Birmingham’s Jonathan Fuller reflects on fellowship at holy grail for actors: Shakespeare’s Globe
Birmingham's Jonathan Fuller, right, on stage in London at Shakespeare's Globe. (contributed/Jonathan Fuller)
He has been home for a couple of months, but Jonathan Fuller is still reveling in his three-week fellowship that took him on the stage of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre.
Fuller, the artistic director for the Theatre Arts Department at the Alabama School of Fine Arts, and 20 other professional actors from around the world gathered in London as members of the 2015 International Actors’ Fellowship. Created 16 years ago by Mark Rylance (an Oscar nominee this year for “Bridge of Spies”), the every-other-year fellowship is a three-week program “working in master classes with the Globe’s staff of acting, movement, voice and verse experts; particularly exploring the unique style of acting that worked best on the Globe stage,” Fuller says.
“A great deal of time was given us on the stage, where we learned how Shakespeare’s actors played to the galleries and to the groundlings,” he says. “The culmination of the fellowship was a two-hour showcase of scenes, soliloquies, songs both from Shakespeare’s plays and from members of the company’s cultures; mixing English, our own regional accents, and other languages of the fellows, which truly brought forth the global universality of Shakespeare’s plays.”
Fuller, also a co-founder of Birmingham’s City Equity Theatre, answered some questions about the prestigious fellowship and how it might inform his work at ASFA.
Alabama NewsCenter: Had you applied before?
Jonathan Fuller: I had seen the fellowship noted on a page on the Globe website once when surfing the internet in about 2008, but the timing had never been right for me to apply. Either I was too late in applying, or needed to really plan ahead to see if I could secure any grants to help me achieve this goal. I had to target the 2015 fellowship in late 2013 to apply for grants. Thankfully, I was awarded an Artists’ Fellowship from the Alabama State Council on the Arts in 2015, which greatly aided in my being able to make this happen.
NewsCenter: What was the process?
Fuller: Well, I filled out an application with an essay part on “Why I wanted to attend this program,” and more importantly, was invited to the next level of the application: auditioning for the program’s main directors (Bill Buckhurst and Raz Shaw) via Skype in February 2015. That included an interview as well as auditioning with a piece from Shakespeare. A month later, I heard that I had been accepted. I was astounded. Usually as a professional actor, my experience had often been that when you go for something really big, more often than not, it didn’t come through. This time, which I considered to be the top professional development in my life, the powers that be came through with a resounding, “Yes!”
NewsCenter: You were one of 20 fellows from around the world. Who were some of your fellow fellows and where were they from?
Fuller: I have to say, a strong majority of my fellow fellows were from countries where English was their first language: three from the USA, three from Canada, three from Australia and two from New Zealand. And we had other professional actors from such countries as Brazil, Mexico, Germany, France, Macedonia, Singapore, Italy, Pakistan, and South Korea.
NewsCenter: Stepping onto that stage. What was it like?
Fuller: In a word: Amazing … perhaps even transcendental! They had set the first day up so after we were oriented about what the three weeks would entail, and we had a special session getting to know the space with the Alexander Technique and “Movement Guru” of the Globe, Glynn MacDonald. We were taken backstage where we stepped from the modern building into a decidedly wooden backstage “Tiring House,” (whose root word comes from the place where the actors would get attired for their performances). With a flourish the center doors were opened and we all walked onto the stage. It truly was like walking into a sacred place for an actor. This Globe (of course) is a replica, but one which is meticulously recreated, using the same dimensions, materials and building techniques as the original (with the exception of some fireproofing measures). Although a replica, it stands not two blocks from where the original stood and even closer to a rival Elizabethan theater, The Rose, whose archaeological remains have also been found, so you feel as close to “ground zero” of the Elizabethan Stage as you can get.
The rush and feeling of working scenes and soliloquies on that stage was almost indescribable. It is a very “live” space; the wooden beams and construction makes one’s voice resonate very well … almost effortlessly for a classically trained actor. It was also fun as we worked connecting, including and performing for tourists who would be led into the galleries to see the stage and who got the chance to see actors working on it.
The final showcase was the last time we all were going to be on the stage together. We had friends, families, Globe staff, directors and other international and London actors in the audience. For me it was almost impossible to describe the heightened awareness of that moment in time when I was performing on the Globe stage! That and also the heightened awareness of what I was doing in the moment as an actor; which in a strange way kept me from fully losing myself in the moment. It was like watching myself from an out-of-body experience, and over all too soon.
NewsCenter: What did you bring back with you, both as an actor and a teacher?
Fuller: I have brought back lifelong friendships and alliances which I hope to connect with in an ongoing way to work with one day. What with Facebook, e-mail and Skype, we are all in constant touch with each other. So, the experience is still very much with me. Some of the fellows are trying to put together an international company, which I won’t be able to join this year, but hopefully in the years to come. The people who ran this 2015 fellowship did say that our group seemed to have bonded in a way closest of all those groups that they had had so far.
At the Alabama School of Fine Arts, I think one of the aspects of our school which makes it different from others is that we are encouraged to further our careers and keep working in our field.
As an actor, I found it surprisingly validating, in that a lot of what they were teaching, I had been exposed to, but now was able to be studying with the best, and take those skills to a much higher level. This was like a ballet dancer having a residency at The Bolshoi Ballet. It made me aware of a way in which one can play to an audience, including them (even with specific eye-contact), but not lose the thread of suspended disbelief and make-believe of a play. It is an incredibly vibrant, exciting, and fun way of performing.
As a director, this experience has given me a wealth of ideas, material and experience to draw from which I think is quite different than anything I have seen here in Alabama, and most of the USA.
I am in the process of teaching as much of what I learned as I can to my students here at ASFA this semester. We actually set aside more instructional time this semester, holding off our second show until May. We will be culminating our studies at ASFA with a production of “As You Like It,” which I hope we can play in the same style as the actors did on Shakespeare’s Globe stage, but in the Dorothy Jemison Day Theatre at ASFA.
NewsCenter: Is the experience informing your work in any way?
Fuller: While it is too early to tell exactly in what way it is informing my work, I know it will when I work on stage. One can’t work with that caliber of theater artists and not have it affect one’s work. Playing at the Globe itself is a distinct style, which I know I now have a strong understanding of which will greatly inform my approach to the classics. However, modern plays are modern plays, and TV and film are TV and film; each have their own particular styles, challenges and playing sizes.
Alabama Spotlight shines a light on actors, dancers and other performers from around Alabama. They may be working in the state or taking their talents elsewhere. Know of someone who should be spotlighted? Let Alec Harvey know at auburn84@gmail.com.
