Campin’ with Shakespeare

It’s hard these days to see where school ends and summer begins.

Students are into so many things. Football, softball and track all have their summer camps. Band kids go off to theirs to learn new tunes and tricks. And the cheerleaders have taken off to Austin for a week of drills.

But there’s just one student from Gonzales that gets to go to Shakespeare camp.

The Bard probably never imagined school kids getting together some 399 years after his death in the middle of a Texas summer to learn his works. But they do, with much gusto. For Tyler Barfield, he can’t wait.

“I just had to do this. This is like my calling,” he said.

The Inquirer caught up with Barfield, 14, at the Crystal Theater last Friday just before he bounded off to Camp Shakespeare at the prestigious Winedale facility near Round Top. He was dressed as Theseus, the part he will be playing at the two-week camp. He recited his lines for the camera and explained how he got into the program.

“My grandma mentioned it to me and she said, “hey, you’ve always been interested in acting, well there’s this camp that the Crystal Theatre is doing, do you want me to sign you up for it?” I said sure, let’s try it. And when I got in it, I realized how much I loved theatre. I liked it a lot before but when I actually started to do it, it just kind of took over my life.”

His acting coach and director of the Crystal, Barbara Crozier, heaped praise on the young man and his trajectory thus far.

“The amazing thing about Tyler is that he joined us for a part last year during the summer workshop, he hadn’t been involved before at all,” she said. “He ended up having one of the lead roles.”

Barfield landed the part and a spot in the camp after submitting an application and then sitting through an interview by the camp’s founder, retired University of Texas professor Doc Ayers.

The professor then throws a scene at the camp prospect to see how they react to the lines. Crozier said that he looks for actors that embrace the moment and are not afraid to swing through various characteristics.

 “He discovered that sitting at a desk reading Shakespeare for most people is just infinitely a yawn and that Shakespeare was really written to be performed,” Crozier said. “It was never written to be read. Most of the people in Shakespearean England couldn’t read. So that’s why they flocked to the playhouses. The only way they heard stories was to go watch them perform and hear them.”

The camp runs two weeks and is an intensive immersion into a Shakespeare play that promotes discovery and the creative process. Students are on stage by 7:30 a.m. and work their craft until the evening.

“Those kids never sit down,” she said. “They are on their feet trying a new entrance, trying a new interpretation. He’s pretty amazing.”

This week they are working through “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”

“It is one of Shakespeare’s most beloved plays. It’s got fairies and moonlit scenes and it’s got star-crossed lovers and people that are under potions,” she said. “It’s got all of the elements. So I think that people will be entertained as well as very surprised by the quality that they see.”

After they get their parts ironed out, the camp goes on the road to showcase the young talents to other towns. The show makes a stop in Gonzales at the Crystal on Thursday, June 18 at 3:30 p.m. and is free. The curtain rises early so the students can get back to Winedale that evening to prepare for the next day’s show— a fundraiser in Round Top— and for the big Saturday performance at the Theatre Barn.

For Barfield, performing this play in front of a hometown crowd is important to him. He will have an opportunity to show his friends and family what he’s been so passionate about lately and why he’s been so busy.

“I hope that a lot of my friends show up,” he said. “I really want them to come see what I’ve been doing.”

Both him and his director hope that folks in town will venture out and see this talented troupe’s take on the venerated classic.

“A lot of people don’t know what Shakespeare is and if they come, they will find it really interesting,” Barfield said.

“The quality of production that these camps put out is absolutely amazing. These kids put on a quality performance,” noted Crozier. “I think that people are always wowed when they come for the first time. It’s not what they expect at all.

“[The kids] come with their lines memorized and they develop the show in two weeks. It’s pretty impressive. They are a well-polished group.”