Shakespeare Festival returns with a performance showcasing lighter side 吟游诗人

The Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival returns this year with a mainstage performance as well as other programs that are part of the tradition of entertaining audiences and training theater students as part of the longest-running such festival in Michigan.

The festival will present "温莎的风流韵事“10月. 7-15 in the Louis Armstrong Theatre at the Haas Center for Performing 艺术. The presentation includes both evening and matinee performances.

This performance of Shakespeare is an opportunity to present something lighter, with more physical comedy and farce, and with a smaller cast and a guest actor and outside director, said James Bell, associate professor of theater and the festival's managing director.

"It’s a different style of Shakespeare," Bell said. "Sometimes people have this reverence for Shakespeare and forget 他是个艺人. It’s good for students to see a lighter shade of Shakespeare — this is certainly not 'King Lear' or 'Hamlet.“这是 轻松、有趣、有趣." 

After enduring the kinds of challenges that befell so many in the theater community during the pandemic, Bell said he is excited for the return of K-12 students to matinee performances to help introduce Shakespeare to a new generation. 这个节日的 外展 also includes Bard to Go tour, which brings Shakespeare to K-12 schools, and the Festival Greenshow, a 15-minute production presented in full Renaissance dress.

The Shakespeare Festival also presents an important training opportunity for students, especially those who dream of a career on 阶段，贝尔说.

"The reality for students who want to go into acting is that Shakespeare festivals around the country employ a lot of actors, and there is a lot of Shakespeare performed around the country because it's still popular," Bell said. “莎士比亚能打动你 with phrasing and ideas about humanity that are really profound and then it can make you fall on the ground laughing at some of the escapades.

"A lot of students come in with a fear that it's something they can't understand or it's language that they're not familiar with. So we try to get past that and get down to the actual story and the 真实的人性."

Indeed, grasping the language, including its rhythm and symbolism, helped Anna Compton, a theater major, fully appreciate Shakespeare. Compton is playing "Mistress Ford" in this production, a role that Compton cherishes because of the strong presence of the 喜剧中的人物.

"I think a lot of people are intimidated by the language, but once you have an instructor to teach you about it, it's like learning 这是一种艺术形式，”康普顿说. "A lot of people don't think you 我能做到，但你能吗. You just need the right tools in your tool box." 

The production's guest actor, Jacob 米勒, '20, agreed that understanding the language unlocks the genius of Shakespeare. 米勒 was in several Shakespeare shows while at Grand Valley and jumped at the chance to play "Falstaff" in this production when 贝尔联系.

米勒, who is currently working in the scene shop for Kalamazoo Civic Theatre, said it is important as the guest actor to be a professional mentor for students, even though they are only a few 年. 

"If I, as the guest artist, will take risks, then they will be more willing to be creative and take risks and try new things during 彩排，”米勒说.