Dinner in Good Company: a Shakespearean Delight

Thursday, March 20 from 6 to 9 p.m. at Chimayo/Sazio

 — by Margie Doyle, Updated March 17 at 11 a.m. —

Bill Patterson of Sazio di Notte

The best food, the best company, the best cause — Islanders, come to dinner next Thursday evening at Sazio’s di Notte and participate in the Shakespeare Festival!

Michell Marshall, who’s coordinating the third annual festival, says Sazio owner/chef Bill Patterson is “the hardest working man in show business outside of James Brown.” He’s also one of the most generous, contributing to community non-profits and business organizations alike to make their events welcoming, well-attended — and delicious!

Sazio’s menu for the March 20 fundraiser tempts the appetite with the finest Italian cuisine to be found anywhere — including Italy, according to one restaurant reviewer:

Ceci con Gramberi (warm chick Peas with Prawns)
Panzanella (Tuscan Grilled Bread Salad)
Tagliatelle Pastore (Shepherds Pasta)
Polenta al Forno (Baked Polenta with Cauliflower and Gorgonzola)
Cinghiale (Wild Boar)
Tiramisu

Bill says, “At the end of the day. I’m just a guy that likes to eat, and my passion is for the simple rustic food of the Italian countryside.”

Tickets for the dinner, which starts at 6 p.m. are $125 per person (wine included; wine list available).
Reservations can be made at Sazio (360-376-6394), The Office Cupboard (360-376-2378), or at the Chamber of Commerce (360-376-2273) and at Brown Paper Tickets.

Attendees to the dinner will receive one free ticket to the following night’s lecture by Dr. Ayanna Thompson, who will discuss Shakespeare’s treatment of Othello, the only Black figure in Shakespeare’s works.

Patterson will share his passion for Italian countryside food, and his extensive appreciation of fine wine, with special guests at the dinner — the actors from the Seattle Shakespeare Company, who will spend the next several days delighting Festival audiences with performances of “Romeo and Juliet” and “Othello.” The company’s Kelly Kitchens directs both Orcas productions. This young troupe is highly regarded among Shakespeare theater audiences and critics alike. The Seattle Shakespeare Compnay’s touring troupe offered “Hamlet” during the first Orcas Island Shakespeare Festival; last year, they brought “Julius Ceasar” to the Orcas Center Stage.

Serendipity was at play when the Orcas Island Chamber of Commerce first considered the Shakespeare Festival and Bill Patterson approached the Chamber about bringing the Seattle Shakespeare Company to Orcas Island, Marshall says. “We’d asked Chamber members how they’d like the Chamber to help them and many members wanted promotion of shoulder season activities. If there’s a festival, tourists will come here for that event and have a wonderful time here — and want to come back again and again!

“Also, the Chamber wanted to have a ‘brightener’ for the community to come out and play. It doesn’t work unless you have community support, and Orcas Islanders are very creative and artistic.”

Dinners at Sazio’s have become an important element of the Shakespeare Festival while the festival changes every year. “We learn what works and what needs fixing,” Marshall says. An example was the first year, when the Saturday night production of “Hamlet” was sold out and some hotel and lodging guests were unable to get tickets. Marshall and Evans problem-solved with a member of the Orcas Lodging Association, who purchased “a block of tickets for their guests who come here for the Festival or vacation. Any ticket that were not used were turned back to Orcas Center to be re-sold. This was a very nice donation on their part,” said Marshall.

She laughs at the memory of how the weather was “fixed” last year too; from the drizzle and chill of Shakespeare Festival 2012 to the bright sunshine last year. “You have to address the weather — the musicians and singers need a ‘friendly’ outdoor scenario, and so we’re wrapping the sides of the Stage on the Green and putting heaters inside the Stage.” She thanks Ken Speck, Veronica San Martin and Robert Hall for their engineering of this contingency.

Putting on the Shakespeare Festival is a risk, of course. Marshall says that sometimes you have to say, “Well, that didn’t work — let’s try another way of doing it… You can’t stop because of the fear — or experience — of failing. You have to find a creative way to get to the same end result by a different way.”