Invasion of Privacy: The Globe at SUNY Geneseo
To join the Shakesphere club at Geneseo, or not to join, that is the question!
Photo courtesy of Co-News Editor Madilyn Becker
SUNY Geneseo students feeling like there is Much Ado About Nothing on campus should direct their attention to The Globe, Geneseo’s Shakesphere club centered around “bonding, [being] surprising, [and] whimsical,” as founders Sonia Horowitz and Ella Singer put it while discussing their club with The Lamron. The club, which reads a different Shakesphere play each semester, is waiting for new, enthusiastic members to come join the fun, and are currently reading the play, Much Ado About Nothing.
Sonia Horowitz, a junior at SUNY Geneseo with an English creative writing major and theater minor, and Ella Singer, who is also a junior majoring in English creative writing, and minoring in museum studies, told The Lamron that they started The Globe as a space for lovers of literature and whimsical fun, to “interact with Shakespeare on a more casual level… [in a way] that everybody can do.”
The Globe meetings always consist of table reads of that semester’s Shakespeare play, after spinning a wheel to determine who will act as which character. The Globe’s founders explained that these reads let everyone “slow [the story] down a bit and… understand it a bit better” while also “get[ting] a little more adventurous with it.” Most students have been forced to read a Shakesphere play in high school, but Sonia and Ella founded The Globe—named after the iconic Globe Theatre in London where Shakespeare originally performed some of his iconic plays—“for art to be more accessible” and to allow Geneseo students to form connections with the art and each other. Sonia put it best: “we’re all kind of in the same boat” trying to understand the art of Shakespeare’s plays, and falling in love with the art, while making some new friends along the way!
Besides acting out the plays, which Sonia says helps her personally, and others, to better understand the story than simply reading it, The Globe also hosts some "Shakespeare inspired events,” as Ella told The Lamron. Events include Shakespeare Trivia, themed club meetings relating to the Shakespeare play currently being read, and watching movies inspired by Shakespearean work, such as 10 Things I Hate About You (1999), which was inspired by Shakesphere’s The Taming of The Shrew, Ella further elaborated.
Despite having read several of Shakespeare’s works as part of the club, including Macbeth, TwelfthNight, Hamlet, and Much Ado About Nothing, they were able to narrow down their own personal favorites. Sonia named Hamlet as her favorite Shakespearean play, while Ella described her recently-found joy in Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream. However, they both agreed that every play is fun to read as a group, as acting together shows off everyone’s personalities and own interpretations of the stories. Recently, as Ella and Sonia described, The Globe got to try out reading off cue cards, where actors do not have everyone’s lines, only their own. While they agreed it took some time to master the art of reading and understanding cues, they also agreed the experience was a “fun” and “kind of different way” to read the plays.
In between forming bonds with each other and falling in love with Shakespeare’s art, The Globe members practice the skill of reading Old English. Ella explained the “challenge… is worth it” to get the most out of Shakespeare’s writing.
“Where art thou meetings of The Globe?” Geneseo students might ask. The club meets every Friday evening at 5 p.m. in Welles 115, and is always welcoming new faces who want to get in on the whimsy!