No Will? No way! Fans bemoan lack of Shakespeare title at Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
About a decade ago, not long before Davis McCallum took over as artistic director of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, a new festival logo was unveiled, one that featured the word "Shakespeare" upside down and backwards.
"Marketing," some longtime observers sniffed. Why put Shakespeare — the very reason for the festival — on his head?
As the festival's 2024 season approaches, longtime patrons are scratching their heads again and wondering whether the bard's name belongs in that logo at all. For the first time in its 37-year history, no Shakespeare title appears on the season calendar.
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Instead, the 2024 festival that kicks off June 11 includes:
“Medea: Re-Versed,” a battle-rap, hip-hop version of the story of the murderess mother Medea. It is written by Luis Quintero and co-conceived and directed by Nathan Winkelstein;
“The Murder of Roger Ackroyd,” an Agatha Christie story featuring Hercule Poirot, adapted by Heidi Armbruster and directed by Ryan Quinn;
“By the Queen,” a work that deconstructs two Shakespeare plays, “Richard III and “Henry VI,” to focus on the perspective of Queen Margaret. Written by Whitney White, it will be directed by Shana Cooper.
The season announcement left some fans of the festival disappointed and upset, and venting on Facebook.
Retired Ardsley High School theater teacher Flori Carlin Doyle wrote: “Nice to see new works but it is the Hudson Valley SHAKESPEARE Festival. Will has fans. Disappointed there isn’t a Shakespeare play this season! What a marvelous opportunity HVSF traditionally provides to both devoted and new audiences. To appreciate a play by Shakespeare is a gift!”
Doyle added that she loved the concept of “By the Queen,” but said: “Let’s keep HVSF true to the original conception of theater for the Hudson Valley. … I long for well done, professional productions of classical theater, especially Shakespeare.”
'That's why we go'
Several fans bemoaned the lack of a Shakespeare title and pointed out that the festival has a tradition of presenting a drama and a comedy and another non-Shakespeare work. That balance between old and new, they pointed out, gave them their Shakespeare and expanded their theatrical horizons. This season, they said, was a step too far.
Kendra Parker, who noted she had worked at the festival twice, decried the season’s departure from the mix of modern and classics. She wrote: “Ratio should go back to two Shakespeare, one modern. That’s why we go.”
The festival’s social media team has been answering each response, hoping to spin disappointment into attendance. Even Winkelstein, who’ll direct the hip-hop “Medea: Re-Versed,” engaged with one patron, Natalia Nehring, of Ridgewood, New Jersey, asking her to give his work a look.
“As a Shakespeare fanatic I totally appreciate the passion on this chat steam (sic) for seeing his work and I also hope you might be thrilled by this newer verse work as well!” Winkelstein wrote.
Asked about the season lineup and the response from patrons, McCallum, the artistic director, offered a statement.
“For many years, we’ve had strong positive reactions to new work from both longtime fans of the festival and newer audiences," McCallum said. "Shakespeare and other classics are very present in this season but, regardless of how much original text is used, reinvention and reimagining have long been a major part of presenting classic work to audiences at HVSF. I hope audiences will take the leap with us this summer, and we've had a strong early response at the box office."
'Hudson Valley Living American Playwright Festival'
When Matthew Conroy, a longtime subscriber from Pawling, said he’d be sitting the 2024 season out, unable to understand the rationale for the season lineup, the festival staff responded.
“Many theater artists had their opportunities to create plays disrupted or reduced during the last few years," wrote a member of the festival's social media team. "We see producing plays by brilliant, living, American playwrights — while retaining Shakespeare as our touchstone — as part of the path towards engaging the widest possible audience in a theatrical celebration of our shared humanity. We hope you decide to join us this summer!”
Parker suggested a rebranding, to: “Hudson Valley Living American Playwright Festival.”
On Facebook, Celesti Colds Fechter asked, simply: "No Shakespeare?" The festival staff responded that "By the Queen" "invites our audience to experience Shakespeare's story of the War of the Roses through the lens of Queen Margaret, the ultimate survivor in a country coming apart at the seams." To which Fechter replied: "Why not experience Shakespeare through Shakespeare?"
Doing Shakespeare as Shakespeare
Conroy, in an interview, said he and his wife had made Hudson Valley Shakespeare a regular part of their summers for years, often seeing up to three productions a summer. They’d make a night of it, traveling from Pawling to spread out on the lawn at Boscobel with neighbors and friends who came up from the city.
“We went five years in a row,” Conroy said, “but we haven’t been to their new location. I was really looking forward to checking it out this summer.”
Until he saw that the 2024 season didn’t include a single Shakespeare original. Conroy said he's open to new things, theatrically, mentioning he had just seen "Dead Outlaw" Off-Broadway and that he's a regular at the Irish Rep.
"I'm open to whatever they want to do in addition to Shakespeare," Conroy said. "I was just astounded that there's no actual Shakespeare. I know that they've said on their website that one of the productions is kind of an adaptation or reimagining of various pieces of Shakespeare."
But that's not what he's interested in, he said.
"There's a tendency with a lot of theater companies now, like 'We don't just want to do Shakespeare. We have to think outside the box and do it in some crazy way, or reimagine it or have somebody rewrite the whole thing,'" Conroy said.
"What I like about Hudson Valley Shakespeare is they do Shakespeare as Shakespeare, with a modern sensibility. But it wasn't because they were tearing up the script and writing it in a whole new way. It was because the way they were presenting it had a modern sensibility to it, either modern dress or they'd have something that was more relatable for modern audiences. But within the context of Shakespeare without creating something new."
Conroy continued: "I kind of looked at it again and I'm like, 'Well, maybe I just need to look a little closer and this will interest me.' And I looked at it and I'm like, 'No. There's enough other theater and other things going on in the Hudson Valley. I could go to Caramoor and see some music. I could go to Hartford Stage. I'm just going to use those dollars elsewhere this year and then see what they're doing next year."
An important year
That sentiment will not be music to the ears of artistic director McCallum or members of the festival board.
This is an important year for the festival, which is in its third season at its new home on gifted land in Garrison. Philanthropist Chris Davis donated 98 acres to the festival, facilitating a move from its longtime home at Boscobel. New York state earmarked a $10 million grant. Sen. Chuck Schumer secured COVID-era grants to keep the lights on.
The festival has unveiled ambitious (and expensive) plans for a permanent theater on a hilltop overlooking the Hudson.
The proposal has been working its way through governmental review by Putnam County, as well as Philipstown's Town Board, Planning Board and Conservation Board. The town board recently amended the town code to permit a Garrison Cultural Conservation Planned Development District, after hearing pros and cons from fans of the festival and from neighbors concerned about noise, traffic and the future viability of the Shakespeare festival.
If the theater project is permitted to move forward, a capital campaign awaits, including an opportunity for a deep-pocketed donor to put their name on the new pavilion theater, scheduled to open in 2026. But what will they be buying? A space for a Shakespeare festival or for new works? Is the 2024 season an aberration or a sign of things to come?
McCallum spoke to that in his statement.
"To be clear, this season doesn’t represent a strategic or philosophical change in our mission or focus," he said. "We’re not backing away from Shakespeare, in fact we have several really thrilling Shakespeare titles on the boards for upcoming seasons. This year’s lineup is simply a result of the fact that we had the opportunity to produce three once-in-a-lifetime projects in 2024 that we love and we believe our audiences will, too.”
Still, they could have picked a better year to skip a Shakespeare title. This summer is also the first in 62 years when the Delacorte Theater, home to the Public Theater's Shakespeare in the Park, will be closed for renovations. This might have been just the summer to draw New York City Shakespeare lovers to Garrison.
The Public will send a bilingual production of "The Comedy of Errors" on a tour of the boroughs, with extended stays at Hudson Yards and Bryant Park. And it will screen a PBS-filmed version of its 2019 production of "Much Ado About Nothing" throughout the city.
Whether Shakespeare fans, bereft of the Delacorte this summer and needing a Shakespeare fix, will head north for a hip-hop "Medea" or Agatha Christie or a new take on Queen Margaret remains to be seen.
'HVSF ceased to exist'
The festival is such a summer fixture for theatergoers across the Hudson Valley, with decades of memories tied to pre-show picnics and compelling performances, that this summer's Shakespeare-less season has hit some patrons hard.
Natalia Nehring, the longtime patron who engaged with the "Medea" director on Facebook, has been going to the festival for more than 20 years. She gets wistful and borderline spiritual talking about making the pilgrimage from Ridgewood up the Palisades Parkway to the Bear Mountain Bridge and north on Route 9D to the fresh country air of Boscobel and, now, Garrison.
To Nehring, a native Russian, the festival has not recovered from the 2013 departure of founding artistic director Terrence O’Brien, for whom Nehring has boundless respect and admiration.
“HVSF ceased to exist. The new company cannot be blamed — they are a different entity altogether, different kind of a theater — with unrelated creative methods, concepts and goals," Nehring said. "They must rename themselves and define themselves publicly, so that their spectators/customers may have clear expectations.
"I do not expect them to thrill me with new unabridged Shakespeare productions, because they are not exactly thrilled to produce them,” she said.
Flori Doyle — the retired theater teacher, actor and director — while dismayed by the lack of a Shakespeare title, will return to the festival tent this summer, nonetheless.
"I would never not go," she said. "I love the performers, and I have a friend in it."
Others are taking it harder, mourning a loss. Nathaniel B. Davis might have summed that mood up best.
"I always tell people there are two places for great Shakespeare: The Globe Theatre and HVSF," he wrote. "Now there is only one."
Shakespeare, elsewhere
Meanwhile, summer Shakespeare lives on at Rockland Shakespeare Company on the campus of SUNY Rockland in Suffern, which marks its 27th season with "Macbeth" and a production that co-founder Christopher Plummer called "a darker take on 'A Midsummer Night's Dream.'"
While most of its 26 years have meant Shakespeare under the stars — and under the elements — outside the SUNY Rockland Cultural Arts Theater, in recent years, RSC moved some productions inside the theater. Plummer said the location of this summer's offerings is yet to be determined. Performances will be at 7 p.m., July 12-14 and July 18-20.
"But either way, there will be free Shakespeare produced at the Cultural Arts Theatre for the community," he said.
Reach Peter D. Kramer at pkramer@gannett.com.
This article originally appeared on Rockland/Westchester Journal News: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival's lack of originals upsets patrons
