Directorial Concepts and Cutting the Script
Ever wonder what it’s like to direct a Shakespeare play? The rules of romance are upended in As You Like It, a gloriously entertaining romantic comedy that gleefully interrogates traditional notions of gender, politics, and love. Listen in to a pre-show discussion between Sara Holdren, director of As You Like It at the 2024 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival and theatre critic for New York Magazine, and Jennifer Thorup Birkett '23 PhD, Shakespeare at Notre Dame postdoctoral research associate.
Experience the Episode
Thursday, January 16, 2025 12:00 pm
Ever wonder what it’s like to direct a Shakespeare play? The rules of romance are upended in As You Like It, a gloriously entertaining romantic comedy that gleefully interrogates traditional notions of gender, politics, and love. Listen in to a pre-show discussion between Sara Holdren, director of As You Like It at the 2024 Notre Dame Shakespeare Festival and theatre critic for New York Magazine, and Jennifer Thorup Birkett ’23 PhD, Shakespeare at Notre Dame postdoctoral research associate.
Join us January 16, 2025 for the release of the video and podcast recordings of this fascinating conversation.
Meet the Moderator: Jennifer Thorup Birkett '23 PhD
Jennifer Birkett ’23 PhD is a Postdoctoral Fellow with Shakespeare at Notre Dame. She researches early modern drama with a specific interest in terms of endearment and the relationship between text and performance. Her scholarship characteristically magnifies quirky details and contradictions in order to arrive at new affordances. She is deeply committed to empowering female voices within dramatic narratives and combatting gender inequality by championing mutuality and solidarity.
While a graduate student at Notre Dame, Jennifer worked as a managing editor for the Religion & Literature journal, co-directed the Early Modern Circle, and served as Social and Professionalization chairs for EGSA. She has taught multiple sections of Writing and Rhetoric, Shakespeare and Performance, and Intro to Film and Television.
Meet the Speaker: Sara Holdren
Sara Holdren is a director, teacher, and writer, originally from the Blue Ridge foothills of Virginia. She is the theater critic for New York Magazine and Vulture.com, the recipient of the 2016-2017 George Jean Nathan Award for Dramatic Criticism, and the co-founder of the theater project Tiltyard. Recent projects include Black Snow (Atlantic Theater School), Cymbeline (NYU Grad Acting), Tiltyard’s MIDSUMMER (which she co-adapted from the plays of Shakespeare) at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe, Three Sisters (Two River Theater), and bicycling 3,900 miles across the country with her partner, Beau, a writer. Sara is a Drama League Fellow and a graduate of the Acting Shakespeare program at RADA, and she has recently been both a lead artist and a mentor at the Mercury Store. She holds a BA in Theater from Yale University and an MFA in Directing from Yale School of Drama. She lives in Jersey City with Beau and their feline friends, Masha and Danny.