In December we announced our Founders’ Theatre shows for Summer 2010. Now we are proud to announce the rest of our Summer 2010 Season, titled “Greet the Glorious Summer!” A brief note from Artistic Director Tony Simotes:
It is with great humility as well as unbridled excitement that I launch my first season as Shakespeare & Company’s Artistic Director, taking over the reins from the indomitable Tina Packer. She began her mission 33 years ago, along with a merry band of theatrical revolutionaries that I was very pleased to be a part of. Our quest has been to bring the transformative power of theatre alive for our audiences through Shakespeare’s plays as well as ground-breaking new works. My mission is to build upon this priceless legacy while helping to bring us to exciting new places.
Read the rest of Tony’s Welcome Letter here, or in our 2010 Summer Season brochure—which is on its way to your mailbox now. (Or if you just can’t wait, click here to check it out online).
Check out the full Summer 2010 Season after the jump! Continue reading ‘Greet the Glorious Summer! (Full Summer Season Announced)’
Just two weeks remain to catch the runaway hit of the Berkshires’ Fall season: The Hound of the Baskervilles. Written by Steven Canny and John Nicholson and directed by Artistic Director Tony Simotes, this madcap adaptation features Company favorites Jonathan Croy, Josh Aaron McCabe and Ryan Winkles.
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By Tony Simotes
Printed in the Berkshire Eagle, Wednesday, Oct. 28, Page A5
What a ride.
I’m one of that plucky gang who came up to the Berkshires and founded Shakespeare & Company back in 1978, and I’ve been back as an artist and teacher almost every year since. By any measure, I arrived this summer as Shakespeare & Company’s second-ever artistic director, taking over the reigns from founding Artistic Director Tina Packer, right in the thick of things with our season at full force.
I came back at a key moment in our history, when a fresh approach — informed always by the hard-earned wisdom of the past — is absolutely necessary. Change is hard, but it’s also necessary. And it’s an opportunity as well.
Many media outlets have reported on the bad news we’re currently confronting. They’ve done so responsibly and fairly, given some of the stark numbers floating around in a financial report prepared by the Nonprofit Finance Fund, in response to the request we made to the Massachusetts Cultural Council.
The big picture presented by this report is indeed correct: We need to re-organize ourselves to find a better way to keep doing what we’re doing on our Kemble Street property. The accompanying part of this, one we’re not so sure has made it into the zeitgeist thus far, is that we’re already taking action, and are deep into the needed process of re-organization. Continue reading ‘Shakespeare & Company here for the long haul’
Artistic Director Tony Simotes joined Alan, Joe and Sarah on the Roundtable last week to talk about his new job, how he got here and what he plans to do. John Douglas Thompson (Othello) and Eric Tucker (director of Pinter’s Mirror) were also on hand to chat about their projects at Shakespeare & Company this summer. Clocking in at 20 minutes, this is one of the most in-depth Roundtable interviews we’ve had. Check it out at WAMC’s website, or listen below.
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Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer (now on stage as Gertrude in Hamlet) is the subject of a profile that aired today on WBUR (Boston’s NPR station). Andrea Shea speaks with Tina about her roots in England, her intentions for starting Shakespeare & Company and her future plans. Artistic Director Tony Simotes and Company actress Elizabeth Aspenlieder also speak about Tina and her impact.
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Listen to the story above, or check out the story at WBUR.org.
At the time she was obsessed with Shakespeare, but she wanted to approach his texts her own way. This ran against the genteel delivery style most teachers and directors embraced.
“Enunciating, pushing the vowels to the front of the mouth — especially for the women,” Packer says. “It’s all nonsense; Shakespeare’s dirty as hell and full of life and full of vivacity.”
So Packer abandoned her career as an actor in England, raised some money in the U.S., and founded her own company in the Berkshires. She was one of the first women to direct Shakespeare professionally. Packer says it’s a natural fit.
WAMC’s Clarence Fanto speaks with Founding Artistic Director Tina Packer, Artistic Director Tony Simotes, and Company member (and actress in Golda’s Balcony, now on stage) Annette Miller about Othello, Golda’s Balcony, Pinter’s Mirror and much more in this interview that aired Monday. Check it out at WAMC’s website, or listen below.
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If you haven’t seen Othello yet, you have only three chances left before it closes Sunday afternoon. Ben Brantley of the New York Times said “A rare Olympian music — forceful, beautiful and inaudible to ordinary ears — seems to dictate the rhythms of John Douglas Thompson’s performance… From the moment he sets foot on the stage of the Founders’ Theater here, this truly commanding Venetian general is a figure of monumental poise but also of instinctive, exotic poetry.”
Othello is written by William Shakespeare and directed by Tony Simotes, featuring John Douglas Thompson and Michael Hammond, and with music by Scott Killian, costumes by Gail Brassard, sets by Yoshi Tanokura and lights by Les Dickert. Buy tickets now.
