Sacramento Shakespeare Festival
2010 Season
Don't let the heat keep you away, we have fans to save the day!
July 18, 5:45pm - 25th Anniversary Season Celebration!
25 years ago a group of people put on a play in a park. On July 18th, we celebrate that auspicious beginning that led to the creation of the Sacramento Shakespeare Festival. We will open our gates at 5:45 for ticket holders. We will have cake and ice cream for the first 200 attendees (what kind of party would it be without it?), performances by Shakespeare Lite and the Intern Program, jugglers and music. Then stay for our performance of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Your ticket to the show gets you into the party. Hope to see you there!
A Midsummer Nights Dream
Directed by David Harris
Performance Dates:
July 2, 3, 11, 16, 18, 23, 29, 31, 2010 at 8pm
Possibly Shakespeares most popular comedy, A Midsummer Nights Dream is a magical in which the worlds of faery andhumans collide and comic situations ensue. Again, the plots are fairly straightforward. Theseus, the Duke of Athens, is preparing for his wedding to Hippolyta, the Queen of the Amazons. Preparations are interrupted by Egeus, an Athenian nobleman, who is having difficulties with his daughter, Hermia. She is refusing to marry Demetrius, the young man Egeus has chosen for her. She is in love with Lysander, another Athenian youth. When faced with the choices of marriage to Demetrius, becoming a nun, or death, Hermia sensibly opts to elope with Lysander. She tells her best friend Helena of their plans. Because Helena is in love with Demetrius, she tells him of the couples flight. He and Helena follow them into the magical forest. Also in the forest are Athenian workers (the rude mechanicals) who are rehearsing a play they intend to present at Theseus wedding and Oberon and Titania, the feuding King and Queen of the Faeries, as well as their entourage. Oberon and his mischievous sidekick Puck play a trick on Titania. Puck has given one of the workers the head of a donkey. Using a magical flower on Titania while she is sleeping, they cause her to fall in love with the donkey. They also use the flower on the young Athenian couples in an attempt to sort out those relationships. However, mistakes are made and comic hijinks ensue before all is corrected. Because this is a comedy, the lovers end up with the appropriate partners, the mechanicals are given the opportunity to present their play at court (the famous and funny Pyramus and Thisbe), and Oberon and Titania mend their quarrel. The faeries end the play with a blessing on the palace and all of its occupants, leaving Puck to bid farewell to the audience.
Othello
Directed by Luther Hanson
Performance Dates:
July 9, 10, 15, 17, 22, 25, 30, Aug. 1, 2010 at 8pm
Othello doesn't begin as a tragedy. Othello is a brave and noble soldier, he has a beautiful and loving wife, and he is being sent off to win an easy war and be a hero. What goes wrong? . . . Tragedy doesn't happen all at once. Little things become bigger things, become bigger things. People don't want tragedies to happen. When bad things happen, we try to fix them... It is the nature of classic tragedy that the same noble qualities that make a tragic hero a hero are the same qualities that cause his downfall. Othello has a supreme sense of justice. Once he believes that Desdemona is guilty, he feels it is his duty to kill her to maintain justice... Why does Shakespeare set this tale of a foreign island? Why does he frame this story with an occupation? What effect does such a tragedy have on a people who are occupied when the event is caused by the occupiers? An event such as this has an effect on one's whole community.