7 minute read
Arts&Culture
from April 14, 2016
Local schools and arts organizations celebrate the life and death of William Shakespeare
by Jessica santina
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Get out your party hats and raise a cup of mead. April 23 is believed to be the date of both the birth and death of William Shakespeare, who is credited with introducing nearly 3,000 words to the English language and having written at least 37 plays, 154 sonnets, and a number of other poems. This April marks the 400th anniversary of his death in 1616.
Surely if any city ought to be marking this occasion in grand style, it’s Reno. After all, it’s home to Eric Rasmussen, chair of the University of Nevada, Reno English Department and one of the world’s preeminent Shakespeare scholars.
In fall of 2014, as Rasmussen and his wife, Victoria Hines, were discussing ways to commemorate this “death-iversary,” they came up with an idea for a citywide festival and dubbed it WillPower 2016.
love’s lAbour
Hines, who took the helm as executive director, explains that as Reno rebounds from the recession with tremendous energy in its business and arts and culture scenes, the timing felt right.
“We had this huge occasion and we thought, ‘Wouldn’t it be great to get the whole community together to rally around this concept and have a festival?’” Hines said. “It just seemed the stars were aligning.”
One of their goals was to bring different parts of the community, including the university, local arts organizations, and the school system, together to collaborate and support one another, with Shakespeare as their shared territory.
WillPower 2016 could be a groundswell of events that begin in April and run through September— perhaps, ideally, all 37 plays?
In March 2015, Hines filed nonprofit paperwork to establish the Northern Nevada Cultural Coalition, an umbrella organization focused on bridging those gaps between arts organizations, the university, K-12 schools and the community at large. WillPower 2016 would be its kickoff event—hopefully the first of many such efforts.
She and Rasmussen assembled a board of volunteers from around the community, and together they began brainstorming ways participating groups could get involved in WillPower. Rasmussen recruited Ian De Jong, a Ph.D. student in the English program whose study emphasis is Shakespeare, as an executive board member who would serve as a university liaison in event planning.
“The next step was getting community support,” said De Jong. “It was a bit challenging to convince people that it was something worth doing. But it’s paid off. There are some exciting things happening that wouldn’t have happened without WillPower and inspiration from Eric and Victoria.”
All the world’s A stAge
WillPower’s effort to “Bring the Bard to Our Backyard” has not necessarily targeted traditional Shakespearean productions.
“It’s about what Shakespeare means to us today,” said Hines. “There are a lot of interpretations out there, and we love that.”
What’s resulted is an alreadyimpressive roster of local events:
Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival will produce of The Comedy of Errors at Sand Harbor, running in July and August. (www.laketahoeshakespeare.org/)
Joe Atack, education director for the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival, directs Goodluck Macbeth’s King Lear, running April 22-May 21. Atack’s interpretation takes us to 16th century Russia and the reign of Ivan the Terrible. GLM will convert its space into a dark, cavernous winter wasteland complete with lowered temperatures and manufactured snow. Talkbacks and lectures from knowledgeable scholars will take place throughout the run, and period costumes and treasures will be displayed. (www. goodluckmacbeth.org)
In April and May, Brüka Theatre will present Lambs’ Tales, four staged readings of Charles and Mary Lamb’s Tales From Shakespeare, which are children’s prose adaptations of Shakespeare’s work. The annual Brüka Prom on May 21 will be themed as a Shakespearean ball. (www.bruka.org)
Running now through April 24 is Lee Blessing’s Fortinbras, a comedic “sequel” to Hamlet, at Reno Little Theater. (www.renolittletheater.org)
On Saturday, July 30 at Wingfield Park, the Reno Jazz Orchestra will offer a free performance of Duke Ellington’s Such Sweet Thunder, a 12-part suite based on the work of William Shakespeare.
On May 15 and 20, vocal ensemble Bella Voce will present Poets: Great and Small, a free concert featuring a trilogy of songs based on three of Shakespeare’s sonnets; a song based on a poem by Christopher Marlowe entitled “The Shepherd to His Love”; and a song called “Ban, Ban, Caliban,” a drinking song from the tempest. (www.bellavocereno. com/)
The UNR library’s Special Collections & University Archives department will host a display of important items pertaining to the work of Shakespeare in Nevada, including an original folio copy of The Merchant of Venice.
Wooster, North Valleys and Hug high schools will all produce plays by Shakespeare.
De Jong has helped arrange several other events on campus, including an April 7 screening of the film Macbeth, as well as an early April undergraduate field trip to the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
He’s currently hard at work establishing a week-long Shakespearethemed summer camp for area high-schoolers.
“We want to show high-schoolers that Shakespeare can be enjoyable and stimulating,” De Jong said. “His work pushes me, challenges me. It’s not so easy to get your hands around it, but when you do, it’s worth it. And we want to share that with a wide range of people.”
University of Nevada, Reno graduate student Ian De Jong is the university liaison for WillPower 2016.
PhoTo/ERIC MaRks
Toil and Trouble
When the Folger Shakespeare Library in Washington, D.C. announced that it would send the First Folio of Shakespeare’s plays on a national tour of all 50 states as part of the 400th anniversary, Rasmussen was instrumental in securing an offer for the Nevada Museum of Art to host the folio. However, the NMA was forced to decline.
“The Nevada Museum of Art mounts nearly 30 art exhibitions each year,” said Ann Wolfe, senior curator and deputy director at NMA. “Given the short one-month duration requirement for the exhibition, and that the exhibition design was better suited for a library setting, we could not accommodate Shakespeare’s First Folio in 2016.”
Instead, the folio will head south to the University of Nevada, Las Vegas for the month of September. Nonetheless, Rasmussen and Hines are thrilled by what the Biggest Little City will have to offer.
“As the world commemorates Shakespeare’s death-iversary with major theatrical events in London and New York, the fact that Reno through WillPower is asserting its deserved status as a significant and thriving cultural and theatrical community is absolutely brilliant,” said Rasmussen.
To be, or noT To be?
Just as WillPower 2016 starts revving up, Hines is transitioning to a new job in the Bay Area. Although she and Rasmussen will remain on the NNCC board, she will step down as executive director. The NNCC is looking for someone new to take her place, and it’s seeking other organizations and individuals who can throw their hats in the ring as WillPower participants.
Hines says that in the earliest brainstorming stages, many ideas were offered up that had great potential and still have no takers—a Shakespeare crawl, a Burning Man Shakespeare community, a beer-brewing competition with Renaissance lagers—and there are likely dozens more for any interested business or organization.
“It’s still open for evolution,” she said. “There’s so much energy associated with this, but we need somebody to keep shopping those ideas and find people interested in participating.”
After all, it’s already mid-April. As the Bard himself once wrote, “And summer’s lease hath all too short a date.” Ω
To get involved with WillPower 2016, contact Ian De Jong at idejong@unr.edu or WillPower.Reno@gmail. com. To learn more about the Northern Nevada Cultural Coalition, write to nncc.reno@gmail.com.
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