from the Artistic Director

Welcome to Richmond Shakespeare’s 23^rd year, the 2007-2008 season of plays and educational outreach!!  

It’s a year of anniversaries for the company:  we completed both the 10^th annual summer Richmond Shakespeare Festival and the end of a decade’s worth of touring, 1997-2007. In that time we’ve produced more than half of the Shakespearean canon, (eight of the plays at least twice).  In that time we’ve also toured 23 states and played to more than 120,000 people, usually in small venues, all across America.  We’ve recreated our mission, renamed the company, reached new audiences via multiple broadcasts on WCVE-TV PBS, and launched a major interstate collaboration with Shakespeare Festival/LA, the Virginia Attorney General, the National Endowment for the Arts and the Department of Justice: "Will Power to Youth Richmond."  

It’s worth noting that although the company has reached the ripe age of 23, all of the above was accomplished in much less than half that time.

As such, for this year I’ve selected a season of plays that celebrate our achievements and propel us into a new decade of production.  In the following paragraphs, I’ll explain the connections and give a brief introduction to the plays you’ll have the opportunity to see and hear this year.  

The 2007-2008 downtown season includes the second installment in our new series: The History Cycle, as well as two comedies (one especially close to our hearts) and the return of a beloved holiday favorite. Two of the productions we’ll play for the very first time, beginning with one of the great masterworks of Shakespeare, an astonishing feast of language called Richard II. 

As with our first two years at 2^nd Presbyterian*, the 2007-2008 season opens with a tragedy:  Richard II (The History Cycle) is the kind of play actors dream of staging; the doomed monarch at its center is both poet and King, as sure in his divine right to rule as his opponents are that he must be replaced.  Who is right?  It’s especially interesting as we enter the final year before a presidential election. The play’s challenges are many, its rewards enjoyed by performer and audience alike. 

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                Richard II was most likely composed sometime around 1595 to 1597. We know its first publication in quarto form dates from the latter, in a printing generally believed to have been typeset from Shakespeare’s own “foul papers,” (the name given to manuscripts we believe were in the playwright’s own handwriting) but which omits the so-called “deposition scene.”  One supposes the omission might stem from the fact that Shakespeare’s company relied on a monarch as their patron, Queen Elizabeth I.  Seeing in print the scene in which a royal monarch is removed from power—having been chosen by God and thereby an extension of the divine—was somehow less than savory.

                Well-known in Elizabethan London, we have a record of at least one notable performance: Richard II was sponsored by Lord Essex—the queen would eventually refer to the play and send Essex to his death, saying “Know you not that I am Richard II?”  Much later (in 1670) the play was even banned; authorities feared its message----that an ineffective ruler could be deposed and murdered.

                D.C.-based actor and director James Ricks will direct, (at right: Hotspur in our recent Henry IV, Part One), having just directed Henry V for the Chesapeake Shakespeare Company immediately prior to playing Hotspur for the 2007 RSF.

                Jeff Schmidt will return for this season opener, having played Mark Antony in last year’s Julius Caesar.  This time he’ll take on the Bolingbroke role (think of a younger Jack Parrish).

 Longtime Richmond Shakespeare veterans will join him, including Stephen Ryan (The Comedy of Errors, Richard III) playing the Duke of York, Stephen Seals (Laertes in the 2000 tour of Hamlet, he also played the Old Shepherd for me in the 2006 Maggie Walker Winter’s Tale and stage managed Shakespeare and Galileo at the Science Museum).

Next, before she rejoins me for A Christmas Carol for Two Actors, Jennie Meharg (Olivia/Maria in Twelfth Night ’00, “Wall” in A Midsummer Night’s Dream ’00)  will play Richard’s sad Queen Isabella (among other roles—one of these days she’ll be in a show to play just one role!) and Richmond Shakespeare’s own Andrew Hamm will play the dual roles of Mowbray and Hotspur.

In the title role and making his Richmond Shakespeare debut will be New York-based actor Michael Newman.  New to Richmond, Mr. Newman has played in the commonwealth before, having performed for the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton.  Michael has also performed with San Diego’s Old Globe Theatre, from whom he received his MFA in Acting.  Michael comes to us with a terrific facility for text, a terrific presence and an ideal age for the arrogant monarch;  he steps into the role at almost exactly Richard’s age during Shakespeare’s play.  I’m thrilled to have him in Richmond for the run and eager for our audiences to get a chance to experience his work.

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                A Christmas Carol for Two Actors grew out of performances I began on a holiday visit for family and friends in Phoenix, Arizona in 1997, inspired by Patrick Stewart’s one man version.  The penurious life of an actor (Hi-diddle-dee-dee) that December left me with few resources for presents at Christmas.  I remember thinking that “people make things, don’t they? But I don’t know how to ma—hey, wait a minute!  Yes, I do.”

                I soon realized that two actors could better reflect the human interactions inherent in Dickens’ novel. (Many scenes occur between Scrooge and just one other character—or he observes something occur between just two people.  Even in the crowded Cratchit household, usually no more than two are ever conversing simultaneously.)  So, in 2000, Richmond Shakespeare  Director of Education Cynde Liffick and I adapted the novel for two actors, and I’ve been performing the piece ever since.  Adding the time I’d done it for my family, it’s now been a full decade of performing Ebenezer Scrooge each November and December.

                Last year, Jennie Meharg played the roles of the Spirits of Christmas Past, Present and Yet-to-Come (and some dozen other roles). Jennie’s own spirit is fully invested in Richard II this year, so the other actor in "Carol" is yet to be cast; the story's message of creating happiness in the face of grief (often criticized as tripe by cynics—more Scrooge-like than they know) was wonderfully told through Jennie’s soulful eyes and tremendous gifts for physical acting.  Don't miss her performance as Richard's mournful Queen Isabella through November 4.

In addition to Jennie, I’ve been lucky to work with terrific actors over the years.  Each has put in several successive years including of course Cynde Liffick and the marvelous Molly Hood, off to pursue her MFA with the Shakespeare Theatre in Washington, D.C.  (Created another Shakespeare monster, you see.)

                While A Christmas Carol for Two Actors has really been a labor of love, and returning to the character of Ebenezer Scrooge feels like meeting an old friend who only visits once each year, I’m reminded that he sticks around for nearly two months each time!  As such, I may very well doff the frock coat and top hat after this 2007 run.  While I won’t decide at this time to retire the role indefinitely, I’d like to allow some time to pass, to really revamp the production, to rediscover Scrooge, and ensure that he stays fresh when I play him—and that as an actor I work toward new creation.  

It’s a dangerous thing, acting a part night after night and year after year; it can become simply an exercise in repeating what you once did well, or nearly, a long time ago—an echo of its earlier self.  Hopefully, I’m stepping out before that occurs.

Many thanks to all of you who return, year in and year out, to greet the old miser when he’s here.  It is for you that those performances are created.  If you’ve never encountered the performance, I hope you will see it this year before we put it on the shelf—and that you enjoy it as much as I have. 

                Lastly, many of our performances of A Christmas Carol for Two Actors benefit CARITAS, Richmond’s remarkable homeless sheltering program.  CARTIAS brings our region’s churches, synagogues and mosques together to house homeless men, women and children when they need it most.  From one small non-profit to another, theirs is a remarkable organization and one I hope you’ll join us in supporting.  Just look for the word CARITAS next to one of our scheduled shows on the Ticketing page. A portion of the proceeds from each of these nights will go toward sheltering the homeless.

Thank you.  Merry Christmas, a bit early.

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                Let me get this out right away: I think Measure for Measure is hilarious.  Not merely for this reason, the play is a favorite of many. Measure is the last of Shakespeare’s comedies, written about 1604, after which he seems obsessed with tragedy and death: Othello, Lear, Macbeth, Coriolanus, Antony and Cleopatra and Timon of Athens all follow Measure in quick succession. Only after about 1607 does he begin his final investigations into plays that transcend categorization. Mastery of his form meant he could throw everything and the kitchen sink into a play: music, combat, dance, supernatural characters, comedy, tragedy and always the passionate, beating heart of language we have come to know and love.

                Measure for Measure understandably then explores darker, harsher territory than the dozen or so comedies that precede it.  A young Viennese named Claudio (he must have loved this name) is condemned to death for impregnating a woman.  No mind that he then marries her, the law is clear: Claudio must die.

                Much of the action occurs in a prison.  Much of the play teeters on the precipice of death, and indeed, someone in the play will meet their end, be beheaded.  A laugh per minute, right?

                What’s drawn me to this play over the years is the character of the Duke.  Knowing that his town is succumbing more and more to vices, he feels incapable of enforcing the law, having so often been mild to previous transgressors.  So, he fabricates a reason to be away from Vienna and taps a strict conservative, Angelo, a puritanical near-tyrant to take his place in the interim.

                Like all great characters in Shakespeare, Angelo is deeply flawed, vulnerable to sexual desire and mirroring the problems of the whole city, succumbs, corrupting his authority in the process.  If Claudio’s sister Isabella (about to become a Nun!) will submit to Angelo’s desire, he will spare her brother.   

                It’s the perfect play to be doing now, in the wake of so much political scandal.  It pushes our buttons, forcing us to examine the true nature of character, virtue, truth, law and honor.  We’ll perform it in February, part of the Acts of Faith series, for which Second Presbyterian Church is a convening sponsor, and just in time for the start of the 2008 election year.

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                To close the 2007-2008 indoor season we’ve selected As You Like It.  The production will be directed by Richmond Shakespeare’s very own Andrew Hamm (Feste, Cassius and many others and the director of our acclaimed productions of Doctor Faustus this past spring and Othello in 2006).  Andrew’s musical scores for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and The Tempest have won fans all over the country and supported their productions immeasurably well.

                More than any play on the season, As You Like It is our celebratory grand hurrah.  It’s been a decade for both the touring program and the summer festival; As You Like It was the play that launched them both.  In 1997 Richmond Shakespeare created our touring program to promote our first summer Shakespeare festival and performed As You Like It (four different versions both on tour and for the festival) in more than 120 performances reaching over 8,000 people.  We did so in small venues and huge, from state parks to wineries and from high schools to churches and museums, most of them in Virginia. 

We now return to the show that revolutionized the company.  Looking at the play,  it’s interesting to note that everyone seeks the forest to find their true selves, or by valuing their rural life in the woods.  (a frequent Sh. device, think of the Dream and the woods around Athens)  More than any initial contract, it was our work with Virginia State Parks, performing in deeply wooded amphitheatres all across the commonwealth, that set the pattern for the growth and success of the company. We found our true selves in the woods.  “Now am I in the forest of Arden!”  Indeed.

                That summer, for our first RSF the version we performed used a company of twelve (12) actors. As such, very few of our local audiences ever got to see the original, 5-actor version.  It was inspired by a company I’d seen many years prior called Actors From the London Stage, who brought As You Like It to the University of Richmond when I was a student.  Years later, it would also be As You Like It with which I began my tenure at Maggie Walker.

                Looking back, those ACTER performances were hugely influential on my life and on my sense of aesthetic, namely: To ensure that Shakespeare’s language is clear, rely on the playwright’s own original practices, tell his stories inventively and with affection, and look for ways to surprise and delight the audience.  Pretty simple, but by ACTER so well executed.  (I also remember them visiting our classes at UR, with a scene between Angelo and Isabella from Measure for Measure being particularly memorable.)

                We haven’t performed As You Like It since 1998 and there is no better play with which to celebrate a decade’s worth of live theatre.  Please don’t miss this play---once you see our production I know you’ll agree that “all the world’s a stage.”

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                Looking beyond this upcoming season, The History Cycle will continue:  This summer, we will return to the Bolingbroke story line with Henry IV, Part Two on the Festival stage.  So, after the prequel  Richard II, join us this summer for the sequel!  We’re also in the early planning phase now for future installments in the cycle, looking ahead to such fantastic plays as Henry V, Richard III, the three Henry VI’s, King John and Henry VIII.

                I look forward to seeing you at 2^nd Presbyterian Church, this summer back at Agecroft Hall, or along the way on our many touring visits.  Please be sure to say hello, and tell me your thoughts---it’s called Richmond Shakespeare for a reason—it’s for all of Richmond, and I hope represents our home when we're on the road.  I always welcome feedback from you—our most valuable ‘player,’ the audience.

 –Grant Mudge,

*         RS Trivia:  Can you name the two plays with which we opened the last two seasons at 2nd Pres?  Click here to send me your guess and to receive the answer.