Recession Drama: Shakespeare & Company Will Do More With Less
Tina Packer usually defies—and exceeds—expectations. Over 32 years in the Berkshires, the founder of Shakespeare & Company has transformed the troupe that put on plays in the dilapidated Mount and its surrounding woods into a theatrical powerhouse. With year round educational programs and a reputation for producing gutsy versions from the Bard's canon as well as new works by contemporary playwrights, S&Co has become a cultural bellwether. On Tuesday, Packer announced the lineup for the 2009 - 2010 season and, resisting the conventional wisdom in a recession, she said S&Co will mount 18 productions—10 more than last year. The season's apt slogan: "Play On!”
Packer is not playing the fool. She's read Furious Improvisation: How the WPA and a Cast of Thousands Made High Art out of Desperate Times , and she's going to make the most of her resources. She is enlarging the season by remounting several plays that will be easy for her to get up because they're already cast and have their costumes and scenery (which, when you think about it, is what opera companies do by bringing back audience favorites year after year. What's more, she already has rave reviews in hand and does not have to worry what local critics say.) She'll be reviving Hamlet from 2006 and last summer's Othello (above), which played to sold-out audiences, and using members of those casts to do the comedy Twelfth Night.
Packer, who is in her final year as artistic director (but will stay on with the company), will perform in what she's calling the "Diva Series" of one-woman shows. She'll revive her performance as Shirley Valentine in Willy Russell''s 1986 play; Annette Miller (left) will return with Golda's Balcony, which is being dedicated to its playwright William Gibson, who died last year; Penny Kreitzer will star in The Actors Rehearse the Story of Charlotte Salomon, which chronicles the life of an artist who fled Nazi German and worked in France for several years before being captured by the Gestapo and being sent to Auschwitz.
Now that the new black box Elayne P. Bernstein Theater is up and running (thought it needs another $1 million to be fully utilized), S&Co will do a 90-minute, seven-actor version of Romeo & Juliet (which is touring schools in New England for five months) as well as several contemporary plays, including the North American premiere of Devil's Advocate by Donald Freed, The Dreamer Examines His Pillow by Tony- and Oscar-winner John Patrick Shanley, White People by J.T Rogers, and the world premier of Cindy Bella (or the Glass Slipper) by Anna Brownsted and Irina Brook, which is a 21st century version of Cinderella (which had two workshop performance at S&Co last year.)
Packer's goal is to keep people coming back to the Lenox campus all year long. She's thinking of hosting concerts and poetry slams, and she's already added a Lunch Box Shakespeare series, where the audience will be served a box lunch during the intermission of Measure for Measure. "We are going to keep this place throbbing,” she said, giddy with excitement in spite of the economic challenges. "In the end, creativity is going to save the company.”
Shakespeare & Company
70 Kemble Street, Lenox; 413.637.1199
Box Office Opens March 5.
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