Jan's Blog #1

by jan
Wednesday, April 9, 2008 12:08am (PST)

April 8, 2008

As the new artistic director of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, I’ve arrived in Incline Village with the sublime privilege of mounting a season selected from the best plays in the English (or any other) language, in perhaps the most spectacular spot for a stage on the face of this earth.

Already fortunate in a marvelous mission, I then walked into a marvelous organization: the staff, the board, the volunteers and everyone involved here are all so professional, so capable, and such terrific people. It must also be acknowledged that we owe a great debt of gratitude to the Shakespeare theatres who brought thirty-five summers of delightful Shakespeare to our stage—particularly Foothill Theatre/Sierra Shakespeare for presenting the last eleven seasons. The fine work of these theatre companies has helped the Festival reach this exciting moment in our history: a thirty-sixth season, which we will produce on our own. Now we have the opportunity to honor this legacy and the commitment of decades of hard work, by bringing a bold new vision to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival.

My vision for the Festival is simply this: superlative Shakespeare. I want to bring you Shakespeare performances that are vital, alive, visceral, muscular, intelligible, delightful, exciting, and uniquely American. Some of our productions will have traditional historical settings, and others will be set in a different time or place, but all will share these qualities.

I’d like to share a few thoughts with you on how we will manifest this vision:

SETTING
Our site at Sand Harbor is stunningly beautiful, and magnificent Lake Tahoe inspires and compels our creativity. Because our setting is so fundamental to the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival experience, I want to make that invisible barrier between stage and site, permeable. Nature is intrinsic to Shakespeare’s texts; most of his plays were originally intended for outdoor theatres, and so the constant changes of time, nature, sunlight, and the lively sights and sounds of the world around the theatre are a natural complement to his plays. This season, we will celebrate our location and the precious environment where we come together to share this experience. We’ll break down the boundaries of invisible walls, and bring the plays to life all around you!

SOUND
There is a universe of delight in Shakespeare’s eloquent language. In order to enter into the magical world of each production, one simple thing must happen: you must be able to hear and understand everything that’s said. We are working to improve our sound this year so you will be able to hear every word cleanly and crisply. Dave Grafe, our sound designer, has been working with us since winter to create sound quality that is agreeable, intelligible, and well supported.

In addition, our actors will use techniques that make the verse pleasant to listen to and painlessly understandable, in a style that moves easily with the sublime, natural rhythms of Shakespeare’s verse.

ACTORS
I spent this winter on the road seeing over two thousand actors, in order to bring you a brand new acting company with phenomenal talent. Many of our actors will be coming here from all over the country, and they will be joining some of the best actors from right here in the Reno-Tahoe area. I know that you will delight in them as much as they will delight in performing for you in this magnificent place.

SHAKESPEARE
When all's said and done, it comes down to the man. Shakespeare. The house playwright. I have had the rare privilege of spending most of my professional life working with Shakespeare’s plays. There is infinite food for thought and endless vivacity in these plays, and they never stop nourishing my soul—whenever we close a Shakespeare play, despite the fact that we have mined gold from the verse, yet I always feel there is still so much more to be explored. Our goal in this first year will be to establish the LTSF way of doing Shakespeare, digging deeply into the verse, into the words, unlocking and articulating as much of the complex thought and emotion buried there as we possibly can.

This summer, we’ll dive deep into the decadence of the scheming, evil RICHARD THE THIRD, and fly high with a marvelous modern MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM that Michael Walling will direct for us—each production will be true to the text, yet highlight nuances that resonate so strongly with us today that you’ll be amazed they were written 400 years ago!

So, I’ve given you some of my thoughts, plans, and aspirations for the future here at LTSF. Now it’s your turn:

Next Blog Topic: It’s up to you— This blog is where I, and our other artistic personnel, get to have a conversation with you.
So, let’s talk!

Send us any questions you may have about production and I’ll post our answers here. Anything having to do with the plays is fair game: choice of season, interpretations, settings, text, line cuts, actors, guest director, costumes, sets, lights, sound, movement, fights, our new Monday musical, etc. Check back weekly for the latest posting!

Yours,
Jan

Jan Powell
Artistic Director
Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival

5 Comments...

Seasonal Attendee
Posted by Bugjune | Thursday, April 17, 2008 10:57pm (PST)

Hi Jan,
Welcome aboard! Sounds like you've got lots of passion for the position! My question: when you state: "...each production will be true to the text, yet highlight nuances that resonate so strongly with us today..." do you mean that both Richard III and Midsummer's Night Dream will feature modern settings, costumes and dialogue deviations? I ask, because I am a bit of a purist, and truly enjoy the "old fashioned" Shakespeare with period costumes. It's not always clear in the brochure which plays have been "modernized" but it is typically the comedy selection.

Not so Purist
Posted by RSquared | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 2:34pm (PST)

I have to disagree with Bugjune - I adore it when Shakespear's plays are 'modernized' somewhat. The Gilbert & Sullivan-style play presented several years ago was fabulous! One can only see so many "traditional" Shakespeare plays without...zzzzzzzzzz.... Plus, having been a LTS volunteer for the past 15 years now, it's the updated ones I hear the most positive comments about.

Fight! Fight!
Posted by Jan | Wednesday, April 23, 2008 6:45pm (PST)

Ahhh, now we have a controversy going--fantastic!!

As I mentioned in Blog #2, I'm an irretrievable Shakespeare geek, and I love it all. For me, my enjoyment depends on the quality of the production--direction, acting, and most especially on the amount of thought that has gone into the interpretation.

For example, if you're doing a modern Romeo and Juliet, you've got to deal with the fact that cell phones exist, and find some way that a simple phone call can't be made to clue Romeo in on the plot. (No cell coverage in Mantua...?)

Or, if you're doing a Julius Caesar set in modern day USA, and the character of Cassius is modeled after Hillary Clinton, she has these lines:

"For my part, I have walk'd about the streets,
Submitting me unto the perilous night,
And, thus unbraced, Casca, as you see,
Have bared my bosom to the thunder-stone;
And when the cross blue lightning seem'd to open
The breast of heaven, I did present myself
Even in the aim and very flash of it."

If she says she bared her bosom to the stormy night, in the staging one has to deal with the idea of Hillary Clinton baring her breasts at night, in the streets of Washington, DC. Now it's getting juicy, isn't it?

So, we'll provide new settings for those who love something fresh, and traditional settings for those who love the historical context... and maybe we'll do it well enough that you'll cross over to the other neighborhood from time to time, eh?

Shakespeare newbie
Posted by Heather | Thursday, April 24, 2008 1:18pm (PST)

My friend and I have been very anxious to see our first Shakespeare play this coming summer. We are both 30 somethings who never studied literature in college. Do you think Richard III might be over our heads? Or, do you think we should give it a try?

Newbies
Posted by Jan | Saturday, May 3, 2008 11:50am (PST)

Heather--

You've inspired my 3rd blog. I'll be posting it this weekend!

Jan