ASV: SUMMER 2021 JULY-AUG SCHEDULE

If you are a brand-new student--that is, have never worked with me before--the cost will be $50/class, $400 total. If you are a former student from no matter how long ago, you will pay your old rate.

You may audit a class to see if you think it would be useful to you.

TO ENROLL or if you have any questions about anything about the class, please call or write me: (212) 865-1127 or delossbrown@prodigy.net.

I couldn't find a good painting of Agincourt. This is actually a depiction of Crécy by Jean Froissart, who died before Agincourt was fought. From Chapter CXXIX of Jean Froissart's Chronicles.	John Collier's Annunciation, Church of Saint Gabriel in McKinney, Texas, anno 2000. Mary wears a blue dress, and around her are the traditional symbols: lilies representing her purity, a black, sealed window representative of her virginity, and the dove on a nearby house (extreme right) is the Holy Spirit waiting for her to give or refuse her consent.

THURSDAY: HENRY V: The last play in the Second Tetralogy, the culmination of the story of our friend Prince Hal, who has snubbed his low-class companions (Falstaff et al.) and set out to claim France as part of his kingdom.

TUESDAY: THE WINTER'S TALE, which was (maybe) Shakespeare's next-to-last play--maybe his last.

The point of the class is to teach you how to audition and perform--not just Shakespeare, but any text. We'll talk about the construction of the play a little--we have to, or you're liable to go off on the wrong track. The illustrations on this page are clues to the structures of the plays.

I wanted a more prominent dove in the picture of Mary--which is germane to THE WINTER'S TALE--but I liked the picture so much, I accepted its limitations. John Collier paints, he says (see the link) from photographs, and by the time his model got home from high school, after sports and other extracurricular activities, he was losing the light. So her mother hustled her into a blue dress, but they didn't have time to change, or even to tie, her saddle shoes.

Why is it important for Mary to wear a blue dress? Since Christianity came to Byzantium, in about 500AD, or 500CE, it was the custom for the patron to dress Mary as expensively as possible. Blue came From lapis lazuli, which at the time was more expensive than gold. So out of respect, the patrons who commissioned the painting always had the artist paint Mary in a very expensive blue dress. The saddle shoes are not traditional, but I already explained that.