feeling like I didn’t really know what I was doing, like intellectually,” Salazar said. “There was a lot of intellectualization of this process out here that I hadn’t really ever encountered much before because so much of the work at CMU is physical and practical.”
He said he was encouraged to audition for the program by his theatre professors at CMU. If it hadn’t been for their encouragement, he said he would have never taken the leap.
