Chairman of the Bard

Cohen, who at the time had been teaching at JMU for 17 years, was putting his reputation on the line for a small touring company -- Shenandoah Shakespeare Express -- which he had started with former student Jim Warren ('88). "From my point of view, the fear factor was very high," Cohen recalls. "It's sort of like a biology teacher teaching physiology, having a gymnastics team come in and perform [at an annual meeting]."

When his group finished Julius Caesar, Cohen went backstage with the actors to a little makeshift dressing room. He breathed a sigh of relief. At least it was over. "But when we opened the door, there was a line of some of the most important Shakespearean scholars," he says. "The people I was most worried about were the most enthusiastic and became our biggest fans."

That memory may seem almost a dream now, as Cohen stands on the stage of the newly built Blackfriars Theatre in Staunton. After more than a decade of touring, Cohen and the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express decided to build a theater of their own. The 320-seat, $3.7 million brick building on Market Street is the first reproduction of Shakespeare's indoor theater in the world.

The theater is a playground for the in-house troupe, Shenandoah Shakespeare, which brings the Bard's works to life. Opening in September 2001 to rave reviews, the theater saw 22,000 audience members in its first three months. The troupe has already hosted more than 150 scholars at Blackfriars, and the National Endowment for the Humanities granted $188,000 for a 2001 summer institute hosted for three weeks in Staunton and two weeks at the London Globe.

The company also plans to build a replica of the Globe Theatre, Shakespeare's outdoor theater and a Center for Research and Education in coming years. Entering what is becoming a "Shakespearean campus," Blackfriars' visitors first notice the three-story "O" of balconies and balustrades of gleaming golden white oak. From the trap door to the "heavens" to the "lord's chairs" around the thrust stage, every detail has been planned. The blueprint for the theater was created from a 1616 drawing of a theater meant to look just like the Blackfriars Theatre. Cohen says there may be a few differences, but he knows the new theater captures the essence of Shakespeare's Elizabethan theater. "If William Shakespeare walked into this theater," Cohen says, "he'd know damn well he was in Blackfriars."

Handmade circular candelabra provide universal lighting -- the group often proclaims that they "do it with the lights on." The lights stay on so that actors can talk to the audience and involve them in the action. "We always talk to the audience," Cohen says. "We include them. We do a lot of individual speeches to individuals -- not long speeches."

Cohen, who now has taught at JMU for 28 years, looks at the theater through a teacher's eyes and sees a lab. He talks about what the troupe-in-residence (Shenandoah Shakespeare) can do that the touring group, still called Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, cannot. Yet the touring group remains vital to the company's vision of sharing Shakespeare with thousands of schoolchildren and college students each year and curing their "Shakesfear."

Cohen first learned that the truer the Shakespeare the better, by taking his students -- starting in 1978 -- to England to see the Royal Shakespeare Company. Through this program, JMU's Semester in London program began. "It started because I wanted my students to like Shakespeare," he says.

Through nearly three decades of teaching Shakespeare, Cohen has stripped away the scholarly, highbrow interpretations and overproductions. He in effect, de-elevates Shakespeare, but does not dethrone him. "No one in history wrote at this level," the professor says. Rather, Cohen prefers to cultivate a working, hands-on reverence of the Bard. "Shakespeare shouldn't be studied as a poet or philosopher or academic icon, but as a prolific playwright who manages to capture little jewel moments between people."

Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, Cohen and the Blackfriar's in-house troupe bring Shakespeare to the masses without the use of spotlights, fancy stage props or intermissions. "It's a fast-paced, athletic production, using about 12 actors to play all of the roles," Cohen explains.

Cohen and Warren started Shenandoah Shakespeare Express in 1988 with about a dozen JMU students and few funds. "I wasn't worried about reputation. I was just worried about making it," Warren says, as he remembers washing potatoes at JMU and working at a Waffle House to support himself while starting the troupe.

Each year, Cohen and Warren took more risks -- moving to a year-round touring schedule and away from student actors, incorporating music, changing costumes, touring internationally and now building the Blackfriars. "I think that the risks, almost all of them, have been to be truer to Shakespeare," Warren says.

And they have paid off. Today, the company enjoys international acclaim. The Washington Post proclaimed the group's performances "shamelessly entertaining Shakespeare." But Cohen and Warren give all the credit to the man who wrote the plays. "Our success is founded on the idea that Shakespeare knew what he was doing. That idea is foolproof," Warren says. "That idea is genius."

"It's not about our cleverness," adds Cohen, "He was that good."

To learn more, visit Shenandoah Shakespeare at www.shenandoahshakespeare.com or call the box office at (540) 885-5588. The theater is located at 10 South Market St., Staunton,VA 22901.  

Designer Note: The Walden Font Co. has adapted the William Shakespeare headline font from the Bard's original handwriting.