Shakespeare Santa Cruz

[thatguy]

More somewhat old Santa Cruz Shakespeare (not Shakespeare Santa Cruz) news...

http://www.montereyherald.com/arts-and-e...s-new-home

Santa Cruz Shakespeare announces new season in its new home

Mike Ryan, artistic director for Santa Cruz Shakespeare, shows off the company’s new home in DeLaveaga Park behind the former Cabrillo Stroke Center. (Dan Coyro -- Santa Cruz Sentinel)

SANTA CRUZ >> Already, fans of Shakespeare on the Central Coast have had to adjust their vocabulary when it comes to their favorite local theater company — “Santa Cruz Shakespeare” is just now starting to feel as natural as “Shakespeare Santa Cruz” once was.

This year, we are all going to have get used to a new name for the company’s venue as well.

Goodbye, “The Glen”; hello, “The Grove.”

Late last month, Santa Cruz Shakespeare formally announced the program for its inaugural season in its new venue, the Grove at DeLaveaga Park. And judging by the status of the Shakespeare plays it is presenting this summer, Santa Cruz Shakespeare is going for maximum impact.

In a year that marks the 400th anniversary of the death of William Shakespeare, the theater company marks its rebirth with two of The Bard’s most immortal plays: “Hamlet” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.” In the next step in Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s groundbreaking policy for cross-gender casting, artistic director Mike Ryan also announced that the title role in “Hamlet” will be played by a woman.

“Midsummer” opens July 15, also the debut of The Grove, the new outdoor venue adjacent to DeLaveaga Golf Course. The $1 million project to rejuvenate the site of the former Cabrillo College Stroke Center and build a new stage and amphitheater is in its early stages.

The new site will not have the same atmosphere as the famous redwood-shrouded Sinsheimer-Stanley Festival Glen on the campus of UC Santa Cruz, where Shakespeare has been performed every summer for more than 30 years. But, said Ryan, The Grove, which features eucalyptus rather than redwoods, has much the same appeal.

Last year, when he was scouting locations for Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s new home, Ryan was driven up to the site of the now demolished Stroke Center, near the county’s 911 call center, by a city parks employee. The positives about the spot were obvious — because of the Stroke Center, the site had water, sewage and electricity. Ryan had wanted to find a spot in the Pogonip region of Santa Cruz, but a lack of infrastructure made that choice prohibitively expensive.

Still, when he first saw it, Ryan was less than impressed with the site.

“We saw this rubble,” he said. “It was basically a mine field where the building used to be. There was no shade. You could hear the highway in the distance.”

Then, as they were driving away, Ryan caught sight of a roomy eucalyptus glade nearby.

“Two things immediately jumped out at me,” he said. “First, it was sloped, which is a really good thing when you’re building a theater. Second, it was sun-dappled with plenty of shade.”

The new site will have about 50 fewer seats than The Glen at UCSC, but more parking. The footprint of the former Stroke Center will be converted to parking. The microclimate is similar to that at UCSC, though Ryan expects it will be less foggy, and thus less chilly at night.

The yet-to-be-constructed stage at The Grove will be the same size as the stage in The Glen, though with more backstage space for performers. A corrugated-metal quonset hut on the site will be converted into the box office. Mitigations for disability access will be put in. A reconfigured Army parachute will be used for a shade structure for matinees in the sunny corners of the site.

Perhaps the biggest challenge facing Santa Cruz Shakespeare in its first year at its new home is helping people find it. Many will wrongly assume the site is at DeLaveaga Park on Branciforte Drive near the Mystery Spot. In fact, the site is off Upper Park Road, a right turn just beyond the DeLaveaga Lodge Restaurant, and next to Santa Cruz County’s Emergency Center and 911 call center.

For his part, Ryan is preparing this spring for the kind of work that Shakespeare festival directors don’t usually have to worry about.

“I’ve learned more about city codes, bureaucracy, drainage systems and storm water management than I ever knew before,” he said. “But that’s cool, because when I got into acting in the first place, I figured I’d be learning something new with every role.”



An artist’s rendering of Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s new home at the Grove at DeLaveaga Park. The new venue is set to open in July with new productions of ‘Hamlet’ and ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’

Santa Cruz Shakespeare 2016

Shows: Shakespeare’s ‘Hamlet’ and ‘Midsummer Night’s Dream,’ plus fringe production of Virginia Woolf’s ‘Orlando’
When: First performance July 15
Where: The Grove at DeLaveaga Park
Tickets: On sale beginning May 2 for Santa Cruz Shakespeare members; May 16 general at http://santacruzshakespeare.org
Details: For information on the Build the Grove capital campaign, go to http://santacruzshakespeare.org/buildthegrove

--tg

[Drunk Monk]

Hamlet.  One of Willy's plays that I know really well.  Who doesn't?  It's chock full of pull quotes, mostly misquotes, but so many common sayings have been poached from this play that it's almost distracting to watch it. 

For a switcheroo, there were some sex changes.  Hamlet, Polonius, Rosencrantz & Guildenstern were played by women.  Ophelia, one of my fav Shakespearean characters, was played by a woman, for a big lesbian kiss.  I didn't care for this Ophelia, not that I have anything against lesbian snogging, it's just she came off too strong and Ophelia is such a frail creature to my way of thinking. Hamlet somewhat worked.  The actress, Kate Eastwood Norris, was a serviceable Hamlet.  She's talented, and played his/her madness for comedic effect, which didn't quite work for me but I was amused by the fresh approach.  Polonius as a daffy doting mom worked remarkably well.  Rosencrantz & Guildenstern were uniformed school girls, and that kind of worked too.  

The new venue is chilly and a little buggy.  Not biting bugs, just annoying ones.  DeLaveaga park is lofty and so close to my bungalow, and yet this was my first time to the park.  Getting in and out was easy.  Stacy and Tara went for A Midsummer's Night Dream last week, and it was really cold.  They said they could see the fog roll in across stage.  It wasn't so bad for me and Tara, but even though we both brought several layers, we wished we brought more.  The concessions weren't going and we regretted that we forget to bring a thermos of hot tea.  The new venue is in a youngish eucalyptus grove, but it's no match for the lovely redwood grove at UCSC.  But still, the setting sun worked as the rising sun in the ghost scenes.  And right after Polonius' death scene, there was a spectacular shooting star that crossed right over stage slowly and auspiciously, leaving a mystical contrail in its wake.

[Drunk Monk]

That was no shooting star.

http://www.latimes.com/local/lanow/la-me...story.html

FTW!

[Drunk Monk]

Two Gentleman of Verona is one that I didnt really know. It feels incomplete, like Willy was trying to make deadline and bailed on the end. The story has so many trappings of the bard, the wittiness, complexity, great wisdom, eloquence can, cross dressing and that incredible rhyming meter. And yet the conclusion is abrupt and unsatisfactory. Proteus is such a cad. Julia shouldn't forgive him. That feels unjust, not like Shylock or Kate as that was anti-Semitic and misogyny of the day, just unresolved completely.

The dog Crab stole the show. Everyone was disappointed that the dog didn't come out for the curtain call bow. Good comedic performances, especially by the manservants. Didn't understand the milkman bit - I'll have to read the script for that.

SCS set this in the 1920s - anachronism is their style. That sort of worked. It wa foggy but we were prepared this time. It was the whole family plus Tara's bf Alex. Students were free with an adult ticket purchase and we sat on the tanbark on a blanket, very close to stage left.

[Drunk Monk]

Love's Labors Lost - another early comedy that I wasn't that familiar.  It's simpler than most of Willy's works, really funny, amazing how his humor holds up for a half millennium now.  The dialog is more heavy-handed, almost sing-songy in its rhyming meter, yet still brilliant in its puns and observations.  Such a wicked turn of tone in the finale, a surprising shift from the rom-com farce, but the title reveals all.  A clear precursor to later works like Midsummer's. Very delightful. 

Again set sort of in the 20s (perhaps that's all the costumes Shakes SC has anymore) the cast really delivered all around.  A solid performance with many laugh out loud moments for each of us.  Don Armando and Holofernes were hysterical characters and very endearing.  Stacy got tix just this week, the cheaper bring-your-own-blanket ones, and we packed snacks - cheese, crackers, olives, artichoke spread, choco-cake - very casual and fun.  Not too cold and still a bit buggy.  A lovely family outing, just minutes away from our bungalow.

[Drunk Monk]

The Winters Tale
Odd play. 1st act is tragedy, 2nd redemptive comedy. I didn’t know the play beforehand, just that there were bears involved. It was okay - not poetic prose nor brilliant story but tis nuff. I wanted it to be funny or more tragic - more profound. They set it in the 50s then 60s which didn’t quite work. The fog turned to rainy mist by the end - we escaped just in time. They had what I think was an old afs sword, but I couldn’t see it well despite our front row seats. 

Pride & prejudice was better
http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...4#pid33874

[Drunk Monk]

The Comedy of Errors 8/30/19
The season finale for us and our front row seats and the best performance this year. I thought I knew this play but Issas confusing it with 12th Night. What a wonderfully absurd farce, full of Willy’s wit and dynamic poetic meter. SCS set it in the 80s with a Miami Vice style and it worked well, better than the other anachronistic setting this year. The twin pairs were played by the same two actresses which made for Dbennett more opportunities for pratfalls. The only disappointment was the sword were swapped for chemical mace.

[Drunk Monk]

[Drunk Monk]

Has it really been since before the pandemic when we last went? 

Once again, Hamlet (http://www.brotherhoodofdoom.com/doomFor...6#pid23266) and once again, being the Cruz, there was some gender bending with both Polonius & Horacio played by women. That worked well. Hamlet was played by the new SCS director, who I liked in the role more than Stacy, but I felt he was lifting the quirky madness from Phoenix’s Joker, blended with a little Bono. The previous SCS director was the King, and he’s a decent Shakespearean thespian. Ophelia was good, especially when she went mad. Polonium stole the show, bringing out the ironic hypocritical humor in the role that I never noticed so overtly. Laertes was a weak link.

Set in 1960s US, that started out off for me but I settled into it later. Hamlet packed a switchblade with which he shanked Polonius, but they went to fencing sabers for Hamlet v Laertes. That didn’t quite work for me because of the usual quibbles. They saluted with their masks on. They left the tongues of their masks out. They used sabers instead of foils like it says in the script. The choreo was weak. The saber jackets had huge crests over the hearts. But the blood packs were copious so all the whites were stained after those ‘palpable’ hits. 

We had front row seats with only the groundlings (picnic blanketers) in front of us. We had a great time. Got hot tea & chocolate at intermission early and got out as soon as it was over. Home in like 10 mins. The house was full but we moved faster than the crowd at every step.

I love Hamlet. That language just sings - so many iconic lines! I’m always left in awe of Willy’s brilliant prose, timeless tales & poetic meters. So many lines - universal truths really - just pop out and burrow into my brain over and over from this play. 

Bravo SCS! So good to be back.

[Drunk Monk]

A Christmas Carol
@ Vets Hall

“but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is D00M, unless the writing be erased”

A fine production with a cast of only 7, 2 of which were children. Lots of a cappella singing. Only one set piece - a spiral staircase with an upper platform. So many quick costume changes. 

We got the cheap ‘groundling’ seats, which is in the floor front of stage. I was thinking about posture seated cross legged for 90 mins straight, thinking about the yoga intensive, and it turned out our yoga teacher was in the audience with her family. We saw them when we all exited. 

I plan to go back to the Vets Hall for NYE.