On Feb. 13, the Not-So-Royal Shakespeare Company (NSR) gave a one-night-only performance of “The Taming of the Shrew” live on the Haggerty Family Stage in the Duncan Student Center. But this wasn’t a typical performance of the Bard’s work, for it featured a major twist: none of the actors had ever encountered the material nor knew the story going into it. The show was performed “Unrehearsed.”
What does this mean, “Unrehearsed”? Directors — or more aptly “undirectors” — Allie McNulty and Nate Baker provided some background information ahead of the show. “Unrehearsed” is an NSR tradition that happens every semester, where club members gather to test their ability to interpret Shakespeare on the fly. The turnaround for the performers is incredibly quick, as they were given their roles the day before the show and lines the morning of. Even then, nobody on stage had a full script; instead, they had cue scripts. The result: reliance on context, improv and pure shenanigans to get through the story. In Baker’s words, “The actors experience the show with the audience.” An argument could be made that this is NSR’s most historically accurate show each semester, for this is how the Lord Chamberlain’s Men, Shakespeare’s own acting troupe, operated. Shakespeare wrote cue scripts for his actors, which included the actor’s full line and the last few words of the preceding one.
I think the best way to sum up the performance was organized, facilitated chaos. The drama felt unpolished, raw and alive. So often when we see a play or watch a film, we are witnessing a heavily curated display. This was not the case with “Unrehearsed”; we watched a play be born. I think an apt description of the experience was a staged, blind read-through. Actors had to make decisions on the fly for line delivery, tone and action. It was also interesting to see how the actors’ instincts took over. As noted, there were no rehearsals, so all choreography and blocking were organic, on the spot. One of my favorite aspects of NSR’s mainstage shows is their utilization of the whole performance space, often having actors interspersed amongst audience members seated in the Washington Hall Lab. “Unrehearsed” was no different, occasionally placing the actors right into the crowd in Duncan. Chase scenes and dramatic entrances were plentiful, making audiences change their visual orientation to catch everything.
The actors really leaned into the goofier aspects of the night. Doing a show like “Unrehearsed” comes with an understanding that things will inevitably go wrong. A few times, the actors got sidetracked or thrown off by cues, but some clever improv and minor line repetition revived the energy. Again, this was expected, and the audience played into it, laughing and cheering for the technical mishaps. A cast list was never formally released, so the actors also had to decipher who played who, leading to many funny moments of incorrect address. Even better, actors would play several roles, so, like “Actors from the London Stage,” audiences had to keep track of who was who at any given time. The production was lovingly low-tech, with no set and sound effects being provided by actors off-stage or from a single Bluetooth speaker. By far, though, the best audience reaction was when the title “The Taming of the Shrew” was dropped, and several viewers applauded and cheered.
The prop work was my favorite element of “Unrehearsed.” In lieu of weapons, during all fight sequences, a plush fish was used, and this random inclusion truly added to the zany nature of the evening. The costumes were also hilariously out-there, having an “I found this in the dorm” vibe, involving a mix of street clothes, lots of hats, sunglasses and even a mouse onesie.
The show was a riot to watch and provided the right kind of laugh for a Friday night. In the spirit of the show, I didn’t research the plot ahead of time. From what I gathered, it involved misconstrued identity, love triangles, marital chaos and lots of drama, all themes perfect for Valentine’s weekend. What impressed me was how naturally the actors delivered the material; some scenes didn’t feel unrehearsed, which truly is a testament to NSR’s talent. I recommend gathering your friends and going to see “Unrehearsed” should it return in the fall semester of 2026.
