The Shakespeare Forum

Last night I went to this really cool thing: there's this event every week at the Space on White called The Shakespeare Forum. Anyone who wants to participate is welcome to come, and it's simply a group of actors getting together and working on pieces. You can bring in something you're auditioning with, or something you're just playing with, a monologue, a scene, whatever. As long as it's Shakespeare. After you do your piece for this group of thirty or so really supportive fellow artists your work is open for constructive feedback. Being a new-be I was told that The Shakespeare Forum is like fight club (less in the sense that I can't talk about it and more like fresh blood has to get up there). Luckily I had brought in the Lady Anne (Richard III) I have been working on, among other speeches, all year, and did that. It went over very well, and the notes I got from the group were congruent with the notes I get all the time in grad school, it was nice to have them reiterated.
It was so wonderful to just go and work for a little while, and it made me really feel great to know that even when I'm in my downtime while I'm living in the city there will be safe places like this where I can be an artist.