The State of Shakespeare

Amanda Dehnert

Jul 122023

Love’s Labor’s Lost
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
July 12, 2023

(Photo by John Nordell/The Christian Science Monitor via Getty Images)

Ask Amanda Dehnert what she does for a living, and she’ll laughingly say she “imagines things.” As a visionary theatre creator, she has worked with some of the most exciting theatre companies to emerge over the last 25 years. Ms. Dehnert brings her unique talents to bear in the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s new production of Love’s Labors Lost, for which she both directed and co-composed an original pop-rock score.

Love’s Labors Lost Photo Credits: T. Charles Erickson

Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Dakin Matthews

May 262023

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Hamlet; Act 2, Scene 2
Hamlet
May 26, 2023

When it comes to Shakespeare’s secrets, “meaning” and “sense” stand separate, yet actors must master both. So asserts Dakin Matthews: actor extraordinaire, seasoned stage savant of 250+ productions, and the scribe behind Shakespeare Spoken Here. Delving daringly into Hamlet’s “Is it not monstrous…” soliloquy (Act II, scene 2), Daikin declares that in the realm of Shakespearean performance, rules crumble, crushed by the audacious.

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Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Miriam Laube

Mar 242023

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The Winter’s Tale; Act 3, Scene 2
Hermione
March 23, 2023

For Miriam Laube, 16 is a magic number. 16 years at Oregon Shakespeare Festival and 16 years away from court in Winter’s Tale (for her featured character, Hermione). With a dash of humor and a fierce sense of self, Miriam has breathed life into countless Shakespeare characters both on stage and through Play On Podcasts. Finding the honor in Hermione was both a professional and personal journey.

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Below are two songs from Miriam inspired by Shakespeare!

Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Chukwudi Iwuji

Feb 282023

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Hamlet; Act 3, Scene 1
Hamlet
February 28, 2023

Drop in! All Chukwudi Iwuji needs is the language, how the words resonate in him, their sounds and meanings and rhythms. Using these, how is he affecting the listener? When you listen, you will know.

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Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Ian Gould

Jan 282023

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Midsummer Night’s Dream: Act 4, Scene 1
Bottom
January 27, 2023

What does it mean to be “smartly stupid,” and how might this approach help an actor reveal delightfully unexpected moments in well-worn texts? Ian Gould credits his training at the Shakespeare Theatre Company Academy in Washington DC for this technique, which he demonstrates in his fresh take on “Bottom’s Dream” from A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

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Watch Ian Gould perform Bottom’s Monologue from the interview!

Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Brian Carroll

Nov 302022

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Shakespeare’s Sceptered Isle

November 30, 2022

What did it mean to be “English” in Shakespeare’s day? How may Shakespeare’s most patriotic play, Henry V, have shaped notions of English identity ever since? Brian Carroll’s new book, Shakespeare’s Sceptered Isle: Finding English National Identity in the Plays examines hints in Shakespeare’s text about what his audiences might have thought being “English” was – and perhaps more revealingly, what (or who) wasn’t.

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Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Lynn Robert Berg

Oct 112022

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Julius Caesar; Act 2, Scene 1
Brutus
October 11, 2022

With double digit years at a trio of theaters, Lynn Robert Berg is on the move. The self-proclaimed character actor has moved from intern to company leader with a skill set most actors would kill for (especially after listening to his reading of Brutus’ bloody-minded monologue from Julius Caesar.). A man of many hats, Lynn Robert Berg delights in his motley assortment of roles.

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Click here for Information about Idaho Shakes, Tahoe Shakes and Great Lakes Shakes.

Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Kurt Rhoads and Nance Williamson

Aug 232022

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Romeo and Juliet; Act 3, Scene 5
Romeo and Juliet
August 23, 2022

After a lifetime in the theatre, what does Shakespeare still have to teach us about life and love? Long-time stage veterans (and real-life couple0 Nance Williamson and Kurt Rhoads take on the titular roles in Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s “age-blind” production of Romeo and Juliet. Having shared the stage together in seventy (70!) productions spanning more than 30 years, they may well be the most seasoned star-crossed young lovers Verona has ever met.

Click here for more information about HVSF.

Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Kevin Rich 2.0

Aug 012022

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The Book of Will
Colorado Shakespeare Festival
August 1, 2022

Who were the men and women who miraculously rescued half of Shakespeare’s plays from being lost forever – and what mystery, tragedy, romance, and drama raged around them as they struggled against greed, politics and their own mortality in order to grant immortality to a few precious words? Kevin Rich and the Colorado Shakespeare Festival (currently celebrating its 65^th season) bring these forgotten heroes vividly to life in Lauren Gunderson’s, The Book of Will, a play about the birth of Shakespeare’s First Folio, which was published seven years after the Bard’s death and which Kevin Rich describes as a “love letter to the Theater”.

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Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

Carl Cofield

Jul 072022

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Twelfth Night
Act 1, Scene 5
July 8, 2022

Something special is happening in Harlem. The Classical Theater of Harlem is bringing its unique brand of Shakespeare to Marcus Garvey Park. Associate Artistic Director Carl Cofield is directing an Afro-Futuristic version of Twelfth Night – complete with VR and the ambient sounds of NYC. Carl stops by to talk about all things Shakespeare, Education and Twelfth Night.

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Artists, Interviews, Podcasts

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