If It’s Spring, It Must Be the Shakespeare Fest

— by Margie Doyle —

“The Plays of William Shakespeare” by Sir John Gilbert, 1849

Orcas Island’s signature shoulder-season event, the third annual Shakespeare Festival, comes to us next week. The four-day event, sponsored by the Orcas Island Chamber of Commerce, features costumed performers, an Eastsound Parade, special school productions, music and song, Elizabethan games, street theater, dinners and parties, a thought-provoking lecture and performances of “Othello” and “Romeo and Juliet” by The Seattle Shakespeare Company.

Robert Hall, the Creative Director of the Shakespeare Festival, is having fun. His overall charge is content, scheduling and staging of the four-day event, or more specifically, fun and games. He gives high praise to his team of co-creators: Michell Marshall (overall director of the Shakespeare Festival), Lance Evans (director of the Chamber of Commerce): “Working with Michell and Lance has been incredible; it’s been a unforgettable pleasure to be supported the way they’ve supported my work.”

Rounding out the team are Phil Heikkinen (Public Library Director in charge of games), Meg Massey (costumes) and Tom Fiscus (music).

Opening the Festival is ‘Music, Shakespeare & More!’ performed at Random Howse in Eastsound. A night of local entertainment, featuring an array of Orcas Island’s top talent. Tickets for the entertainment are only $12 per person. Dinner and drinks are all available from the Random Howse menu. Guests will be entertained by local actors in scenes and monologues. Musicians Stormy Hildreth, Sasha Hagen, Martin Lund, and Grace McCune will perform and Jake Perrine will get you laughing, Jim Shaffer-Bauck will recite Shakespeare’s sonnets, Freddy Hinkle, Steve Henigson and Robert Hall will give monologues.

But wait, there’s more! Andy Martin and Allison Calhoun will give a fun send-up of Shakespeare’s version of “Star Wars.” Michael Armenia will present two scenes.

Then to top it all off, Cat Gilliam of the professional improv group from Seattle, Talk Back Theater, will bring everyone into the merriment with improv activities. It all gets underway at 6 pm. Tickets are available at Brown Paper Tickets, at The Office Cupboard (360-376-2378), or at the Chamber of Commerce (360-376-2273).

Hall thanks April and Clyde Duke for providing Random Howse: “The venue they’ve built is beautiful, and they’ve been extremely helpful and open to our needs. They’ve been just great to work with, nothing but pleasure.And they’ve really opened up the venue to local acts; they are so welcoming. We’re really excited about being there.”

For the Thursday night dinner at Sazio di Notte, restauranteur Bill Patterson will host guests at the festival fundraiser from 6 to 9 p.m. (more about that tomorrow). Suffice it to say that Paterson will hold nothing back in his authentic and original dinner, with exquisite wine.The guests of honor will be the actors of the Seattle Shakespeare Company, back again for their third year. Reservations may be made at Sazio (360-376-6394), The Office Cupboard (360-376-2378), or at the Chamber of Commerce (360-376-2273), or Brown Paper Tickets.

On Friday, The Seattle Shakespeare Company brings an abbreviated production of “Romeo & Juliet” to local students at Orcas Center. The relative youth and energy of the highly-respected Seattle Shakespeare troupe will enhance the depiction of this whirlwind courtship of teenage lovers against the background of family animosity. The Seattle Shakespeare Company performance is free of charge, but open only to Orcas school students.

That evening, an expanded ‘Romeo & Juliet’ and Baroque music are performed at Random Howse in Eastsound. Jeffrey Cohan’s Baroque trio will open the evening with music, followed by a Seattle Shakespeare Company performance of ‘Romeo & Juliet.’ Food and beverage will be available. The play starts at 6 pm. Tickets are $15 and are available at Brown Paper Tickets, at The Office Cupboard (360-376-2378), or at the Chamber of Commerce (360-376-2273).

That evening, in partnership with the Orcas Crossroads Lecture Series, Ayanna Thompson presents a most relevant topic: “‘Othello’ in the 21st Century.” Othello is the best-known black character in Shakespeare’s plays, a traditional role of dignity for black actors. But racial stereotypes of the 17th century create some discomfort among 21st century audiences.

Ayanna Thompson is Professor of English at George Washington University. She specializes in Renaissance drama and focuses on issues of race as/in performance. She is the author of Passing Strange: Shakespeare, Race, and Contemporary America, and Performing Race and Torture on the Early Modern Stage. She is also the co-editor of Weyward Macbeth: Intersections of Race and Performance and editor of Colorblind Shakespeare: New Perspectives on Race and Performance. Professor Thompson is a Trustee of the Shakespeare Association of America.

Tickets for this talk are $10 and are available at the Orcas Crossroads, Darvill’s Bookstore in Eastsound, and through Brown Paper Tickets.

Those two evening events will be the talk of the town the next day, Saturday, as the Festival takes over the Eastound Village Green with a Fair from 11 a.m. to 4 p.m. and the evening, full-length production of “Othello” by the Seattle Shakespeare Company at the Orcas Center.

Orcas Events producer Veronica San Martin is providing the tents for the Fair; and she is also heading the overall Festival decorations effort. Hall says there will be a south tent and a north tent bracketing the Stage on the Green and performances will rotate through the venues, with the food and craft vendors in the middle. “We’ll bring an Orcas take to a Shakespearean street theme,” says Hall, and his eyes light up as he describes the games that will take place too.

Phil Heikkinen will be putting together a 20-table chess tournament on Saturday, Fair on the Green Day. He will roam from table to table, making his moves against all 20 opponents. Hall says when he first had some qualms about pulling all the creative events together,  “Phil has been a huge resource — he’s one of those helping angels.” (And check out the Shakespeare display in the lobby of the public library).

Lawn croquet and badminton with period “birdies” and paddles are also planned for the Green; Marcia Hansen, director of Orcas Park and Rec District heads that effort.

“We’ll bring the public into a highly active street scene concept, as if we were outside the Globe Theater, down the street from Good Queen Bess,” Robert said. There;ll be street performers from the Belingham Circus Guild, street sellers, Pippi Lustockings as a fire-spinner, a juggler from Lopez, and a fire-breather. Seventeen kids who are students at Spring Street School and their parents will perform a shortened version of “The Tempest” at noon in the Big Tent on the Green.

Here’s more of the line-up:

• Paul Freedman will reprise his role as The Bard of Avon from last year, and with students from Salmonberry School, perform scenes from several of Shakespeare’s plays.
• Tom and Caroline Fiscus will enact a scene from the play, “Lion in Winter.”
• Almost Classical, this year’s Orcas Has Talent winners Emmy and Lisa Carter and Paris Wilson, will play their instruments.
• The award-winning Orcas High School Strings
• and the food and craft vendors of the Village Green, organized by Saturday Market Manager Jennifer Pietsch

And if it’s a Festival, there must be a Parade — that will be lining up at 11 a.m. near the corner of School and North Beach Roads; it will head south to the Village Green to celebrate the arrival of William Shakespeare.

That evening the dark and cunning plot of “Othello” takes over the Orcas Center Stage. Synopsis: After the high-ranking general Othello bypasses Iago for a promotion, the cunning manipulator enacts his revenge. By playing on Othello’s insecurities, Iago paints a false vision of Othello’s faithful wife, Desdemona, which leads to a murderous fit of jealousy.

Tickets for the performance of ‘Othello’ by the Seattle Shakespeare Company are on sale now, and are available through the Orcas Center Box Office (360-376-2281), or at Brown Paper Tickets.

Then there will be celebrating another successful Shakespeare Festival, thanking the sun gods, and plotting for bigger and better things for next year!