By John Moore
CultureWest.Org is endeavoring to make short films out of all 154 of Shakespeare’s sonnets, each featuring actors with Colorado connections. The artistic intent is primarily to further CultureWest’s mission to spotlight the local theatre community and their current or upcoming productions. It’s also an attempt to promote Shakespeare education in a fun way. This is an entirely volunteer project with a proud budget of … zero dollars.
We are rolling one Sonnet video a week for … zoinks! … 154 weeks. Here’s a link to the YouTube playlist that hosts the entire series.
For Sonnet 10 — our 17th short film to date — Boulder actor Augustus Truhn turns another of Shakespeare’s many (many!) entreaties for procreation into something quite different. Here, without changing a word, Truhn presents the sonnet instead as one tortured man exhorting himself to allow love into his life before it is too late. For a man unwilling to care about himself cannot have love in his heart for anyone else. Truhn played Petruchio in the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s 2010 “The Taming of the Shrew” and appeared last summer in the Germinal Stage Denver’s “Offending the Audience.” His wife, actor Karen LaMoureaux, will next appear in Boulder Ensemble Theatre Company’s “Ambition Facing West,” opening Oct. 9.
The Denver Sonnets Project is an ongoing public art project, open to a variety of actors and filmmakers. Another new short sonnet film is posted here every Monday. Please support the Denver Actors Fund at www.DenverActorsFund.Org.
Video by John Moore.
The Denver Sonnets Project is a volunteer collaboration, with limited eligibility requirements for participation. For information on how to register, email your interest to John Moore at culturewestjohn@gmail.com.
Completed episodes to date (in numeric order):
Sonnet 1: Cast of “Cult Following”: “From fairest creatures we desire increase …”
Sonnet 2: Josh Robinson, “See thy blood warm …”
Sonnet 6, Joe Von Bokern: “Make worms thine heir!”
Sonnet 10, Augustus Truhn: “Thou art so possessed with murd’rous hate …”
Sonnet 17: Anne Sandoe: “If I could write the beauty of your eyes …”
Sonnet 23: Gabra Zackman, “As an unperfect actor on a stage …”
Sonnet 36: Rachel Fowler, “I may not evermore acknowledge thee …”
Sonnet 44: John Carroll Lynch, “Thought kills me that I am not thought …”
Sonnet 47: Adrian Egolf, “Thyself away are present still with me …”
Sonnet 73: Jim Hunt: “Love that well which thou must leave ere long …”
Sonnet 74: Lowry Elementary School: “Thou hast but lost the dregs of life …”
Sonnet 90: Adam Stone: “If thou wilt leave me, do not leave me last …”
Sonnet 94: James O’Hagan-Murphy: Sweetest things turn sourest by their deeds …”
Sonnet 124: Cast of Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s ‘The Tempest’
Sonnet 131: Josh Nelson, “In nothing art thou black save in thy deeds …”
Sonnet 136: Lyndsay and Jeremy Palmer, “Make but my name thy love …”
Sonnet 144: Cailin Doran, “Two loves I have, of comfort and despair …”
Look here for a new sonnet every Monday. For more information on The Denver Sonnets Project, and how to sign up, please email culturewestjohn@gmail.com.
Please consider supporting the Denver Actors Fund at www.DenverActorsFund.Org
