Ten students with varying backgrounds and experiences gathered on July 23 at Liberty Station for a workshop in the round to learn acting or hone their skills in studying and performing Shakespeare.

Titled “Demystyifing Shakespeare,” the six-week outdoor class called “Summer Shakes 22” is being offered by ActLiveNow/Point Loma Playhouse. Taught by Point Loma native Robert Nickel, the course covers the life, work, and times of the famous bard.

“By the end of this class you’re going to be a lot more comfortable with the Elizabethan language,” Nickel promised his students, who admitted being intimidated by the dialogue. “The whole point is to help you learn in an environment that is comfortable to you.”

Though Shakespeare wrote in the late 1400s and early 1500s, Nickel stressed that neither the language – nor the plots – in Shakespeare’s plays are mysterious once you break it all down. “That was a long time ago,” he said. “But human nature doesn’t change. The things Shakespeare wrote about are just as relevant today.”

Like yoga, Nickel’s acting class began with a breathing warm-up, as students projected their voices at one another like they would on stage. “You’ve got to know how to make yourselves heard,” he said. “You could be the hardest-working actor in show biz, and if people can’t hear you when you’re performing – there’s no point.”

Nickel likened acting to driving a car. “You’ve got to know how to mechanically operate the vehicle,” he said. “You’ve got to deal with the conditions on the road, know what the rules are so you don’t violate them. And you’ve got to know where you’re going.”

Next came time for aspiring thespians to introduce themselves discussing their backgrounds and aspirations.

Student Tami O’Connell, who has been in many community theater and college plays, and said she’d like to “Conquer, and remember, a little bit of the theater language.” Of her acquaintance with Shakespeare, she said, “My grandmother took me many times to the Old Globe to see many Shakesperean plays.” Asked a “fun fact” about herself she replied, “I can’t sing, though my preschool children don’t care.”

Liza Frank first learned about the bard in high school and did some “unpaid things,” theatrically while attending school in New York state. She hasn’t performed in a decade and said jokingly of her personal fun fact: “I am a travel and food junkie. I will go anywhere and eat anything.”

Dex Danby (chosen name) has written plays and first performed theatrically, he said “as a bashful 9-year-old auditioning for my mom in a role in ‘Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs.’” An acting minor in school, he noted, “I started my own theater company and did one production that was off-off Broadway. It’s been 16 years since I trod the boards, and I’d like to get back into it.”

A self-avowed “late bloomer,” Maxine Levaren just finished a stand-up comedy workshop and performed a live routine at Point Loma Playhouse. “I’d like to become a little more comfortable with the language and the meter of Shakespeare,” she said adding “I’d like to perform anything by Lady Macbeth. “I always get cast as the snarky @#$%*. She’s a published writer and traveled a lot pre-pandemic but added, “I’m not sure I want to face airport delays anymore.”

Kristina Sparks did some modeling in commercials as a child as well as being an extra in movies. She’s performed in church productions and did drama in high school. Concerning her acting aspirations, she said, “I admire people who can pull Shakespeare out of their back pocket and would like to have some Shakespeare in my back pocket.” She added she wants to be a comic and intends to sign up soon for a workshop at a local comedy theater.

“I like being an audience member, usually in the front row,” said Wende West of her Shakespeare experiences. “I’ve never done acting. This is a real stretch for me. But I’m here to try and put myself out on the edge and see if I last.” She said her mother introduced her to Shakespeare’s sonnets. “I’ve lived in Europe and my favorite place to travel is the Sahara Desert where I spent 16 days once,” she said of her fun fact.

Though he doesn’t have much theater experience, Christopher Benner said he’s “taken some classes and read at auditions. I finally did a performance four months ago and it was fun. I didn’t realize how visceral and physical (Shakespeare plays) are. His fun fact? “I used to be a lifeguard,” he answered.

The most experienced performer of the student group, Greg Zoumaras, has played Demetrius in Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and directed “The Tempest.”

“I’d just like to dust the cobwebs off and get the Shakespeare language flowing again,” he said adding he’d like to re-enact the St. Crispin’s Day speech in Shakespeare’s Henry V.” His fun fact is that he is a “Dungeons & Dragons nerd.”

Fumy Tu said she’s “always wanted to act in theater and learn acting.” Of this class, she said, “I want to find a monologue for myself, and understand the words of Shakespeare as I’m speaking them.” She added she fell in love with the 1968 movie version of “Romeo & Juliet.” Asked her fun fact, she answered, “I love embroidery and I play the ukulele.”

Instructor Nickel said the “process” of acting, in Shakespeare or anything else, involves rediscovering the material through interpretation. “You not only need to know what the words mean, but how your character feels about them,” he said. “A play takes real life and encodes it into the written word. You take this encoded vignette drained of all life, like something that’s freeze-dried, and you’ve got to re-hydrate it. And the way that an actor does that is something that can never happen again. This is why live theater is an irretrievable treasure in our culture unlike anything else.”

The final part of Nickel’s introductory Shakespeare class involved dissecting a seemingly unintelligible line of dialogue from the play “Antony and Cleopatra.” He worked with students to analyze the dialogue, pointing out Elizabethan English isn’t all that tough to decipher once you realize the writing is poetic verse, not prose. He said the trick is to move some of the parts of sentences around so that the content makes sense in modern terms.