Des McAnuff is unapologetically bold in his restructuring of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in Canada. Under his leadership, Stratford announced a 2009 season with more than a few surprises in it. First and foremost, next season will have less Shakespeare. Previous seasons tended to produce as many as five of the Bard’s plays, but next year’s lineup only includes three of them. If you’re wondering why the festival would go to the trouble of putting “Shakespeare” back in the festival’s title only to reduce the number of plays by its namesake, McAnuff has answers ready.

McAnuff wants to avoid audience burnout. At a rate of five plays per year, the entire canon can be exhausted in less than a decade. McAnuff wants audiences to welcome the return of a text, not roll their eyes collectively and groan, “Again?” To help compensate for this, McAnuff is bolstering 2009 and future seasons with plays by other Elizabethan and Jacobean writers. The notion behind this decision is to (a) enrich everyone’s understanding of Shakespeare by learning more about his contemporaries and (b) broaden the audience’s taste for plays of that period.

Finally, the most compelling support of McAnuff’s agenda is the Festival’s renewed commitment to commissioning new plays. In this effort, McAnuff provides his audiences with the opportunity to see the influence of writers like Shakespeare on 21st-century scribes. These are all bold moves that will require more than a little selling to convince Shakespeare aficionados that less, in the long run, will truly be more.

The Merry Wives of Windsor might be slightly less merry this year. In fact, I would imagine they are pretty exhausted. A review of a new production of the comedy noted that it was performed outdoors in Indianapolis in extreme heat. The weather was, at time pushing one hundred degrees and the actors were literally mopping the sweat off of themselves. When you think of outdoor Shakespeare, initial weather concerns might be centered on rain or other such climate disturbances that might postpone or cancel productions. This highlights an entirely different issue: the health and well-being of the actors (as well as the audience)!

Certainly, when people envision outdoor Shakespeare, they picture the ideal circumstances: bucolic setting, light breeze, mild temperatures….your basic soap commercial fantasy. How does it change the experience for the audience under such extreme circumstances. While the actors no doubt rally as best they can (here’s hoping they’re doing a high-concept version that doesn’t require heavy Elizabethan English garb), no doubt the heat saps some of the energy in their performances (particularly as show progresses; after all, Shakespeare is rarely performed in less than two and a half hours). Audiences may face similar concerns, potentially impairing their ability to focus on the production as well as they might under more temperate circumstances. Also, depending on the play’s context and setting, it may impact the believability of the piece (imagine not chuckling at a line like “now is the winter of our discontent” when it is spoken in the blistering heat). The caprices of the weather are certainly not the production’s fault; they simply provide any additional test for one’s commitment to the Bard’s poetry.

Loving the earth has become trendy. With the turning point being former Vice President Gore’s 2006 documentary, An Inconvenient Truth, the past two years have seen the green movement go global. Now, recycling is for sissies. That’s not green; it’s simply expected. If you’re hardcore about the environment, you’re remodeling you car, your house, and your life. Like any zeitgeist, the movement has also had an impact upon theatre, including Shakespeare festivals. One festival has even incorporated a green tie-in to their season by asking audience members to pledge personal ecological change.

Last fall, a host of network television shows incorporated environmental issues into their plotlines (Mr. Gore even made a cameo). It seems that Shakespearean productions could be taken in a similar direction—and some already have. The Tempest has always been the go-to play to talk about the environment because of the whole man-trying-to-control-nature thing. Prospero could be seen as a representative for humankind and its hubristic desire to dominate, control, and exploit the natural world. The play has frequently sparked thematic explorations of slavery, and the notion of the enslavement of the natural world certainly creates a parallel.

The Tempest also makes a good fit because of its structure. Like many late Shakespearean works, it is a multi-genre work whose eclectic nature make it easy to graft different ideas onto it. In this light, we can view the finale as Prospero’s renunciation of his manipulation of the environment. It also helps make sense of his eleventh-hour decision to let his duplicitous captives live. Despite the ills these men have wrought upon him, Prospero in the end decides to recycle them.

Cleveland Shakespeare is opening its season with a unique point/counterpoint approach to one of The Bard’s plays. The Shakespeare Festival will present Shakespeare’s Hamlet (sad to say, but you do have to specify whose version nowadays) and Tom Stoppard’s Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead. One issue the article did not make clear is how closely intertwined the productions will be. While they will presumably use the same set for both plays, the biggest question is whether or not the actors will play the same parts in both plays. If so the two plays will truly be presented as inversions of each other.

From an audience perspective, this should create an unusual viewing experience; how unusual will depend on the order in which the productions are viewed. Seeing Hamlet in all its dour glory one evening and then watching it upended and deconstructed the next could prove to be a heady delight. The reverse order would be a trickier observation. Even if an audience member has seen both plays before, viewing Stoppard’s comic take-off first might make the following performance more challenging. After having made the characters and story ridiculous, how seriously will the audience be able to take Hamlet the following evening? Will the tragedy elicit unintentional laughs due to references from the previous night’s performance? Conversely, will this ordering serve to highlight the dark irony in Hamlet that is so often overlooked in production? After all, Hamlet doesn’t end well, but that doesn’t mean the sulky Dane cannot find a few chuckles in his own melancholia.

The battle of the sexes is back, but the match appears to be a bit uneven. A recent review of the Stratford Shakespeare Festival’s production of The Taming of the Shrew was mixed. While extolling the actors for their virtuosity, the critic lamented the over-conceptualization of the play. First, the director decided to keep a framing device which many productions discard. The framework tale revolves around a drunk who is made to believe he is a lord as a joke and has the action of Shrew performed for him. In this incarnation, the person playing the joke is none other than Elizabeth I herself. The second major concept for the production is to have Katherine limp, a decision based on one line of Shakespeare’s dialogue which could be interpreted in a variety of ways.

For this reviewer, neither choice was clear nor did it help the production in any way. I can only assume that the Queen Elizabeth conceit is supposed to tie in all kinds of ideas about gender, sexuality in power; however, having the Queen oversee the telling of a tale that could be interpreted as misogynistic (depending on who you ask) sends something of a mixed message. Also, is she supposed to be some kind of double for Katherine? If so, the idea that someone needs to tame the Queen could also raise questions. More damaging, it seems, is the decision to give Kate a limp. As the reviewer points out, it makes it seem like her anger comes from her disability rather than the sexual politics that constrain her. Is that really what this play is about?

Des McAnuff is putting the Shakespeare back into his Shakespeare Festival. Literally. As previously mentioned the Stratford Festival is renaming itself the Stratford Shakespeare Festival in an effort to nominally and artistically reconnect to its roots. As a result, the 2008 season leans more heavily on Shakespeare than it has in recent years. McAnuff recently became the sole artistic director of the Festival, following a tumultuous year in which his two co-artistic directors departed. To help cement this rebooting of the Festival, McAnuff himself is directing a production of Romeo and Juliet.

Artistically, the choice makes sense. After all, a play so focused on young love speaks to the Festival’s desire to recapture its own origins. This Shakespearean renaissance speaks to the struggles facing many Shakespeare Festivals: how to honor their fundamental love of Shakespeare while still providing their audience’s with a diverse array of plays. What role do the other plays serve in a Shakespeare Festival, particularly when many of them are incredibly different stylistically from The Bard’s approach to theatre?
Perhaps the differences are part of the goal in selecting seasons. Rather than offer the audience the same thing, festivals can highlight the individuality of works by placing them in increasingly diverse company. A Shakespeare production followed by a Tony Kushner play might allow the audience to more fully appreciate each writer’s unique qualities. Furthermore, it might even highlight the fact that plays that might seem like polar opposites on the surface could have more in common upon closer comparison.

Memorial Day is a day of many meanings. Hopefully, its most important role should be as a time of remembrance, though in the eagerness for summer that significance is sometimes lost (or at least muddled). For many, it is a time of beginnings and endings: the end of a school year (or the end of a school career for those graduating); the end of the television season; or the beginning of a period of vacations and other leisure time activities such as cookouts. Since the mid 1970’s, Memorial Day was traditionally the beginning of the summer movie season, as the long weekend allowed a blockbuster to rack up additional dollars based on the extra free time moviegoers have. In the past decade or so, that date has backed up to the beginning of May, as big budget films try to steer clear of each other and still recoup a gazillion dollars to cover its overblown budgets, outrageous star salaries, and ridiculous advertising costs (which is why some such tentpole movies can make $100 million dollars and still be considered flops).

Theatre is a different animal, and Memorial Day still marks the end of the regular theatre season (as evidence, note the mid-May announcement of the Tony Award nominations followed by the ceremony itself in early June). The long weekend also marks the transition to summer seasons, of which Shakespeare Festivals make up a considerable percentage. Since many of these venues are outdoors, it makes sense that they might choose the milder months to stage their works. In addition, their talent pool is drawn from both professional theatre and academia, both of whom become more available in the summer months. Memorial day means many things to many people, but for Bard buffs it means a smorgasbord of Shakespearean theatre.

Memorial Day is a day of many meanings. Hopefully, its most important role should be as a time of remembrance, though in the eagerness for summer that significance is sometimes lost (or at least muddled). For many, it is a time of beginnings and endings: the end of a school year (or the end of a school career for those graduating); the end of the television season; or the beginning of a period of vacations and other leisure time activities. Since the mid 1970’s, Memorial Day was traditionally the beginning of the summer movie season, as the long weekend allowed a blockbuster to rack up additional dollars based on the extra free time moviegoers have. In the past decade or so, that date has backed up to the beginning of May, as big budget films try to steer clear of each other and still recoup a gazillion dollars to cover its overblown budgets, outrageous star salaries, and ridiculous advertising costs (which is why some such tentpole movies can make $100 million dollars and still be considered flops).

Theatre is a different animal, and Memorial Day still marks the end of the regular theatre season (as evidence, note the mid-May announcement of the Tony Award nominations followed by the ceremony itself in early June). The long weekend also marks the transition to summer seasons, of which Shakespeare Festivals make up a considerable percentage. Since many of these venues are outdoors, it makes sense that they might choose the milder months to stage their works. In addition, their talent pool is drawn from both professional theatre and academia, both of whom become more available in the summer months. Memorial day means many things to many people, but for Bard buffs it means a smorgasbord of Shakespearean theatre.

As our school year begins to wind down, I’ve started focusing more and more on our upcoming production of Shrew.  I’ve had two read-throughs - the first was of Acts I and II, and the second was of Acts III through V.  So far I’m pleased with the enthusiasm and commitment of the cast, and I’m really looking forward to starting our rehearsals on May 26th!

In planning for this production, I decided that I needed some help and advice from other parents/administrators.  So I asked some people with theater background to be my Theatre Advisory Board.  It was really helpful to have a meeting to discuss my ideas for increasing the number of performances from last year, which evenings they thought would work best for all involved, and what they thought of my idea of using two venues.

Last year we performed at a local park that has a big, open-air stage. I chose that because ever since I was in high school and got to enjoy the Idaho Shakespeare Festival in Boise where I grew up, I’ve just felt like Shakespeare-in-the-Park was the way to go! There’s just something so peaceful and wonderful about sitting in a park, enjoying a picnic dinner, and watching Shakespeare! I also got to see Shakespeare performed outdoors when I lived in Bozeman (Henry V!!! My favorite!), so when I began planning last year’s production, I knew I wanted it to be in the park.

This year I wanted to have it in the park, but I was also shown an amazing local space that we have available.  Our town’s old high school has been turned into a beautiful arts center for the community, the 1912 Center.  It has senior activities, luncheons, concerts, art displays, and it has a really cool performance space, complete with a balcony!  The natural lighting in this building is absolutely amazing, and the dear lady that directs the place is an avid theatre enthusiast with several years’ experience working in theatre!  So I was excited to try something new, but didn’t want to give up my Shakespeare-in-the Park.  Plus it is more expensive to rent the 1912 Center than it is the park, so I knew we couldn’t afford to have all of our performances at the 1912.

So I hatched the idea of having performances at both the park and the 1912 Center.  I mean, good grief, why not try it out and see how we like it?  Sure, we may not be able to rehearse as much at the 1912 Center, but I’m sure it will all work out.  Sure, I may want to do slightly different blocking, entrances, and exits in the 1912 Center (because there are so many more options than at the park’s stage), but I’m sure it will all work out.  What’s wrong with this picture???  Okay, this is why I have a theatre board!

I was gently reminded that the student actors rely heavily on the blocking of a play to help keep them “in the moment” of the play - to remain in character - to remember their lines, even!  By switching to a different venue, especially for just one performance, I might end up causing these kids a whole bucketful of stress - They would have to remember new entrances and exits; the blocking would be slightly different because the stage area is smaller at the 1912 Center; in short, I could have created a catastrophe for those kids at the final performance.

We’re sticking with the park this year, and we’re going to have three performances (one more than last year).  If we can build up our budget, I may try to have future performances at the 1912 Center, but I will definitely have ALL of the rehearsals and performances there!  Quite often, two heads are way better than one, and I’m fortunate to have three additional brains now, helping me figure this stuff out!

After writing my last post, it occurred to me that I have a wealth of knowledge to share with people who are interested in staging Shakespeare…but 99% of it is on my bookshelves! I only learned as much as I did last year from the great books that I managed to find, usually from Amazon.com. So this post will simply be a list of the best books I found - ones that I would recommend you invest in for your drama department:

Teaching Shakespeare, Rex Gibson
**Shakespeare’s Words, David Crystal & Ben Crystal
Instant Shakespeare, Louis Fantasia
A Shakespearean Actor Prepares, Adrian Brine & Michael York
Teaching Shakespeare, Peter Reynolds
**The DK Essential Shakespeare Handbook, Leslie Dunton-Downer & Alan Riding
Secrets of Acting Shakespeare: The Original Approach, Patrick Tucker
Mastering Shakespeare: An Acting Class in Seven Scenes, Scott Kaiser
**The Complete Idiot’s Guide to Amateur Theatricals, John Kenrick
Stage Costume: Step-By-Step, Mary T. Kidd
**Costume Construction, Katherine Evans-Strand
Discovering Shakespeare’s Meaning: An Introduction to the Study of Shakespeare, Leah Scragg
Playing Shakespeare: An Actor’s Guide, John Barton
**Will Power: How to Act Shakespeare in 21 Days, John Basil
Freeing Shakespeare’s Voice: The Actor’s Guide to Talking the Text, Kristin Linklater
**Play Director’s Survival Kit, James and Wanda Rodgers
**Clues to Acting Shakespeare, Wesley Van Tassel

If I could only choose certain ones from the list, I would definitely make sure I had the ones marked with **. These have been positively indispensable in figuring out how to direct Shakespeare, and a couple of them (especially those by Rodgers and Kenrick) are great resources for any drama department to have on hand.