“Who do I stab first?” asked Michael Jay, standing in the back yard of his Needham home holding a sword and a dagger. He looked around and saw about 15 possibilities: the cast and crew of the Yorick Ensemble’s production of Hamlet, which will be staged on the Needham Town Common this weekend and next.
The backyard gathering was a rehearsal for the play, one of many held over the past month. One minute the group of mostly 20- and 30-somethings was milling about, eating Comella’s pizza (this was, after all, Needham), and the next minute they snapped into character, Shakespeare’s phrasing somehow flowing naturally from the soldiers on guard at Elsinore Castle despite the backyard setting.
Jay is a hometown Hamlet. He graduated from Needham High in 2014, a veteran of school productions and the Needham Youth Theater, as were the ensemble’s stage manager, Ben Cantor-Adams, and its sound engineer, Matt Tse.
“This is my childhood home,” Jay said. “My parents moved away but instead of selling the house, they’ve rented it to me and some roommates. We’ve got this big back yard, and it’s just a wonderful space to rehearse — that we don’t have to pay for.”
As for staging it in Needham? “I walked out of Sweet Basil one night after having dinner with friends,” said Jay, “and I saw those string lights over the Town Common and how well they lit the ground. And I was like, we could put a show here. We got in contact with the town, and they were more than happy to work with us.”
The community as a whole also stepped up, Jay said. “So many businesses have been willing to put up our flyers. So many people have been willing to put lawn signs on their lawns. It’s been really heartwarming.”
The Yorick Ensemble was formed in 2019 as a versatile company devoted to simple staging (the entire Hamlet set is a table and a clothes rack with a muslin curtain) but high-caliber acting. It was the idea of Josh Telepman, who plays a minor role in this production.
“Sometimes you have to create your own opportunities,” said Jay. “Josh said, ‘I wanna do the Pirates of Penzance, and I wanna be the major general.’” Since then they’ve performed several plays a year. Despite the name, they have not focused on Shakespeare.
Together, they have formed a community as well as an ensemble, said Jay as he pointed out the various cast members (“there’s Horatio, and Queen Gertrude. The one lying down is our Guildenstern”).
“This is a community, and this is a show for the community,” said Jay. “It’s by this community that I have cultivated in the last seven years and it’s for this community that I grew up in. I’m really grateful for that.”
As Hamlet knew, the play’s the thing.
There will be five performances, all at 6:30 p.m., weather permitting: Sept. 5, 6, 11, 12, 13. The shows are free. Attendees are encouraged to bring their own seats.
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