All the world’s a stage. You might not agree with that sentiment. You might wish to argue or debate it. But as you like it or not, you’d be foolish to deny its cultural impact given its 410-year history. Of course some stages ring resoundingly clearer than others, especially when peopled by well-trained thespians with soaring vocal timbres.
Independent Shakespeare Company, led by husband and wife team David Melville and Melissa Chalsma, is staging its segment of the world this summer in the Old Zoo Amphitheater in Griffith Park with a trio of terrific tales: The Merry Wives of Windsor, Love’s Labour’s Lost and Hamlet.
David Melville and Melissa Chalsma
Melville and Chalsma traversed twin parallel tracks before their trails threw them together, empowering them to travel toward their continued triumphs as a twosome. Melville began his journey in his native England where his father played an important part in his life as well as trumpet in the London Symphony Orchestra. He remembers, “Watching my father rehearse and perform must have contributed to my performing aspirations. I went to the opera a lot as well. I think he had expectations of me in music. He wanted me to study piano at age three. That didn’t work out so well. We had a big argument over it.”
Instead he inclined more toward the art of acting, eventually receiving his training at the Webber-Douglas Academy of Dramatic Art in London. “Webber-Douglas later merged with the Central School of Speech and Drama,” he relates. “We had laughing and crying lessons there which can be very useful. One of our instructors, Judith Gick, was around 80, and she’d still get up and perform Juliet. And she was wonderful.”
Not long after, he moved into the professional realm where he began to struggle not so much with his decision or the profession itself but with his marketing. He explains, “My real name is David Reynolds, but there were already three of those in British Actors Equity. My middle name is Melvil from an ancestor’s name. I called myself that until The Times of London gave me my first good stage notice but spelled my name wrong. I decided to make it easier for them in the future, so I changed the spelling.”
Melissa Chalsma in the 2009 ISC production of "The Changeling"
Chalsma meanwhile, born in Columbus, Ohio, grew up in an artistic household as well, mostly in Massachusetts. She says, “My father was a translator of Russian, primarily of poetry. There were always writers in our house. I came into close contact with important names in contemporary literature which in turn gave me an interest in classical theater.”
She earned an MFA from the Professional Theatre Training Program at the University of Delaware and struck professional pay dirt shortly thereafter in a production of Hamlet, transferring as an Almeida Theatre presentation at Hackney Empire in London to Broadway’s Belasco Theatre in 1995 with Ralph Fiennes in the title role opposite the Gertrude of Francesca Annis.
She recounts, “That was my first job out of drama school. There are not many women in that play, plus they were bringing their main stars from the London production. The only parts left were non-speaking understudy roles or supernumeraries. I had one scene with no lines in a shadowed portion of the stage, but I felt fortunate all the same because I got to sit in the wings each performance and watch these fantastic actors at work. Not just Ralph Fiennes either but Terence Rigby [as the Ghost, the Player King and the Gravedigger], for example, was amazing.”
Also in the cast in the role of Reynaldo was a young actor she’d never heard of named David Melville. Their first meeting occurred at the table read for the Belasco’s remounting of Hamlet. Melville relives the moment: “We arrived in New York after a week off from our run in London. We had an eventful flight because it was a bit of a party. We sat at the table with our scripts when Melissa walked into the room in a green dress that was stunningly beautiful. She didn’t fall in love at first sight, but I certainly did.”
David Melville and Bernadette Sullivan in the 2012 ISC production of "Hamlet"
Her recollection of that day goes: “I walked into this frat house of British actors. I remember David was dressed in this funny little jacket. Afterwards everyone in the cast went out to eat. David and I started talking. Later when we looked up, it was literally like a scene from a movie. We were the only ones there. Everyone else had gone, and the chairs were stacked on the tables. I grew to appreciate that I had so little to do in the play because it gave me more time to flirt with David in the alley outside the theater—wait. I didn’t mean that the way it sounded.”
However it sounded or was meant, 10 months later the two of them wed in Melville’s childhood village which to Americanized ears resembles “Little Hawksley” until Melville spells it and Chalsma chimes in with, “That’s how they say it. You and I would call it Little Horkesley.”
Although the proposal took place in New York, the nuptials were planned for England so Melville’s ailing mother could attend. Unfortunately she passed before the wedding day arrived. Melville found another source of pride in the location as he narrates, “We married in the Little Horkesley village church, the same church my grandfather rebuilt after the Nazis destroyed it. Then we settled in London but didn’t remain there long. Melissa didn’t like the idea there were no showers or central heating, so we soon moved to New York again.”
Bernadette Sullivan, Richard Azurdia, Aisha Kabia, and Danny Campbell in the 2012 ISC production of "The Merry Wives of Windsor"
There, just two years later, they co-founded Independent Shakespeare Company. They tell slightly different stories of how that venture came about and cheerfully acknowledge those differences. Ladies first: “David’s version is more fascinating than mine, so let me go before him. My version is that actors in big cities whether it’s Chicago or New York or LA or anywhere else have this habit of sitting around complaining. We get together with our actor friends and complain when we don’t get work. Then when we do get work, we complain because the work is not fulfilling. Finally we got so sick of all this complaining that we said let’s stop it and see if we can do something about it. Now go ahead, David. Tell him your fascinating version.”
He obliges. “I was doing all kinds of jobs to make ends meet. I worked in a restaurant. I worked for a detective agency where I chased down crooks in Chinatown selling fake watches and fake Gucci handbags. I stood out like a sore thumb in that section. Trying to blend in one day I read The Village Voice cover to cover and saw where the Nada Theater was looking for people to collaborate on some productions. I had been thinking about trying some Shakespeare on our own, so I investigated the Nada. Right away I thought their production space looked ridiculous for staging Shakespeare. But then I focused on the judo concept of applying your opponent’s strength to your own advantage.
David Melville in the 2009 ISC Production of "Henry V"
“That’s when I homed in on Henry V as perhaps ideal in that space. It’s not a big epic. It occurred to me there’s something theatrical about that particular play that could allow us to create something epic with very little resources. We could invent our own set of rules as we went and simplify to the days of Shakespeare himself where we had no specialized lighting effects, no grand set designs, no director. The director is a rather modern invention of theater. Originally it was the actor/stage manager who created the environment which gave the actors ownership of their work. We found being deferential to actors in this way provided a much more engaging experience for our audience as well.”
Further information on the company website reveals how their Henry V was done on an $800 budget at the Present Company Theatorium on New York’s Lower East Side at 10 pm Tuesday nights following an 8 pm performance of another company’s Pigoletto, an operatic pastiche of Rigoletto featuring a man in a pig suit.
That was in 1998. Off and running they continued with other productions of As You Like It and Macbeth. Then in 2001 they took off and came running to LA. Chalsma elaborates, “New York can wear you down. It’s easier to live in LA; there’s more space, you know. We made contact right away with Franklin Canyon Park to continue our work. They had a nice venue, but they were unsure about live theater. We were not a part of their vocabulary. Also we weren’t a nonprofit back then. We were just a group of people doing stuff.” The group made its LA debut — indoors — in 2002 with another round of Henry V at the Odyssey.
In 2003 the couple partnered with the Department of Cultural Affairs, the City of LA to present free Shakespeare in Barnsdall Park, where their first performance drew an audience of 14 people and a dog.
Chalsma continues, “Barnsdall Park has a wonderful arts facility, but we outgrew the space. After six or seven years we found we were turning people away. So we started looking for a new, larger venue and last year started producing at the Old Zoo in Griffith Park.”
They also temporarily abandoned their practice of running their productions in repertory last year in favor of stand-alone shows with definite opening and closing dates but have returned to the rep model this season. Chalsma explains their reasoning: “Rep shows are very expensive. We were trying to keep a handle on our costs last season by keeping only certain actors on contract. We’re a union company. We pay health and benefits to our actors. We pay rent to the park. It costs us $9,000 a week for three weeks with no ticket income, and we’re insistent with our rep schedule that our actors commit to 12 weeks. It’s logistically challenging.”
The 2012 stage in Griffith Park
So where—or how—do they get their operating capital? Melville answers, “Sixty to 70 percent of our funds come to us through donations because people believe in our mission. We also took out a second mortgage of $150,000 that we haven’t begun to pay a penny back on yet,” he chuckles.Chalsma adds, “We get a lot of donations of $50 or less. One of the things I’m proudest of is finding crumpled dollar bills in our donation bucket at the end of each performance because it means we touched people. We also turn down some sources of revenue.”
“Oh yes,” Melville breathes with another chuckle.
She continues, “We were approached by a film company about doing a porn version of Romeo and Juliet. They were quite polite in their approach, talking about how they perceived it as an exploration of the diversity of human expression. We politely declined their polite invitation. We have yet to do anything illegal for our fund-raising.”
Not to challenge or contradict the lady concerning her proudest moments, but the ISC website also reveals she is the mother of the company’s smallest member. “Oh yes,” she beams, “our daughter Felicity is nine. She plays Robin, the page to Falstaff, in Merry Wives. Our son is only two. He has yet to express an interest. If he does someday, that’s great, but if he decides to become a neurosurgeon, that’s all right too.”
Sean Pritchett and Lovelle Liquigan in the 2012 ISC production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream"
Of their future Melville muses, “In terms of our summer festival we’re playing it year to year and growing in an organic way. We used to scramble for rehearsal space but not any more. We’re following the Joe Papp Public Theater model. I’d say we’re the 1961 version of that model at this point. Papp went from Shakespeare to new writing. I can see us down the road trying material that isn’t Shakespeare.”
Chalsma interjects, “We need to focus on what we do really well, but I love Harold Pinter and Sam Shepard and would enjoy trying some avant-garde material someday.”
“We’ve played to 6,000 people so far this summer,” resumes Melville, “and we’ll hit 20,000 by the end of summer. We spent no money on advertising. It’s all word of mouth. But the greatest part of our story is our demographics which consist of the really young and the ethnically diverse. It’s not unusual to see a commoner in our audience sitting on a blanket next to a millionaire [on his blanket] both enjoying the same communal experience. They’ll end up conversing not only about the play they’re watching but also what they’ve packed in their respective [picnic] baskets.”
Or to quote Moth, page to Armado, from this year’s Love’s Labour’s Lost: “They have been at a great feast of languages and stolen the scraps.”
David Melville, Melissa Chalsma and daughter Felicity of Independent Shakespeare Company can undoubtedly second the notion.
**Melville and Chalsma first photo Photo: Ivy Augusta
THE CHANGELING Photo: Benoit Piret
HAMLET Photo: Erwin Tuazon
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR Photo: Ashby de la Plaine
HENRY V Photo: Ivy Augusta
Griffith Park Photo: Mary Guilliams
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM Photo: Ashby de la Plaine
THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR. Photo: Ashby de la PlaineIndependent Shakespeare Co., Griffith Park Free Shakespeare Festival 2011; June 30-August 28, Thursday-Sunday, All performances start at 7 pm. The Merry Wives of Windsor, Hamlet, Love’s Labour’s Lost. Griffith Park Old Zoo, near 4730 Crystal Springs Dr. (parking near the carousel), LA. GPS: 34.134204,-118.284962 818-710-6306. www.independentshakespeare.com.
