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Original Pronunciation is a manner of speaking that most closely resembles the way people spoke at the time Shakespeare was alive and well. This modern practice has been studied, developed, and implemented by scholars like Dr. David Crystal, Ben Crystal, and Paul Meier. Baltimore Shakespeare Factory, prior to COVID, performed one Original Pronunciation (or OP) performance per season. Why?

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What better way to recreate the staging conditions of Shakespeare’s time than to recreate the language that would have been spoken at that time? The OP accent is easily understandable to today’s audiences, but it strips back 400 years of slight changes to uncover the original rhymes, rhythms, puns, and meanings that Shakespeare intended. In other words, you can hear the words as Shakespeare intended and spoke them himself.

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Baltimore Shakespeare Factory's connection to OP goes all the way back to 2015, with our first production being The Merchant of Venice directed by founding director, Tom Delise. This production had actors directly workshopping with David Crystal himself. We then moved on to the 2016 production of The Winter's Tale directed by James Keegan, using recordings provided by David Crystal.

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In 2017, we performed Antony and Cleopatra directed by Tom Delise where one of the principal actors was officially certified in OP and coached the rest of the company. 2018 had a production of Othello directed by Tom Delise coached by yet another officially certified OP Coach trained here at BSF. That same coach again worked with actors on the 2019 Hamlet directed by Chris Cotterman. Finally, yet another BSF trained OP Coach led the group in our 2021 Hamlet directed by Marshall B Garrett.

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In 2022, we held a Radio Shakespeare production of The Winter's Tale where the four principal actors all became certified in OP through this production. As we move forward with BSF into the future, we do not intend to abandon our roots in Original Pronunciation. We will work to determine how this practice and art will on in our performances, whether as a stand alone production or incorporated into each performance. Stay tuned to see how OP develops.