Klingon Shakespeare Extra Casting Call Tomorrow in DC + More Klingon Opera Video

We have a follow-up on last weekend’s story on how Klingons are hitting stages around the world. Tomorrow the Washington Shakespeare Company is holding an open casting call for extras for their Shakespeare in Klingon event next weekend. We also have another video feature on last weekend’s Klingon opera in the Netherlands.

 

DC Shakespeare company needs extras for Klingon event next weekend

press release

Ever dream of being a Klingon? Being on stage? Performing Shakespeare? Appearing with professional actors, including Mr. Sulu?

Here’s your chance!

Arlington, Va. – The Washington Shakespeare Company (WSC) announces an open casting call for Klingon and Shakespeare extras to appear in our September 25, 2010 gala event “By Any Other Name: An Evening of Shakespeare in Klingon.”

We’re looking for a handful of extras and are respectfully asking all interested aliens (and others) to get in costume and come to DuPont Circle on Saturday, September 18, 2010 from 4-6 p.m. We intend to select 2-4 extras. Those cast as extras will appear in our program “By Any Other Name: An Evening of Shakespeare in Klingon” and receive complimentary passes to our post-performance VIP after-party with special guest and legendary actor George Takei (Mr. Sulu), Marc Okrand (creator of the Klingon language), and Christopher Henley (WSC Artistic Director).

Mr. Henley will select and cast all Klingon extras. Winners will be announced at 6 p.m., Saturday, September 18th in DuPont Circle. We encourage those auditioning to dress in appropriate Klingon costumes, but also invite others – whether in costume or not – to come watch this one-of-a-kind event and learn how an open casting call for extras works.

For more information about “By Any Other Name: An Evening of Shakespeare in Klingon,” please visit http://www.washingtonshakespeare.org.

 

Klingon Opera Videos

As reported last weekend, the Klingon opera "U" held a one weekend engagement in the Netherlands. This made big news across the web. Last week we shared a report from the BBC, here is another fun report from MSNBC (and produced for the MaddowBlog by friend of TrekMovie Brian Drew).

And MarijnJanssen on YouTube has posted a bit of the actual opera.

"U" the opera will be performed next weekend on September 25th at the Qetlop in Farnsberg, Germany. More info at www.u-theopera.org.

34 Comments
oldest
newest
Inline Feedbacks
View all comments

Dunno could I sit through that…

I hope that’s free.

Even if it’s free, it still wouldn’t be worth it. Terrible. Simply terrible.

How Terracentric of you all.

I know the composer is kidding when he talks about the Opera hitting Kronos millions of years from now. But I hope he’s serious about the opera. Why? Well, Klingon music certainly could be interpreted as non-Western European music and his opera could be played in concert halls as an atonal masterpiece. The clip certainly had a driving rhythm and if you take it as piece of atonal music not based on Western European theory, well, it might be a good piece of atonal opera. Fascinating, Commander Worf. Star Trek could become high art.

If any of you take any music classes, you’ll find out that starting in the early twentieth centrury, composers were breaking out of the Western European tradition. This was before Khan tried to rule the world in the late nineties. : ) They were writing harsh atonal pieces of concert music.

If you get a chance to lisen to Penderecki’s “Thrrenody to the Victims of Hiroshima”, you’ll get what I mean. That piece which depicts the suffering of the people of Hiroshima after the bomb. Strings play between notes to create atonal music. According to Wikipedia, (post below) excerpts could be heard in “The Shining”, “The Children of Men”, and “The Hurt Locker.” Though I don’t remember hearing it any of those films, Next time, I see them I will carefully listen for it.

And no, I don’t listen to atonal music, I’ve studied it. I prefer mainstream jazz. Charlie Parker, Duke Ellington, etc.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Threnody_to_the_Victims_of_Hiroshima

You have not truly experienced Hamlet until you’ve seen it performed in the original Klingon.

I am certainly not the first to note that “ShaKespeare” was actually Klingon. The name itself is surely an anagram for a Klingon patronymic.

See, e.g., http://www.orble.com/images/klingonshakespeare1.jpg

On the orchestral CD “Star Wars: Shadows of the Empire”, composed by Joel McNeely, there´s a choir song in a “made up” alien language that works quite well.

Maybe in this particular case, there should be written, in the brochure, the lyrics, the translation, and the explanation of the “joke”, so to put everything in context.

Opera and theater: Klingon art forms through and through.

For example, “Klingon Shakespeare” is an anagram for “He ‘ears Klingonspeak.”

It’s true.

That’s pretty nerdgasmic

to #8 I must say…

only nerds would see this one….good job.

We deserve annihilation by Klingons for this…

Where in Germany is Farnsberg? Never heard of that city before. There isn’t even a wikipedia entry about it.

Qatlho’!

For your comments, I can only say, “Qatlho’!”

(Jim There Dying. Let them Die!.) Star Trek 6 was such a great Movie. Loved Christopher Plummer in Trek 6. I loved the quotes from Hamlet and Shaksphere. I think Trek and Hamlet and Shakesphere go way back and it’s good to see someone making this in Klingon and truly honoring Trek. I know that some may not like it but to me it keeps Treks name out there and that can only be good for Trek for the new movies and a new Trek Series.

strange

Klingon opera is a novel venture to try. Many opera companies are in the Latinum skids these days. The Met could use some Klingon to perk up attendance and Revenue. A shame Beverly Sills is in Stovacore. Or Kuri-too.

Beverly Hills is not in Stovocore. It is in Earths Hell.

@ 18

Captain, Losira’s joke was about the great American opera singer, Beverly Sills (1929-2007) not Beverly Hills, California. She’s saying since Ms. Sills has died, she’s in Klingon heaven assuming she died in battle. I’ll say yes since she had to fight cancer. The wikipedia link about her life is below.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beverly_Sills

#19 Thanks! But I was. Realy serious about Ms. Sills her build and voice would realy do great justice. And class dignity to the concept of Klingon opera. I’m an Opera lover from way back.

This is why no one goes to the theatre anymore. It’s embarrassing on so many levels. It embarrasses me first as a theatre artist and secondly as a Trek fan. Why is it atonal *facepalm? It’s completely unlistenable. This is also why everyone laughs at Trekkies. And theatre actors.

Atonality is a perfectly legitimate mode of music, IMHO.

There are all kinds of different tonalities other than the one expressed in tradition Western cultures. For example, traditional Hindu and Far Eastern music use a completely different tonal system.

Even in the West, composers like Schoenberg and Cage — the penultimate in serious modern music — not only experimented with, but used nontraditional scales or percussive sounds. Moog and similar synthesizers, as well as the now-famous theremin, can do away with scales altogether.

Centuries prior, Gregorian chants and other forms of ancient music were composed on scales that would seem foreign to the popular ear.

I watched the video. It’s not my thing. I’m more interested in what the good guys of star trek are doing when they hang out.

Klingons, not so much.

Sometimes I think some Trek fans will watch anything.

That so-called opera would have to work really hard to reach a point where it could ONLY be called awful. It sounds like choking/shouting combined with a flute player being ran over by a Greyhound bus.

Anyone who pays to see that? Lotsa luck.
Frankly, I’m still burned out from Klingon overexposure in the ’90s.

“For example, traditional Hindu and Far Eastern music use a completely different tonal system.”

With sincere apologies to Hat Rick — whose brilliant comments on this blog I always enjoy reading — I’m going to temporarily be pedantic, as the statement above might be confusing for some readers of this blog. “Hindu music” is a very broad church (no pun intended), as is Indian music as a whole; more to the point, the originator of North Indian classical music as a formalised art — which includes the impact on Hindu hymns from that region — was actually a Muslim associated with one of the most influential Sufi Muslim orders in Indian history. He was also associated with the royal courts of the Delhi Sultanate, the major Indian power immediately prior to the Mughal Empire.

A number of “high-end” religious and non-religious forms of music associated with North Indian Muslim culture derive from his original prolific efforts, as do the more classical forms of traditional North Indian Hindu hymns along with Sikh hymns. These musical forms were further refined and popularised during the Mughal era in particular. South Indian classical music can be very different, although there is obviously some overlap due to geographical & historical factors.

I’m assuming of course that the term “Hindu music” was not an accidental inaccurate misnomer for “Indian music” on Hat Rick’s part ;)

However, as Hat Rick alluded, both North Indian and South Indian classical music, including hymns, are indeed based on very different tonal systems compared to their Western counterparts.

The point is, it’s boring! It’s not fun or interesting at all. And it’s painful to listen to. This reminds me of the Monty Python sketch with the Townswomen’s Guild reenacting Pearl Harbour with mud wrestling. It’s completely incomprehensible.

This is truly bizarre.

Yeah, this could be all it takes to spark a Klingon invasion of Earth. I don’t think the good people of Kronos will like this one bit!

26, Jai, I defer to your expertise in this matter. Thank you for the fascinating and informative exposition!

No problem, Hat Rick ;)

A comprehensive overview of North Indian (“Hindustani”) classical music and its history can be read here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hindustani_classical_music . I’m sure you’ll find it very interesting reading.

The section discussing the Persian influence during the medieval period was what I was referring to in #26.

Fandom gone absolutely INSANE – Only in America could something be taken so seriously and to such ridiculous lengths…………

The Klingon Dictionary was pushing it. Now there is an Opera?!

WHY?!

Well, I suppose it’s no worse than getting buried in a Photon Torpedo coffin or wearing Essence of Kirk on a date.

#32
I AGREE

As an opera fan and a Star Trek fan, I don’t like the opera itself. However, it strikes me as exactly like what a Klingon opera would sound like. If I recall correctly, not many other than the Klingons themselves appreciated their opera. Lots of percussion, piercing notes, and plenty of drama. It’s just not my taste. If I was given the opportunity, though, I would probably watch it just for its sheer awesome power.