Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

HVSF Theater Tent
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival Theater Tent at Boscobel House and Gardens, Garrison, NY

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival (HVSF) is a critically acclaimed, professional, non-profit theater company based at Boscobel in Garrison, New York, one hour north of Manhattan. The Festival - running a roughly twelve-week repertory season each year - has established a reputation for lucid, engaging, and highly inventive productions featuring exceptional industry talent and a backdrop of stunning vistas overlooking the Hudson River.

Each year, its productions attract a total audience of more than 50,000 from the Hudson Valley, New York City, and beyond, including New Jersey, Connecticut, and 40 other states, and regularly achieve over 80% capacity under its open-air Theater Tent. HVSF also takes the magic of Shakespeare and live theater throughout the tri-state region by touring limited runs of fan favorites through its HVSF On The Road series and by bringing student-oriented productions and education programs to nearly 50,000 elementary, middle, and high school students and educators each year. HVSF’s acclaimed arts education programs also include training for early-career theater artists by way of its Conservatory Company, professional development for educators, and free audience engagement offerings before and after performances throughout the summer.

HVSF is a 501(c)3 not-for-profit organization.

History

HVSF was founded by Melissa Stern and Terry O’Brien in September 1987 with an outdoor production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Manitoga, home of industrial designer Russell Wright, in Garrison, NY. The following year, Boscobel House and Gardens agreed to host HVSF’s mainstage season on the estate’s expansive grounds, and that summer’s production of Shakespeare’s As You Like It was performed under a tent overlooking the Hudson River.

In 1994, the Festival added a second show to its season and began hands-on, performance-driven education programs within area schools. In 2004, HVSF began to tour productions to middle and high schools. In 2006, HVSF acquired a custom-designed, open-air Theater Tent with seating for 540, establishing a performance venue unlike anything else in American theater.

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival was the subject of a one-hour documentary and two hour film of a performance of Twelfth Night which premiered on the PBS affiliate WNET (Channel 13 in New York City) on September 18, 2008. The program also aired on WLIW (Channel 21 on Long Island).[1][2]

More than 500,000 patrons have been served since HVSF's first season in 1987. Terry O’Brien led the theater for 27 years, directing more than 30 productions, and stepped down as Artistic Director in December 2013. After a nationwide search for his successor, HVSF’s Board of Directors appointed Davis McCallum as Artistic Director in May 2014.

In 2016, the Festival produced a community-driven production of Thornton Wilder's Our Town with a cast of nearly 40 citizen actors from the Hudson Valley region, directed by John Christian Plummer.

In 2017, the Festival mounted its first new plays: Pride and Prejudice by Kate Hamill (adapted from the novel by Jane Austen), and Lauren Gunderson's The Book of Will.

Location

With its plays performed in an open-air Theater Tent on the grounds of the Boscobel, the Festival is known for its beautiful backdrop.[3][4] The stage, a rough patch of dirt that is on the same level as the first few rows of the audience, recedes into lawns with "breathtaking vistas"[3] of the Hudson River and West Point in the distance.[5] The company uses the vast open space behind the stage as scenery for the plays.[4] According to Ben Brantley of The New York Times, "nature and Shakespeare are the stars" in this festival.[6]

Recognition

The Festival was named among The New York Times’ "50 Essential Summer Festivals" in 2016, was Hudson Valley Magazine’s 2016 Editors’ Pick for Best Summer Theater, and was nominated for a Drama League Award for its 2015 production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

It produces classic and new works with an economy of style, focusing on script, actors and audience with the Hudson River and Hudson Highlands as its set and setting.[7] The Wall Street Journal hails it as, "The most purely enjoyable summer Shakespeare festival in America," while The New York Times comments, "If anyone wonders about the future of live theater or asks where the audience is, the answer is 'Under that tent."[8]

It is listed as a Major Festival in the book Shakespeare Festivals Around the World by Marcus D. Gregio (Editor), 2004.

Education programs

In addition to its summer productions, the Festival sponsors year-round education programs that reach over 50,000 students and educators annually. These programs include in-school residencies and theater arts workshops for students, resource workshops for educators, a fall touring production for students in grades K-5, a spring touring production for students in grades 6-12, its annual Shakespeare Summer Camp for ages 8-16, and the Teachers' Shakespeare Institute. HVSF's Conservatory Company, a performance based training program for 6 - 8 early career actors, offers on- and off-stage opportunities to work alongside the Festival's acclaimed acting company.

Plays performed

References

  1. ↑ PBS
  2. ↑ Playbill
  3. 1 2 Marks, Peter (7 July 2000). "Nature's a Stage and Often a Player". The New York Times.
  4. 1 2 Serico, Chris (11 June 2012). "Hudson Valley Shakespeare fest returns to Boscobel". Newsday.
  5. ↑ Nuland, Sherwin B. (Autumn 2000). "THE UNCERTAIN ART: Is There a Doctor in the House?". The American Scholar. 69 (4). JSTOR 41213080.
  6. ↑ Brantley, Ben (3 August 2005). "Prospero May Manipulate Nature, but Here, Nature Sets the Stage". The New York Times.
  7. ↑ Gulley, Ervene (May 1991). "Much Ado about Nothing by William Shakespeare". Theatre Journal. 42 (2). JSTOR 3208227.
  8. ↑ New York Times
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.