mean?
Each little red star is a clickable link to additional information on whatever listing it appears beside. It might be a link to an article in a local newspaper, or it might be a press release the company has sent me.
Shakespeare & Company Mounts “The Winter’s Tale” July 15-September 5
Posted by Gail M. Burns - June 2010
The Winter’s Tale
Shakespeare’s magical tale of love,
forgiveness and the ties that bind
“If this be magic, let it be an art lawful as eating.”
{Lenox, MA} – Long regarded as one of Shakespeare’s greatest romances, The Winter’s Tale illuminates Shakespeare & Company‘s Founders’ Theatre this summer as Director Kevin G. Coleman unleashes Shakespeare’s theatrical mastery and verbal powers at their greatest height. The production features the return of long-time Company actor Jonathan Epstein as Leontes, King of Sicilia, and Elizabeth Aspenlieder as Hermione, his Queen, and a cast of 17 other seasoned Company actors and newcomers. This stunning tale of the power of love, the endurance of family ties, and the magical transformation that only hope, forgiveness and laughter can achieve runs July 15 – September 5.
TICKETS: A wide range of ticket prices from $15 to $85 are available, along with the Company’s many discounts including special Student, Senior, Military, Teacher, Rush, and Group rates. The popular Berkshire Full-Time Resident 40% Discount also applies. NEW this season: Premium Tickets, where the ticket price includes special early seating, a sumptuous glass of wine and decadent dessert! Check out the website for specific show dates, further information, to book your tickets, your group, party or rental and to learn about taking advantage of our cornucopia of special savings! Visit: www.shakespeare.org or call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353.
NEW! Feast like Falstaff: Patrons are invited to enjoy a specially prepared dinner every Saturday in July & August from 5:00pm – 7:30pm under the tent at Founders’. A varied selection of delicious meals, sure to satisfy even the heartiest appetites, will be prepared by Executive Chef Ron Werth and his culinary experts using the freshest and most delectable ingredients. From succulent grilled meats, savory vegetables, hearty pastas and salads to decadent desserts, this is a perfect way to enjoy the beautiful grounds and views or a chance to rub elbows with S&Co. artists either post matinee or pre-evening show! Order 24 hours in advance to guarantee availability. Walkups are welcome on a space-available basis. Call the Box Office at 413-637-3353 or www.shakespeare.org to reserve your feast!
Director Kevin G. Coleman (and perhaps other surprise guests) will discuss the genesis of this production on July 27 at the Founders’ Theatre Tent, as part of S&Co.’s Tuesday Talks series of intimate discussions about the creative process with Company artists. (Tickets are $8 for adults and $5 for ages 18 and under.) Additionally, the cast will lead a discussion and answer questions after the August 18 performance as part of this year’s new Wednesday Q&A Sessions, happening after one production each Wednesday from July 7 through August 25. (Included with ticket price for that performance.)
The Winter’s Tale is a startling and magical story of transformation and family that redefines love as a miracle and a gift. It’s a fairie tale of a lost princess, destined one day to be restored and a psychological drama of jealousy, violence and redemption. But ultimately, The Winter’s Tale is a play about the enduring strength of love, unspeakable hurt, unshakeable hope, and the power of forgiveness. This startling and original adventure is not quite a comedy, not quite a tragedy, but one hundred percent Shakespeare.
Written some time between 1601 and 1611, and first published in the Folio in 162,3 most scholars place the composition of The Winter’s Tale among his late-period “romances”—plays (like The Tempest and Cymbeline) that sometimes incorporate fantastical elements while transcending the usual boundaries of comedy and tragedy. Shakespeare drew his main plot line for The Winter’s Tale from contemporary, and said to be rival, Robert Greene’s story Pandosto: The Triumph of Time, written in 1588. Greene (in)famously refers to Shakespeare as an ‘upstart crow’ in his 1592autobiography. Full of enchantment and mystery, The Winter’s Tale is the kind of tale suited for whiling away the wee hours by the fire on a cold winter’s night—or a visit to a cool, dark theatre on a warm summer’s eve.
“I went through the script at least ten times before we started rehearsals and continue to be amazed by the incredible language,” says director Kevin G. Coleman, who recently helmed the hilarious The Ladies Man (2008) and Rough Crossing (2007). “It was meaty, sublime, surprising, tender, brutal and harsh, heart wrenching, heart stopping, very funny and irreverent. We want the audience to come along for this fairie tale ride and get caught up in the magic, and to enjoy the richness of the text and feast on it. In the first three acts we go down into the deep hole of classical Shakespearean tragedy, but act four rebalances the scales of the heartbreak and darkness of Sicilia with the lightness, comedy, music and dance of Bohemia. And the final act is nothing less than magic. Leontes says, ‘If this be magic, let it be an art as lawful as eating.’ It’s about making the impossible, possible. It’s a metaphor for forgiveness and this is the magic – this forgiveness. When our humanity catches up then the healing and redemption can really begin.” Coleman also adds, “I am really excited to have so many long time Company actors and friends in the cast like Epstein, Aspenlieder, Jason Asprey, Johnny Lee Davenport, Malcolm Ingram, Corinna May, and more recent Company actors like Dana Harrison, Josh McCabe, Ryan Winkles, Enrico Spada, Doug Seldin, Kelly Galvin, Andy Talen, Scott Renzoni, Shea Kelly, and newcomer Leia Espericueta…oh and my son Wolfe Coleman,” he adds with a laugh.
The play begins at the Court of Sicilia, where domestic bliss and filial harmony reign. However, Leontes, the King of Sicilia, is suddenly consumed by the certainty his pregnant wife, Queen Hermione, is having an illicit affair with his boyhood friend Polixenes, the king of Bohemia, and that her soon to be delivered baby is in fact his as well. In a reckless fit of jealousy, Leontes publicly accuses his wife of high treason and adultery, instantly imprisons her and then attempts to poison Polixenes, who flees the Court upon learning of the plot against his life. When the child is born, Leontes declares the baby girl a bastard and orders her to be abandoned in a faraway land. Leontes is unswayed by pleas from his wife and others of her innocence and of the baby’s legitimacy. All seems lost when her young son, filled with grief over his mother’s imprisonment, dies heartbroken. At the news of her son’s death, Hermione collapses. Her best friend Paulina soon after reports her death. Realizing his grave errors, Leontes sinks into an abyss of grief, and vows to mourn the loss of his children and his wife until the end of his days. All is well in Bohemia as the second half of the play transitions into a pastoral romance, complete with some of Shakespeare’s funniest country characters and scenarios. Against all odds (and despite the roaming presence of one famously threatening bear) the Queen’s child is found and rescued by a shepherd and his son. The young Princess Perdita unwittingly falls in love with King Polixnes son Prince Florizel, (who abandons his royal affiliations and the crown to become a lowly shepherd) and begins a journey that may ultimately lead to her father’s redemption. Sixteen years pass and we are presented with an unforgettable and daring final scene in which Time brings about its triumph with perhaps the most startling coup de theatre in the canon—and maybe just a touch of magic—that redeem a king’s shame, and makes a broken family whole again.
Enjoy our Free Preludes beginning July 2 – September 5! Come early to catch our outlandish array of delightful theatrical vignettes, parodies and silly scenes a la Elizabethan-era street theatre. These 15-minute Preludes feature some of your favorite S&Co. actors before evening performances of Richard III, The Winter’s Tale and The Taster on the Bankside Terrace outside Founders’ Theatre.
DIRECTOR: Kevin G. Coleman, Company Founder, Director, Director of S&Co.’s much lauded Education Program and director of The Winter’s Tale and The Mystery of Irma Vep celebrates his 33rd season with the Company, where he has directed and acted in over 100 productions. Coleman also teaches text analysis, stage combat, clown and directing. Kevin has been a guest teacher or director at the American Stage Company, MIT, Harvard, UMass/Boston, L.S.U., SUNY/Albany, Stanford University, Shenandoah Shakespeare, Queensland University of Technology-Brisbane, Australia, Lincoln Center, the Folger Library in Washington, DC, the Stratford Festival in Ontario, and the Mercury Theatre in Colchester, UK. Outside of the Education Program, Kevin is the Project Director for the National Institute on Teaching Shakespeare, a program funded by the National Endowment for the Humanities where high school teachers from across the nation train with the master teachers of Shakespeare & Company and internationally renowned scholars in a month-long, intensive workshop. Shakespeare & Company’s Education Program has been recognized by the President’s Council on the Arts and Humanities, the MacArthur Foundation and the GE Foundation as a “Champion of Change” in Arts in Learning. It also received the Commonwealth Award, the highest honor awarded by the Massachusetts Cultural Council for contributions to the quality of life for Mass. residents in the arts, humanities and sciences. Last spring Coleman received the prestigious Distinguished Arts Educator Award from the Massachusetts Arts Education Collaborative and in 2007 he was honored at the White House for the Education Program’s work with juvenile offenders which received the Coming Up Taller award. For the past 18 years, Kevin has served as the Theatre Director at the Austen Riggs Center in Stockbridge. Kevin holds degrees from St. Louis University and NYU. The Winter’s Tale, also marks the first production where Coleman will direct his son Wolfe, among its very talented cast.