Coming Soon: 2017 Illinois Shakespeare Festival Opportunities & Options

If it's almost summer, it's almost time for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. If you haven't purchased tickets yet, there's still time to choose single seats or a season pass. And a call just went out for volunteer ushers, which may also get you in to see the show.

Here's the scoop on what's happening this summer:

A Midsummer Night's Dream is up first with a preview performance on June 28 and official opening night on the 30th. After that, you'll find 16 more performances in the theater at Ewing Manor through August 11. This Midsummer is directed by Robert Quinlan, head of the MFA directing program at Illinois State University. Quinlan's previous Illinois Shakespeare Festival credits include Richard II and Macbeth. Festival favorite Tom Quinn leads the cast as Bottom, with Jordan Coughtry as Puck, Thom Miller as Oberon, Nisi Sturgis as Titania, and Jesse Bhamrah, Susie Parr, Raffeal A. Sears and Emily Wold as the four Athenian lovers lost in the forest.

Next on the agenda is not just any Cymbeline but an adaptation for six actors created by Chris Coleman called Shakespeare's Amazing Cymbeline. The ensemble consists of Coughtry, Miller, Quinn, Sears and Sturgis and Patrick Toon, under the direction of Andy Park, who also directed Peter and the Starcatcher and Failure: A Love Story in Festivals past. The preview for Amazing Cymbeline happens on June 29, with performances on stage at Ewing Theater from July 1 to August 12.

The Q Brothers return to the Festival with I Heart Juliet, "bringing their incredible energy, humor, and hip-hop verse to Shakespeare’s timeless masterpiece, Romeo & Juliet." You might've seen the Q Brothers' take on Two Gentleman of Verona called Q Gents back in 2015. This time, ISF Artistic Director Kevin Rich is at the helm with a cast that includes the Q Brothers Collective (GQ, JQ, Jax and Pos) and ten members of the Festival company. I Heart Juliet opens July 9 in Westhoff Theatre on the ISU campus, continuing at Westhoff till August 8. For all the details, click here.

If you're wondering who's who on the design team this year, look for Joe C. Klug as scenic designer for all three shows, with Dan Ozminkowski as lighting designer and Kieran Pereira in charge of sound design. Splitting up costume design duties, Nicholas Hartman will conceive the wardrobe for Amazing Cymbeline, Christina Leinicke for I Heart Juliet and Tyler Wilson for Midsummer.

In addition to these three shows, you'll have five chances to see The Improvised Shakespeare Company and Wednesday and Saturday morning performances of the fairytale Sleeping Beauty under the Theater for Young Audiences umbrella.

And about that volunteer usher opportunity... You can wear what you want, pick your dates (with some flexibility), and even see the show for free, as long as seats are available. Read more about it here. If ushering sounds like something you'd enjoy, contact ISF House Manager Dave Hansen at dlhans1@ilstu.edu.

RICHARD II Rules at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival

Shakespeare's Richard II is a role much beloved by actors. Not a soldier king (even if that's what he looks like in the Illinois Shakespeare Festival banner above), not a wise father figure, not a clear-cut despot, Richard is a more complex regent, one who is born to rule but can't manage to hang on to his crown. He is sometimes played as arrogant and self-indulgent, careless or capricious, even as a sort of sexually ambiguous, fame-swept Michael Jackson figure, complete with pet monkey, as director Rupert Goold thought about him for the BBC's Hollow Crown miniseries.

Portrait of Richard II
in Westminster Abbey

Who Richard is also depends, of course, on who's playing the role. Over the years, a Who's Who of British actors, from John Gielgud to Paul Scofield, Derek Jacobi, Ian McKellen, Jeremy Irons, Ralph Fiennes and Mark Rylance, have given Richard different moods and tempers. More recently, Eddie Redmayne and David Tennant have played Richard II on stage, while Ben Whishaw took the role for television. Whishaw was the one with the monkey, although in performance, his Richard seemed to be staged to evoke images of Christ more than Michael Jackson.

Kevin Rich, artistic director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, takes on Richard on the Ewing stage, offering not the spoiled child or the clueless weakling, but instead a man so steeped in his own divine right that he simply doesn't see the discord brewing around him or understand his own role in creating it. As we all confront privilege and what that means in today's America, Rich's Richard II is the epitome of privilege.

Under the direction of Robert Quinlan, Rich does a fine job with the famous "hollow crown" speech, when reality forces Richard to see the grim path ahead. Heretofore proud and a little chilly, Richard becomes more sympathetic as he sits on the ground -- a square patch of dirt in a raised planter, used to good effect in several scenes -- and sheds a tear over the death of kings. They may claim divine rights, but they're still mortal when push comes to shove or usurpers like Bolingbroke blow them up with their own petards.

Henson Keys is just as good with the play's other well-known piece, the lovely "scepter'd isle" speech wherein John of Gaunt extols the virtue of the "demi-paradise" that is England even as he laments the way in which King Richard is renting it out like some lowly "pelting farm." Keys is back in two other roles that he also dispatches nicely, giving just as much care to his portrayals of the gardener and the groom as he does mighty John of Gaunt.

Others who contribute to this Richard II include Robert Gerard Anderson as the mercurial Duke of York; Quetta Carpenter as his desperate wife; Colin Lawrence as their rebellious son; Thom Miller in three very different roles, including one with a Welsh accent; Lori Adams as a fearsome Duchess of Gloucester whose very face demands vengeance, and Steve Wojtas as bold Bolingbroke.

Lauren T. Roark's costume design is grand and regal enough to showcase the fashion excess at this court, while John C. Stark's set looks a bit like the real Westminster Hall, with its soft stone stairs and walls, while still providing an all-important square of British earth and a proper platform for all of Richard II's different levels.

It's a handsome production with all the right pieces in the right places. As you watch, think about divine right, privilege and the fleeting nature of both.

...Within the hollow crown
That rounds the mortal temples of a king
Keeps Death his court and there the antic sits,
Scoffing his state and grinning at his pomp,
Allowing him a breath, a little scene,
To monarchize, be fear'd and kill with looks,
Infusing him with self and vain conceit,
As if this flesh which walls about our life,
Were brass impregnable, and humour'd thus
Comes at the last and with a little pin
Bores through his castle wall, and farewell king!

RICHARD II
By William Shakespeare

Illinois Shakespeare Festival
at Ewing Cultural Center

Director: Robert Quinlan
Voice and Text Coach: Sara Becker
Assistant Voice and Text Coach: Bethany Hart
Scenic Designer: John C. Stark
Costume Designer: Lauren T. Roark
Lighting Designer: Marly Wooster
Sound Designer: Keiran Pereira
Fight Director: Paul Dennhardt
Fight Captain: Ron Roman
Stage Manager: Gianna Consalvo

Cast: Kevin Rich, Steve Wojtas, Henson Keys, Robert Gerard Anderson, Thom Miller, Thomas Anthony Quinn, Quetta Carpenter, Sara J. Griffin, Leslie Lank, Natalie Blackman, Faitj Servant, Robert Michael Johnson, Joey Banks, Colin Trevino-Odell, Colin Lawrence, Ronald Roman, Lori Adams, Graham Gusloff, Dario Carrion, Nathaniel Aikens, Kaitlyn Wehr, Dalton Spalding and John C. Stark.

Remaining performances: July 25 and 30; August 6.

Running time: 2:20, including one 15-minute intermission. For ticket information, click here.

ISU 2015-16: From NYC to Chicago, From Troy to El Salvador and Never Never Land

It's that time! Spring for theaters -- even college theater departments -- means it's also time to put together schedules for the fall. For playwrights, it means lots of rejections (and maybe a few acceptance letters) in their mailboxes. For actors and designers, it means looking ahead to decide what they most want to work on.

In that spirit, as well as to give local audiences something to look forward to, Illinois State University has released their tentative schedule for fall 2015 and spring 2016. Although dates are not carved in stone, this is what the School of Theatre and Dance has planned:

Neil Simon's Brighton Beach Memoirs will open in late September in the Center for the Performing Arts. MFA directing candidate Jonathan Hunt-Sell, who just finished up his run of Moliere's School for Wives, will direct this warm comedy about a Jewish family living in Brooklyn in the 1930s, with son Eugene (based on Simon himself) dreaming of girls, baseball and a life not bound by his crazy relatives. Brighton Beach Memoirs is the first play of three Simon wrote about Eugene Jerome, moving on to his military years in Biloxi Blues and the beginnings of his comedy career in Broadway Bound. Brighton Beach originally starred Matthew Broderick as Eugene on Broadway. It's a sweet play, full of Depression-era atmosphere and eccentric characters, with good roles for both men and women.

The action moves from New York to Chicagoland in October with Grease, the 1950s musical with book, music and lyrics by Jim Jacobs and Warren Casey. This trip to Rydell High, with its hotrods, Pink Ladies and summer lovin', will be directed by Lori Adams. The stage musical, which played for 3388 performances in its first Broadway incarnation and then came back for 1500 more in the 90s, spawned the hugely successful movie with John Travolta and Olivia Newton-John. If you know all the words to "Beauty School Drop-Out" and "Greased Lightning" (and let's not kid ourselves -- who doesn't?), you will be first in line to see Grease at ISU's CPA.

Also in October, Duane Boutté will direct August Wilson's Fences, winner of the 1987 Pulitzer Prize for Drama, in Westhoff Theatre. Like Grease, Fences is set in the 1950s. Like Brighton Beach Memoirs, it has a connection to baseball. More importantly, it's part of a larger collection of plays. Fences is the sixth decade Wilson dealt with in his century of plays about African-Americans trying to find their way in the United States. The original Broadway production starred James Earl Jones as Troy, now a garbage man, but once a promising baseball player before he was sent to prison for robbery.

That will be followed by The Trojan Women, a tragedy from Greek playwright Euripides that focuses on the horrific after-effects of war for the women left behind after their world has been destroyed. Their husbands, fathers and children are dead. Their homes are gone. And they face a future of grief, death, rape and slavery. Connie de Veer will direct Ellen McLaughlin's adaptation of The Trojan Women in Westhoff Theatre. McLaughlin, an actress best known for originating the role of the Angel in Angels in America, has come back to the Greeks again and again, with works like Iphigenia and Other Daughters, Helen, The Persians and Oedipus on her resume. Her Trojan Women has not made it to Broadway, although Gilbert Murray's translation played at the Cort Theatre in 1941. A 1971 film version drawing from Edith Hamilton's translation starred Katharine Hepburn and Vanessa Redgrave, and those are the faces you see in the poster here.

The Trojan Women will be followed by a dance concert in November to finish up the 2015 part of the schedule.

In February 2015, we'll see Street Scene, with music by Kurt Weill and lyrics by Langston Hughes, based on the 1929 Pulitzer Prize-winning play by Elmer Rice, in the Center for the Performing Arts. Rice also wrote the book for this "American opera," which focuses on two swelteringly hot summer days on the steps of a tenement on New York's East Side. The people who live inside the tenement -- a variety of cultures and ethnicities, ages and genders -- fall in love, have affairs, argue, struggle to pay the rent, celebrate and despair.

Also in February, Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet and its star-crossed lovers will come to Westhoff Theatre in a production directed by Kevin Rich.

Bocon!,  by Lisa Loomer, a dark piece of magical realism about a Salvadoran boy who notices that everyone he knows who speaks out disappears, will be directed by Cyndee Brown for Westhoff in March. The image you see above comes from a New Mexico production of the play.

That will be followed by Wendy and Peter Pan, a different take on the Peter Pan story, adapted for the stage by Ella Hickson, directed by Jessika Malone in the CPA in April. This version of the boy who didn't want to grow up comes from the Royal Shakespeare Company.

And with one final dance concert in April, the Illinois State University School of Theatre and Dance closes out another eclectic season.

Shakespeare Project's ALL'S WELL Tonight at ISU CPA

Tonight's the night for All's Well That Ends Well.

Last year, the Shakespeare Project of Chicago brought a staged reading of Edward III to the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts, with a cast that included Illinois Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Kevin Rich and ISU alum Brynne Barnard. This year, the Shakespeare Project of Chicago brings a staged reading of All's Well That Ends Well to the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts, with a cast that includes Illinois Shakespeare Festival Artistic Director Kevin Rich and ISU alum Brynne Barnard.

The Shakespeare Project has been around since 1996, with a mission to bring to life the words of William Shakespeare. The staged reading format makes it possible to use some props, some costume pieces and some design elements, but overall the actors focus on the words, as we see them perform book in hand. Or, as Artistic Director Peter Garino puts it on the Shakespeare Project website, "I often explain to people that have not seen our work before that their experience of the play won’t be less, but more because by placing our energy completely on Shakespeare’s text we allow the play to emerge in an unencumbered setting that reveals new insights into the play's characters and themes."

Last year, we saw this treatment of Edward III, a play not traditionally part of the Shakespeare canon, one which has presented authorship debates for some time. In its depiction of Prince Edward and his military and personal campaigns, Edward III was reminiscent of Richard III and especially Henry V. Is that enough evidence that Edward III written by Shakespeare, at least partially? You needed to see it to form your own conclusion. But it's an intriguing notion.

All's Well is more familiar territory for Shakespeare fans, although it also has issues. Here's how the Festival describes All's Well:

Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well has been deemed a "problem play" for several reasons. There are no records of it having been performed in Shakespeare's lifetime. The 1623 First Folio version was based on an uncorrected manuscript draft. Most importantly, the story and its characters can prove to be downright puzzling. Helena, the gifted daughter of a court physician, loves Bertram, a proud young man of noble birth. But is he worthy of her devotion? In an adventure that takes us from France to the Florentine wars of Italy and back again, we can ask ourselves what lengths we would go to for the object of our desires. Associate Artistic Director for The Shakespeare Project of Chicago, Barbara Zahora, directs.

The Shakespeare Project, in collaboration with the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, will plumb the murky depths of All's Well That Ends Well and Helena's inexplicable passion for unworthy Bertram tonight at 6 pm in the Kemp Recital Hall at the Center for the Performing Arts on the ISU campus. Tickets are $10 and can be purchased at the CPA box office either by phone (1-866-ILSHAKE or 309-438-2535) or in person before the show. Note that there are separate tickets for a post-show reception and discussion and you are directed to ask about those at the box office.

COMEDY OF ERRORS Is Fast on Its Feet at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival

Kevin Rich (L) and Jordan Coughtry appear in The Comedy of Errors

The last time we saw Shakespeare's Comedy of Errors on stage at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, one actor played each of the play's two sets of twins. If that sounds confusing, let's just say that Shakespeare wrote the play to include two sets of identical twins who were separated at birth. The twins not only look exactly alike, but bear the same names. And they've never seen each other because during a storm at sea, Dad, one Egeon, split them up, so that one of his twin sons was lashed to Mom and one to him, along with one tiny twin servant child attached to each son. Fast forward to the current day, when we find two masters named Antipholus, one who has been living in Ephesus and one in Syracuse, and two servants named Dromio, with one Dromio in Ephesus, attached to that Antipholus, and the other in Syracuse, attached to that Antipholus. And in those two sets of identical twins lies most of the play's Comedy as everybody mistakes one for the other and comedic hijinks ensue involving gold, dinner, doors, infidelity and knocking about. The Errors, or the mistaken identities, furnish the farce.

Most productions use four actors to fill those roles, employing costumes, wigs, makeup, fake noses, what have you, to make the Antipholi and the Dromii resemble each other. In 2006, when director Chuck Ney helmed Comedy for the ISF, he used a single actor to play both separated-at-birth masters and a single actor to play both separated-at-birth servants. As I said in my review at the time, "The biggest challenge...is for the actors playing Antipholus and Dromio, who have to race on and off stage and remember to change their headgear and accessories as well as their personae every time they re-enter. The Comedy of Errors is already a fast-paced farce, but singling Antipholus and Dromio turns it into a foot race."

The current Illinois Shakespeare Festival production, under the direction of Michael Cotey, goes for a middle ground. In this production, opening July 12, Cody Proctor and Jordan Coughtry appear as Antipholus of Ephesus and Antipholus of Syracuse, respectively, while Kevin Rich stands alone, playing both Dromios. Yes, that's right. The last time we saw Comedy of Errors here, there were two actors covering the two sets of twins, the norm is four, and this time, there are three, just to mix things up.

Rich, who is also the Artistic Director of the Festival, is skilled and confident switching hats between Dromio 1 and Dromio 2, mining the comedy quite nicely, and actually building the laughs based on the fact that he is just one while his characters are two. Letting us in on the trick and acknowledging the absurdity makes the material even funnier.

Over in Antipholus territory, Coughtry and Proctor navigate their individual twins just fine. The only problem is that the actors don't really look that much alike. Comedy of Errors already requires audience members to not just step over the threshold of disbelief, but take a flying leap, what with all the coincidences at every turn. For the mistaken identity premise to fly, it would be nice if there were headgear or at least hairdos to help out the actors, so that the characters don't seem quite so silly when they mix up who's who.

Based on Fred M. Duer's bright Kismet scenic design and Juja Rivera Ramirez's slinky Thief of Bagdad costumes, this Comedy of Errors seems to be going for an Old Hollywood take on an Arab setting. Douglas Fairbanks comes to mind as a model for Coughtry's Antipholus, while I kept thinking of Miriam Hopkins when I looked at Nisi Sturgis's charming Luciana. Sturgis gives Luciana a more specific personality than the character usually gets, which serves to enliven her part of the plot. I also enjoyed the inclusion of vendors (Kelsey Bunner, Martin Hanna, Michele Stine and Arif Yampolsky, each manning a wagon) set around the edges of the action to provide sound effects and double takes.

Coming in at just two hours, the Illinois Shakespeare Festival Comedy of Errors is fast on its feet and a definite audience-pleaser.

THE COMEDY OF ERRORS
By William Shakespeare

Illinois Shakespeare Festival
The Theatre at Ewing

Director: Michael Cotey
Costume Designer: Juja Rivera Ramirez
Scenic Designer: Fred M. Duer
Lighting Designer: Sarah EC Maines
Sound Designer: Shannon O'Neill
Stage Manager: Sarah G. Chanis
Vocal Coach: Krista Scott

Cast: David Hathway, Carlos Kmet, Kelsey Bunner, Martin Hanna, Michele Stine, Arif Yampolsky, Preston "Wigasi" Brant, Eva Balistrieri, Cydney D. Moody, Amanda Catania, Cody Proctor, Thomas Anthiny Quinn, Kraig Kelsey, David Fisch, Lindsay Smiling, Joe Faifer, Allison Sokolowski, Jordan Coughtry, Kevin Rich, Andrew Voss, Nisi Sturgis and Wendy Robie.

Running time: 2 hours, including one 15-minute intermission.

Remaining performances: July 12, 16, 20, 23, 26, 28 and 31; August 4, 6 and 8.

For ticket information, click here.

Please note that the performance of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival production of The Comedy of Errors which I attended was a preview, which the Festival treats as a final dress rehearsal. Over the years, I have at times written about productions based on dress rehearsals or preview performances if there was some reason I was unable to attend the official opening night. As with any production, my remarks reflect the specific performance I saw, which in this case was a preview.

Special Reading of EDWARD III Monday at ISU Center for the Performing Arts

As part of an array of special events coming from the Illinois Shakespeare Festival as they gear up to their summer schedule, you have a chance to see a staged reading by the Shakespeare Project of Chicago at 5 pm on Monday April 22 at the Illinois State University Center for the Performing Arts. The Shakespeare Project, including ISU alum Brynne Barnard, will perform the play Edward III,  with ISF Artistic Director Kevin Rich reading the title role of King Edward.

Tickets are $10 for the show itself, or $25 if you also want to attend the reception afterwards. They are available at the Center for the Performing Arts box office.

So who was Edward III and why would Shakespeare (and/or Thomas Kyd) have written a play about him?

Well, he was an English king and the son of Edward II. You may've heard of Edward II, who was fairly notorious for bestowing lavish favors on his intimate friends, like Piers Gaveston and Hugh Despenser, and then getting ousted and offed by his wife and her pal, Roger Mortimer. Edward II may've been strangled or suffocated, although the rumors were far more scandalous than that. Psst... Death by red-hot poker in an unfortunate place. That's probably not true, but it's made him far more famous all these centuries later than his son, Edward III, who is probably best-known for starting the Hundred Years War. Oh, and being king during the Black Death.

The play Edward III that may or may not have been written by Shakespeare and/or Thomas Kyd is definitely Elizabethan in origin. It involves this Edward, who was on the throne between 1327 and 1377, somewhere in the middle of his reign, when his son, Edward the Black Prince, was old enough to be a fighting man himself.

The Shakespeare Project says of the play: "Through this political history play we see Britain’s justification for the Hundred Years’ War, and follow the autocratic Edward III as he defends England against the Scottish king while moving to claim the French throne. As he seeks to possess and conquer first a woman and then a country, oaths and honor are brought into question on both sides."

Whether Shakespeare wrote any or all of Edward III, it's certainly an intriguing piece. You can judge for yourself on Monday at 5 in the ISU Center for the Performing Arts.

Illinois Shakespeare Festival Returns with Mind-Boggling Array of Choices

The Illinois Shakespeare Festival sent out its season brochure this week, and there are some very new choices on the schedule under new artistic director Kevin Rich.

In addition to the usual Shakespeare mainstage shows performed during the summer at Ewing Manor -- Comedy of Errors runs from a special preview on July 5 to August 8 and Macbeth opens with its own preview on July 6, finishing up August 9 -- Illinois Shakes has added a brand-new option, Philip Dawkins' Failure: A Love Story, a "beautiful, whimsical, extraordinary" play about three sisters, the man who loves them each in turn, and an eccentric musical chorus, set in Chicago in 1928. Failure previews on July 11, followed by performances through August 10.

Ewing Manor

 But that's not the end of the surprises. For those three shows, ISF has also added a "flex" ticket option, so that you can buy an advance season pass (must be purchased before May 12, 2013) and then "spend" it on any performances you choose all season. And after last summer's heat wave, they're offering 1:30 pm matinee performances on Saturdays and Sunday, and moving them inside to the air-conditioned comfort of the Center for the Performing Arts on the ISU campus. That gives you the option of Macbeth during the afternoon of Saturday, July 20, Comedy of Errors on Sunday, July 28, or Failure on Sunday, July 21 and Saturday, July 27.

Other special projects include a staged reading of The Reign of King Edward III from the Shakespeare Project of Chicago, with ISF artistic director Kevin Rich reading the role of Edward. That's set for the CPA on Monday, April 22 at 5 pm as a kick-off for the new season and a celebration of Shakespeare's birthday, all in one.

The Improvised Shakespeare Company will offer just that -- improvised Shakespeariffic pieces made up on the fly -- on June 6 and 13 at Ewing Manor, and Lori Adams, will bring Shame the Devil, a one-woman show about 19th century Shakespearean actress Fanny Kemble, to Ewing Manor on July 1.

I feel like an informercial, but seriously, there's more! First, more improv with ISU's Improv Mafia and the Shakespeare Globetrotters Time to Make the Shakespeare, performed on the patio at Destihl Restaurant and Brew Works in Bloomington on Thursday nights in May and at Ewing Manor on Sunday evenings beginning July 14. Plus two new greenshows written especially for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival by local author Nancy Steele Brokaw. And a children's show called The Magical Mind of Billy Shakespeare, written by Kevin Rich, performed at 10 am on Wednesdays on the grounds at Ewing Manor starting May 29, with Saturday performances beginning June 1 split between Ewing,  Lincoln Park at the Bloomington Center for the Performing Arts and the Bloomington Farmers Market.

MooNiE

And there's more! MooNiE the Magnif'cent! Glenn Wilson and Friends! Adopt-a-Bard-Buddy! Costume tours! Puppet building! The John Stevens Memorial Golf Outing! Picnics with Two Blokes and a Bus and Kelly's Bakery!

Too many choices? Your mind spinning? Look out for the first event with Edward III on April 22, and then take it one step at a time through that last performance of Failure: A Love Story on August 10. And right now... Tickets are on sale. Call 866-IL-Shake or check out all the details at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival website.