Two of Brecht’s “practice pieces for actors” are performed: “Romeo and Juliet” translated by George Tabori and “Hamlet” translated by Michael Lebeck. (These pieces are virtually unknown to students and are never performed.) Performers: Lotte Lenya, Micki Grant, David Rounds, Rudolph Weiss, Oliver Clark, Roscoe Lee Browne. These are dramatic scenes which Brecht wrote and had his own actors rehearse as preparation for full-length productions of the corresponding Shakespeare plays. The scenes reduce the “heroic” stature of the Shakespearean characters by showing them as ordinary people with the usual needs and vices, living in a world where economics is inevitably more influential than principle. The idea, in Socialist East Germany where Brecht lived and worked, was that the actors’ own egos would be deflated by these scenes, and the result would be a more “human” portrayal. The scenes were therefore rehearsed but then omitted from actual performance of the full play.