Shakespeare Under the Stars
Shakespearean plays are as popular as ever and the Institute of Outdoor Drama (IOD) predicts more than one million theatre-goers will attend an outdoor Shakespeare festival this summer. Under the stars, audiences can attend performances of the Bard’s work in more than 30 states and the District of Columbia. From Oregon to North Carolina, New York to Texas and Alaska, actors and audiences will come together to see and hear the work of the greatest English playwright at one of the 56 Shakespeare festivals. There is simply no better way to experience Shakespeare than in the open-air settings of the nation’s outdoor Shakespeare festivals.
The Institute of Outdoor Drama member theatres are slated to produce 100 Shakespeare productions in 2008. The diversity of plays being offered provides a hardy traveler the opportunity to see more than three-quarters of Shakespeare’s entire canon. Outdoor Shakespeare festivals will produce 30 of his 37 plays, including King Lear, Hamlet, Julius Caesar, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, as well as lesser known works such as Coriolanus and Titus Andronicus. The most popular Shakespeare play in 2008 is the comedy, Twelfth Night, presented by nine outdoor Shakespeare festivals around the country.
Matt Wallace, Artistic Associate, at Kentucky Shakespeare Festival, says he chose Twelfth Night because of “the richness and complexity it holds. It is simply my favorite; the piece is full of youth and vibrancy.” Twelfth Night productions this summer range from traditional Elizabethan settings to “hipper” more modern-day concepts. “I'm setting our production now, in 2008 at a luxury beach-side resort where indulgence and merrymaking reign,” Wallace states. “It will perfectly encompass the world of this play and everything from iPods, to golf, to spa treatments, to contemporary music, will become givens in our world. This will also resonate with our audience as we seek to illuminate the text in this brilliant play.”
Shakespeare festivals range in size from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival (Ashland, OR), the nation’s largest repertory company which plays to over 300,000 people each year, to one-weekend festivals across the country that may play to just a few hundred folks. Many festivals present their plays free to the public so audiences from every background can attend. Larger festivals offer an array of plays, including some by modern playwrights, to give audiences a multitude of choices and opportunities. Traditionally, these outdoor festivals encourage picnic dinners before the show, so families can come, relax, and enjoy the natural splendor prior to the play.
Well-known television and movie actors and actresses frequently return to their stage roots in a summer Shakespeare festival. In the past few years, notables such as John Goodman, Patrick Stewart, Kelly McGillis, David Birney, Kristen Scott Thomas, Morgan Freeman, Tracey Ulman and others have performed in outdoor Shakespeare festivals in New York, Washington, DC, and other U.S. cities. At smaller festivals, it is regional actors who hone their craft, producing some of the finest theatre anywhere.
There is no question that attending one of the country’s 56 outdoor Shakespeare festivals this summer is to see Shakespeare the way it was originally performed – in the great outdoors. For more information, contact the Institute of Outdoor Drama at (919) 962-1328 or online at http://www.unc.edu/depts/outdoor.
