Jaime Hebel | Head of Illustration

From Oct. 23 through Oct. 26, WashU’s All Student Theater (AST) will perform “The Rest is Silence,” their immersive adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic tragedy “Hamlet.”

Rather than the typical proscenium setup, where the audience sits directly facing the stage, AST’s fall performance throws the audience directly into the action. The performance takes place in the Village Black Box Theater (on the lower level of Village House), where AST’s crew has transformed the space into a winding collection of rooms and scenes, complete with props, lighting, and sound design. 

It isn’t just the impressive technical components that set this performance apart. Junior Eva Cohen, president of AST, explains how this year’s fall performance is different from the past. 

“In terms of production, we do our fall event, which in the past has been haunted houses [or] escape rooms,” Cohen said. “This is haunted house-style, but much more scripted than we’ve done before — much more actor-heavy, which is exciting.” 

As for excitement, the cast brings their A-game. While most characters act unaware of the audience, some characters look and speak directly to the viewers. Hamlet, who, in this version, is a woman played by sophomore Charlotte Bartels, stares down individual audience members to pull them in during her most intense monologues, injecting the scenes with emotion and excitement. 

Senior Annie Powell is the director of “The Rest is Silence,” and is responsible for many of the performance’s unique creative decisions. 

Powell said she took direct inspiration from visiting the Globe Theater in London during her trip with the Ampersand program, Shakespeare’s Globe: All the World’s a Stage.

“At the Globe, it became very clear to me how important the audience is in a show … how to feed off of the audience and include the audience,” Powell said.

Powell said decisions such as making Hamlet and other characters female were influenced by Shakespearean theater traditions. 

“In Shakespeare’s day, [the actors] were all men who would play women. So there’s this standard that you can mess around with gender and expression,” Powell explained. “The actors got to choose themselves what pronouns they wanted to use in the show, and I think it just adds to the accessible nature of Shakespeare,” she said. 

If you haven’t had the chance to see an AST performance, this is a great chance to introduce yourself before their larger-scale spring show. If you’re already familiar with their work, then you know you’re in for a treat! Tickets are available on the All Student Theater website or on their Instagram.