Celebrate 60: The Kentucky Shakespeare Festival Announces Anniversary Production

Kentucky Shakespeare, the Official Shakespeare Festival of the Commonwealth, proudly announces the premiere of a new virtual production celebrating the 60th anniversary of the free Kentucky Shakespeare Festival in Central Park - Celebrate 60: the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival Anniversary Production.

The production, filmed live in Central Park with their 2020 summer company, will premiere Friday, September 25 at 8PM on the Kentucky Shakespeare Facebook page and YouTube Channel.

"With the postponement of our in-person summer season to 2021 we are grateful for the opportunity to commemorate this special milestone with a new production celebrating the Festival," says Matt Wallace, Producing Artistic Director. "The production features never-before-seen and heard remembrances from seasons past. It also features many new performances of Shakespeare celebrating what makes our festival so special. It's been a cathartic process for us to create this piece, in this time, honoring our history and looking to the future of Kentucky Shakespeare Festival."

The production also features newly unearthed archival photos, as well as voices from many of the figures integral to Kentucky Shakespeare's past. "We've been partnering this year with the University of Louisville History Department to document the Festival through oral histories, and we've also uncovered many photographs never seen by the public," says Amy Attaway, Associate Artistic Director. "The production even features audio, never before made public, from former Producing Director Bekki Jo Schneider shortly before she passed away. We have so many surprises in store, and September 25 cannot come soon enough!"

The production was conceived and directed by Wallace and Attaway and was filmed and edited by Abby Sage, Visual Poet Studios.

Kentucky Shakespeare commissioned Louisville singer/songwriter Aaron Bibelhauser to write a song celebrating the Festival. "Gather Round" by Bibelhauser premieres in the filmed production.