Dukakis And Scott To Guest At Shakespeare & Company's 15th Annual Studio Festival of Plays

Shakespeare & Company Artistic Director Tony Simotes announced the titles for the 15th annual Studio Festival of Plays. The annual Festival is a mini-marathon of plays new to the Company running ONE DAY ONLY in Founders' Theatre on Monday, September 7 beginning at 11:30 am and running through 11pm.

Seven productions featuring Company actors and special guest actors will be presented throughout the day as works-in-progress and staged readings.

A special Benefit reading of William Bigelow's new play, Leap Year, featuring Olympia Dukakis and directed by Simotes, will kick off the Festival series a week early on Monday, August 31st at 7:00pm .

Tickets for Festival productions are a $16 suggested donation per show, or a $60 suggested donation for a Festival Pass which gives admittance to all 7 performances. For information call the Box Office at (413) 637-3353 or visit the newly redesigned website at www.shakespeare.org.

As part of Shakespeare & Company's commitment to nurturing new voices in theatre and presenting cutting edge works, the Festival is an annual vehicle for exploring new plays and plays that may receive full productions in a future season. The plays are presented as workshop readings, with varying degrees of staging and production elements.

"The Festival is really an opportunity for us to embrace and generate opportunities for new voices to be heard," says Simotes. "As well as continuing to nurture collaboration between actors, directors and designers of all backgrounds. By featuring these newer voices we bring vitality and exploration to our theatre and our audience's perception of language in this new century."

Over the past fourteen years, the Festival has presented many works that subsequently were given full productions in the Company's regular season, including Mrs. Klein, Fortune and Misfortune, Laughing Wild, Goodnight Desdemona Good Morning Juliet, The Turn of the Screw, Brief Lives, Betrayal, The Mistress, Wit, Summer, The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged), A Tanglewood Tale, The Scarlet Letter, Ice Glen, Hamlet, Martha Mitchell Calling, No Background Music, The Goatwoman of Corvis County and last year's hits of the Festival The Dreamer Examines His Pillow and White People are currently receiving full productions along with 2007 Festival favorite Devil's Advocate in the new Elayne P. Bernstein theatre.

"I've tried to include pieces that embody what these new stories are," adds Simotes, "that help define and redefine ourselves-much like Shakespeare did during his day, when the world was in the chaos of discovery during the Renaissance. Producing great works with great language will always be the core of our mission", says Simotes.

Studio Festival Plays...At A Glance

ACT ONE:

The Dick and The Rose

By Robert Biggs
Directed by Robert Biggs
Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 11:30 - 12:30pm (followed by a brief talkback)

CAST: Caley Milliken, Ryan Winkles, Laurie Riffe and Barby Cardillo

The Dick and the Rose is a musical for clowns and puppets all in one perhaps violent yet very entertaining act. It is a love story of ecstatic coupling, domestic boredom, betrayal, mayhem and remorse. The play circles and darts within the tension between up and down, dark and light, life and death, either/or, awake or asleep, doom or redemption. It's a bumpy ride. Hold on to your hearts. There's light at the end of the tunnel.

Mengelberg and Mahler

By Daniel Klein

Directed by Kevin Coleman

Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 1:00 - 2:00pm (followed by a brief talkback)

Cast: Robert Lohbauer

Mengelberg and Mahler, a one-man show, portrays critical moments in the life of the great Dutch conductor Willem Mengelberg, an early champion and friend of the Jewish composer, Gustav Mahler, and later a dutiful ally of the Nazis during their occupation of The Netherlands. A one-man, one-hour drama interposed with Mahler's music, the play raises questions about the relationship between art and politics, exploring the moral ambiguities of Mengelberg's choices. The play stars Shakespeare & Company veteran Robert Lohbauer as Mengelberg, and is directed by another company veteran, Kevin Coleman. It is written by Great Barrington resident, Daniel Klein, co-author of the bestseller, "Plato and a Platypus Walk into a Bar."

Shooting Simone

By Lynne Kaufman

Directed by Daniel Gidron (Golda's Balcony, Full Gallop)

Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 2:30pm - 3:30pm (followed by a brief talkback)

Cast includes: Elizabeth Aspenlieder, Robert Biggs, David Joseph and Annette Miller.

Paris 1937. Jean-Paul Sartre and Simone de Beauvoir, the celebrity couple of the Intelligentsia, make a vow to always be each other's "necessary love." They will have "contingent" love affairs, but nothing will threaten their primary and equal relationship. Enter Olga. Simone's young country cousin bewitches Sartre, undermines Simone, and very nearly destroys the "writing couple." Something has to be done! Act Two jumps ahead to Paris 1980. Kate, a young documentary film-maker, who has modeled her life after the great feminist, is attempting to resurrect the details of the affair, and to find the true Simone. Through her disillusionment, Kate finds her own individuality. This funny play explores sexual jealousy, long-term love, the changing face of feminism and the subjective nature of "truth."

INTERMISSION: Time: 3:30pm - 4:00pm. Food and drink available in Founders' Lobby

Comedian Doug Wilson Performer Doug Williams channels several of his outrageous comedic personas-from a Winnebago-driving lounge lizard, to a crystal-worshipping Yoga fanatic, to a nicotine-obsessed Shakespearean veteran-in this unique intermezzo of caricature and humor. Featured in Founder's lobby in between Act I and II, where you can purchase scrumptious delicates and lively libations.

ACT TWO:

The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?

By Edward Albee
Directed by Eric Tucker (Pinter's Mirror)
Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 4:30pm - 5:30pm (followed by a brief talkback)

Cast included: Elizabeth Aspenlieder and Campbell Scott, others TBA

Welcome to the quagmire of human sexuality. "The Goat, or, Who is Sylvia?" places the audience in the jury box. The accused are Martin, his wife Stevie and their gay teen-aged son Billy. Albee challenges us to question the nature and meaning of love. Can love and shame coexist? Who defines normal? Who, or what, has been betrayed? Who decides which behaviors are acceptable? After the evidence has been presented and issues debated we realize that this play isn't about bestiality or infidelity, but rather intolerance, nonconformity and the arbitrariness of societal standards. Does Albee provide any answers? No, he insists, as he always has, that you find your own. A truly great play. Winner of the 2002 Tony Award for Best Play.

If The whole Body Dies: Raphael Lemkin and the Treaty Against Genocide

By Robert Skloot

Directed by Anna Brownsted (White People)

Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 6:00pm - 6:45pm (followed by a brief talkback)

Cast: Jonathan Epstein, Elizabeth Raetz, Josh Aaron McCabe, Sonya Hamlin, Danny Kurtz (stage directions)

If The Whole Body Dies brings to light the complicated life and extraordinary achievements of Raphael Lemkin, the man who coined the term "genocide." Skloot weaves together a series of monologues, historical facts and surreal conversations with people from Lemkin's past to create a rich drama that gives a sense of the experiences and cultures that shaped and influenced him. Through this thoughtful look at Lemkin's world, we are reminded that the battle against genocide is far from over, yet the courage to raise our ideas into action lives within us all.

Rembrandt's Gift

By Tina Howe

Directed by Tony Simotes

Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 7:00pm - 8:30pm (followed by a brief talkback)

Cast includes: Annette Miller, Nigel Gore, Jonathan Epstein.

Rembrandt's Gift offers audiences a chance to catch one of America's hottest and award-winning playwrights Tina Howe and her hysterically funny new play. The story explores the unique relationship between a married middle-aged couple Walter Paradise, and Polly Shaw - Walter is a former actor obsessed with collecting costumes and Polly, a world-class photographer. Their fine line between fantasy, romance and reality really starts to heat up when an unexpected famous Dutch visitor arrives on the scene and all 3 test the limits of art, love and old age.

Alfred Returner

By Melinda R. Smith

Directed by Tina Packer

Date: Monday, September 7. Time: 9:00pm (followed by a brief talkback)

Cast: Jason Asprey, Susannah Millonzi, Julie Webster, and Jake Waid.

Alfred is the rebel who has returned home and creates havoc. And no-one knows whose son he really is. John is dying but someone needs to take over the fire - steady Peter or irresponsible Alfred? The fire must be kept alive. But who will do that, when the young do not understand the old and the old cannot speak to the young? An allegorical tale.

 

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