Matt Morgan Talks Shakespeare in Boulder City and the Nevada Shakespeare Festival

Jill Lagan, and The Best Dam Podcast welcomes Matt Morgan, the Artistic Director of the Nevada Shakespeare Festival

Matt, who wears many hats as a clown, actor, director, and storyteller, brings a unique approach to making Shakespeare accessible and engaging for all ages.

Jill and Matt delve into his upcoming event, "Shakespeare in the Park," set for October 18th at the Boulder City Library Amphitheater, where he’s presenting a 90-minute, interactive adaptation of "Macbeth." Plus, they discuss his fascinating background in the circus, and his deep ties to a family legacy of circus performance

DISCUSSION  POINTS

Make Shakespeare Fun Again: "Take him off the pedestal, rip him in half, smear him in the dirt, and then hand him back to the people." — [00:03:05 → 00:03:09]

**Theater as a Living Room Experience**: "Our notion on performance is that it's like people are coming to our house and they're in our living room with us, and we wanna present theater in that way." — [00:10:19 → 00:10:28]

Balancing Creativity and Management: "And that was super fun for me, and it'll be the last time I play a lead and direct a play." — [00:11:29 → 00:11:38]

**The Art of Moving On in Acting**: "I finish a thing and then just may move it out and make space. And what's what's the next thing? I'm really good at that." — [00:12:15 → 00:12:20]

**Shakespeare Adapted for Kids**: "We also have a summer camp program that we do called Shakes play, and we adapt Shakespeare plays, and we make them about 30 pages. And we work with kids that are from 6 to 17 years old." — [00:12:52 → 00:13:06]

Turning Classrooms into Shakespearean Theaters: "Over the course of a 50 minute class, they're seeing a show and they're cold reading Shakespeare." — [00:17:35 → 00:17:40]

Shakespeare for Modern Kids: "Shakespeare's not boring, it's not stuffy, it's not lame, and it's not old. You can make it new and make it relevant to you and your life and your jokes and your friends and whatever it is that you're interested in." — [00:17:53 → 00:18:04]

"Life-Changing Circus Experience": "I was a graduate of the Ringling Brothers, and I traveled with the Ringling Brothers Circus for 2 years, sleeping and living on a train and traveling the country, performing over 500 shows a year." —  [00:22:08 → 00:22:22]

Discovering Circus Life: "I discovered it in college. It was like, oh, I can go to clown college and learn about juggling and unicycle riding and water spitting and pie throwing and makeup and dance and character development." —  [00:26:57 → 00:27:12]

LEARN MORE

Click here to learn more about the Nevada Shakespeare Festival and the Free Shakespeare in the Park series across the Las Vegas valley, or on these social sites:
 
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KEYWORDS

Matt Morgan, Nevada Shakespeare Festival, Shakespeare in the Park, Jill Lagan, Boulder City Chamber of Commerce, The Best Dam Podcast

#MattMorgan #NevadaShakespeareFestival #ShakespeareinthePark #BoulderCity #BCNVChamber2024 #TheBestDamPodcast

CREDITS

The Best Dam Podcast is a Podcast Production of the Boulder City Chamber of Commerce.

This episode is sponsored by the  i & i Podcast & Music Studio. Be Heard.   

Music for the Best Dam Podcast was created by ZakharValaha from Pixabay.