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.

Bloody MACBETH Goes Terribly Right at the Illinois Shakespeare Festival

Has there ever been a time when Shakespeare's Macbeth fell out of fashion? Just within the past few years, the Scottish lord and his murderous ways have been everywhere. A BBC/Great Performances Macbeth with Patrick Stewart in the title role and Kate Fleetwood as his ferocious Lady M was a powerful presence on US televisions in 2010; Sleep No More, an interactive Macbeth experience from England's Punchdrunk company, has had audiences wandering over five floors of what is supposedly an abandoned hotel in New York's Chelsea district since March of 2011; Alan Cumming currently has a one-man Macbeth on Broadway; and Kenneth Branagh just launched his own Macbeth, with Alex Kingston (Doctor Who, ER) as his Lady, at the Manchester International Festival.

In our own area, a "backwards" Macbeth made an impact at U of I in 2010, when director Robert G. Anderson put the audience on the stage and the dark, destructive action of the play on the apron and in the seats of Krannert Center's Colwell Playhouse. In Bloomington, Macbeth was on the schedule back in 1978 when the Illinois Shakespeare Festival first opened its doors, and it's come back to the Festival stage in 1983, 1992 and 2005.

The 2013 incarnation of Macbeth for the Illinois Shakespeare Festival is directed by Robert Quinlan, who returns to Bloomington-Normal, where he received his MFA in directing from Illinois State University. Quinlan's take on Macbeth is highly visual, vivid and dramatic, befitting this bloody tale of ambition gone terribly wrong. With falling banners, a thin crack of light, a twist of a doll's head, or spidery scarlet trails on Lady Macbeth's white gown, Quinlan and his designers ratchet up the theatrical tension.

Neal Moeller (Center) and Nisi Sturgis (R) as Mr. and Mrs. Macbeth

This Macbeth unspools a little slowly at the onset, but by the time darkness has settled over Ewing Manor, the action has kicked into high gear. Neal Moeller and Nisi Sturgis show good chemistry and interplay as Lord and Lady Macbeth, with his descent into paranoia and hers into madness given just the right dramatic punch.

Jordan Coughtry's Banquo, Lindsay Smiling's Macduff and Amanda Catania's Lady Macduff also make a good impression, while the two youngest actors in the cast -- 5th grader Will Lovell as Fleance, Banquo's son, and 4th grader Tré Moore as the elder Macduff child -- offer fine performances and add a great deal to the emotional toll of the play.

Fred M. Duer's simple set transforms a throne to a banquet table before your eyes, helping the haunted dinner scene come alive, while Sarah EC Maines' striking lighting design, Sandy Childers' terrific modern-meets-medieval costumes and Shannon O'Neill's atmospheric sound design combine to excellent effect.

All in all, this is a stylish, smart Macbeth that packs a punch. Especially when it gets dark.

MACBETH
By William Shakespeare

Illinois Shakespeare Festival
The Theatre at Ewing

Director: Robert Quinlan
Costume Designer: Sandy Childers
Scenic Designer: Fred M. Duer
Lighting Designer: Sarah EC Maines
Sound Designer/Composer: Shannon O'Neill
Fight Choreographer: Paul Dennhardt
Stage Manager: Jayson T. Waddell
Vocal Coach: Krista Scott

Cast: Eva Balistrieri, Preston "Wigasi" Brant, Amanda Catania, Jordan Coughtry, Joe Faifer, David Fisch, Martin Hanna, David Hathway, Kraig Kelsey, Carlos Kmet, Will Lovell, Drew Mills, Neal Moeller, Tré Moore, Cody Proctor, Thomas Anthony Quinn, Kevin Rich, Wendy Robie, Lindsay Smiling, Michele Stine, Nisi Sturgis, Andrew Voss and Arif Yampolsky.

Running time: 2:20, 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 Macbeth 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.