Working in the Following Genres:
Pantomime
Musicals
Plays With (Optional) Music
Stage Shows for Schools and Youth Theatre
One-Act Plays
Over a period of three years, Bill Tordoff has abridged all of Shakespeare’s plays into versions that could be staged in thirty to fifty minutes.
The project started when Bill, a writer and retired English teacher, was asked to write a short version of ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’ for a group of Singapore students. His approach was to keep the original language, plot and characters, but to reduce the play to a run time of around thirty-minutes. When Lazy Bee Scripts accepted the abridgement for publication, Bill set about creating thirty-minute versions of 'Twelfth Night', 'The Merchant of Venice', 'Romeo and Juliet', 'Macbeth' and 'Julius Caesar'. The aim was to produce editions of the plays suitable for schools - versions which could be read or performed in a single lesson, and would entertain and inspire young actors and their audiences. |
The series then progressed to abridgements of set texts like 'Othello' and 'Antony and Cleopatra', some (dictated by plot) as long as forty or fifty minutes, which meant moving outside the original area of short plays suitable for junior schools. 'By the time that I had, almost accidentally, created abridged versions of 27 of Shakespeare's plays, it seemed logical to finish the series,' says Bill, 'Even though this meant entering the realm of Shakespeare's darker themes.' Whilst Bill was keen to stick as closely as possible to the original, 'Abridgement inevitably meant ditching characters who don't further the plot. So out went the Chorus in 'Henry V' and Falstaff's hangers-on in 'The Merry Wives.'
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Bill regularly wrote half-hour plays for performance by 11-year olds at the high school in Yorkshire, England, where he spent most of my working life. He has had plays published by Heinemann and later by Lazy Bee Scripts.
'Many of my suggestions on staging derive from my memories of seeing outstanding professional productions over the years, starting at the Shakespeare Memorial Theatre at Stratford-on-Avon in 1951, when I was carried away by the magical experience of seeing the history plays on a large stage, beautifully dressed and lit, to evocative music, performed by an outstanding company led by some of the finest actors of the day including Michael Redgrave, Anthony Quayle, Harry Andrews and, above all, the young Richard Burton. The experience of such productions serves as an ideal for amateurs to aspire to.' Bill's first Shakespearean role, in his rugby-playing days, was Charles the Wrestler in 'As You Like It'. His last, after retirement, was Prospero in 'The Tempest'. |
As well as writing and staging plays in school, Bill has worked in adult theatre as actor, director, stage-manager and set-constructor and seen how much help beginners need. 'Over the years, for example, I have had to dissuade back-stage helpers from pulling the curtain at the end of every scene, however short, and I have removed lethally-sharp swords provided by an enthusiastic props department to lively youngsters. I have dealt with wardrobe ladies who have not read the script and, unless restrained, will dress all members of a group in identical robes, kilts or togas, presumably to confuse the audience. This sort of experience has enabled me to make informed suggestions about most aspects of staging a play.' One aspect of production that Bill never took to was publicity. On one memorable occasion, he had to ring the local paper to announce a forthcoming production of Terence Rattigan's 'The Browning Version'. It appeared in the press as 'The Drowning Virgin'.
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