Jared White and Dr. Dale Pratt, Spanish and Portuguese Department

During the first quarter of 2005, Brigham Young University’s Spanish Golden Age Theater program performed the theatrical work El caballero de Olmedo, a seventeenth-century production by Lope de Vega, a renowned Spanish playwright. The Golden Age Theater program not only performed the play, but also published a play guide, traveled to Idaho, Texas, Utah, and Mexico, and introduced the Golden Age, giving a small Outreach workshop on key playwrights and occurrences during seventeenth-century Spain, to various elementary, middle, and high schools. In my project, I visited Salamanca, Spain, and shared with the American Association of Teachers of Spanish and Portuguese (AATSP) how we accomplished the various tasks associated with our interpretation of El caballero de Olmedo, hopefully enabling the various professors to implement similar programs in their colleges and institutions.

The purpose of the Golden Age Theater program is to help others rediscover the Golden Age of Spain. From the beginning of the sixteenth- until the end of the seventeenth-century, Spain produced an enormous quantity of plays. Famous authors such as Miguel de Cervantes, Pedro Calderón de la Barca, and Lope de Vega, the author of El caballero de Olmedo, found success as prolific playwrights. It is estimated that Lope de Vega wrote between 1,500 and 2,500 plays during his lifetime (in contrast to Shakespeare’s 38 (approx.) plays). With such a vast production, the question remains, what happened to Golden Age drama? When considering classical theater, any work by Shakespeare typically comes to the forefront. It would be very uncommon for someone to mention a Spanish Golden Age play although there are undoubtedly many more productions from that era. The central aim of BYU’s Golden Age Theater program is to revive this lost art, making modern audiences aware of this great cultural heritage.

The Outreach program is designed specifically to help students and teachers recognize and become excited about the Spanish Golden Age. For the Outreach program, the BYU Golden Age Theater group visits a school, be it elementary, middle, or high school level, and provides a small workshop, which introduces core playwrights and occurrences associated with the Spanish Golden Age and invites the students to learn more through activities and attendance of the play. In fact, we presented the full production of El caballero de Olmedo twice for a purely middle and high school audience. Outreach is a program fully designed by the students who take part in the Golden Age production. Although the theater project itself is a faculty-mentored endeavor, the students are the ones responsible for the outcome.

The central purpose of the mentoring involved with BYU’s Golden Age Theater group is to supervise. The director of El caballero de Olmedo was a graduate student in the Spanish Peninsular Literature program, the actors were a blend of graduate and undergraduate students, and the behind-the-scenes personnel were also all students. Every student contributed in the final production, be it as editors of the play guide, actors, costume designers, or even stage crew. The assignment of the faculty mentor in the Golden Age program is not to direct, act, or write; it is to guide and provide assistance when needed. In my ORCA project, I worked hand-in-hand with Dr. Dale Pratt, one of the faculty mentors involved with El caballero de Olmedo.

Dr. Pratt was an invaluable resource in aiding me as I prepared to present at the AATSP conference. His insights and experience helped me to organize my thoughts and coherently express the key points of our Golden Age Theater program. Upon giving my presentation in Salamanca, I was able to include video and PowerPoint to strengthen my position. In particular, I focused on the basic necessities of a Golden Age production, namely good mentors, a willing staff, be it student or faculty, some type of prop or stage design, and flexibility in regard to using Spanish mixed with some English, depending on the audience. Although I had initially proposed to include the BYU’s past Golden Age performances (La dama duende, Don Gil de las calzas verdes, and El muerto disimulado) as a platform to compare and contrast with El caballero de Olmedo, I found so many similarities in the basic makeup and execution of each play that I decided to change my focus to those previously mentioned necessities.

Unfortunately, my final presentation in Spain was done on my own. I originally planned to co-present with Dr. Pratt, however, his schedule did not permit him to make the trip. Obviously, this was frustrating. I felt unprepared and inexperienced to make such a journey alone. Thankfully, Dr. Pratt and I met various time before the trip and were able to polish my draft and incorporate the video and PowerPoint elements in order to make a more effective presentation. With his aid, I felt capable to share with others what I had learned as a member of the Golden Age group at BYU.

When I was finally able to present in Spain, my presentation went smoothly. I was able to inspire another professor from Morehouse University to include the BYU Golden Age theater technique and presentation of El caballero de Olmedo into her curriculum. Hopefully, that is just the beginning. There are still so many people unaware of Spain’s Golden Age.

I have benefited immensely from this project. My knowledge of the Spanish Golden Age has broadened, my passion for theater has grown, and my love of the Spanish language has deepened. I am currently a graduate student in Peninsular Literature and am preparing my Thesis on twentieth-century Spanish theater. My background with the Golden Age has helped me to feel even more confident and capable to explore the world of Spanish theater.

The play guide was created and edited solely by the students and mentors involved in the 2005 production, El caballero de Olmedo. Provo, Utah: BYU Golden Age Theater, 2005.

All this information on the Golden Age and Lope de Vega, including graphs and teacher-friendly presentation materials, can be found in the Outreach Packet which we shipped to each school in order to prepare for our Golden Age workshop. See the reference for footnote 1 for more information.