This semester, a group of University of Tulsa students, faculty, and staff have been gathering regularly alongside members of the public to discuss one of the most famous playwrights in history: William Shakespeare.
“We always initiate our meetings by having a few members of the group complete a short, performative reading of a scene from a play,” said organizer Dayne Riley, who serves as UTulsa’s Honors College program officer. “By having the ‘actors’ present a short scene (one that captures the major themes of the respective play), we are able to jump right into an engaging conversation.”
The Shakespeare Reading Group, also referred to as Falstaff’s Understudies after the brilliant and hilarious Shakespeare character Sir John Falstaff, began meeting in 2019. The group started as a gathering of people from UTulsa’s English Department who wanted to discuss dramatic works by Shakespeare and his contemporaries in a laidback, fun environment.
After a significant hiatus during and following the COVID-19 pandemic, the group began meeting semi-regularly again before revamping in fall 2023. Since then, the group has met once or twice a semester, recently increasing meetings to three times per semester.
“As a Shakespeare major, I found it helpful and engaging to have a group of scholars and actors talking about Renaissance plays, both for my studies and for a sense of belonging to the university community,” said Yuhyeoi Kim, a graduate student in the Department of English & Creative Writing who regularly attends group meetings. “Personally, as I study for my qualifying exam, the group has been greatly helpful in remembering the plays I have read and also kept me from feeling lonely and desolate after the end of my course work.”
Riley is pleased with the diversity of the group. “In the last six months or so, the group has really blossomed and pulled in people from many walks of life,” he said. “Among our attendees are UTulsa faculty and staff and members of the public, including Graduate School alumni, adjunct professors, a board member of the Tulsa Shakespeare Company, and even a medical professional.”
To find out more about the Shakespeare Reading Group, email dayne-riley@utulsa.edu.