Last weekend I went on my favorite Minnesota theater vacay -
Great River Shakespeare Festival in lovely riverside Winona! But
my 8th visit to Minnesota's only Shakespeare festival is even more exciting this year. It's the first time I've attended opening weekend, and it's not just any opening weekend, it's the opening of their new space in the historic Masonic Temple, known as
The ARC. After a couple of decades of performing in Winona State University's theater, they now have their own space with everything and everyone under one roof - office space, design and costume shop, rehearsal space, and the theater itself. My fellow
Twin Cities Theater Bloggers (
Minnesota Theater Love and
The Stages of Minnesota) and I were thrilled to celebrate this milestone with them, and of course enjoy some great Shakespeare that is, as always at GRSF, clear, accessible, playful, inventive, and engaging.
The festival continues through July 27, with performances Wednesdays through Sundays, typically with two shows on Fridays and Saturdays, so it's possible to drive down for the day (a lovely two-hour drive along the river) and see both shows. Or stay one night, or two, or extend your stay to enjoy the many recreational offerings in Winona (
a fantastic art museum, incredible hiking in the river bluffs, great restaurants, cute shops). My favorite place to stay is
Carriage House B&B, just down the street from The ARC and within walking distance of downtown. Or if you're looking for a luxury boutique hotel experience, check out the brand new
Hotel 44 North right on the river. GRSF is a special place, and this is an exciting time for them as they embark on a new chapter in a new home that they can tailor to meet the needs of the company and the community, which includes both local residents and everyone who attends a show or event at GRSF.
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| the theater space in The ARC (photo credit: @cherryandspoon) |
When we arrived in Winona, we got a personal tour of The ARC from Artistic Director Doug Scholz-Carlson. It's a labyrinthian building with multiple floors, stairways, rooms, and hidden compartments holding treasures from the long residence of the Masons. This gorgeous (and possibly haunted) building dates to 1908, and was built for the Masons to do their secret Mason things, which apparently included theatrical performances. The city of Winona bought the building in 1979, and since 2017 when the Masons moved out, they have
worked to turn it into a center for Arts, Recreation, and Culture (aka ARC). GRSF took over management of the building last fall, and partners with other local arts organizations who also use the space. The ground floor houses the box office, gift shop, and a large gathering space. On the second floor of the building is the historic theater space, a stage flanked by giant organ pipes (not currently in working order), with murals and vintage light fixtures on the surrounding walls. There is comfortable seating on risers, as well a few rows in the balcony, with long-term plans to one day build a thrust stage and new seating, along with improving the lobby and backstage space. But the building is perfectly functional and beautifully historic as is, with potential to turn it into something even better and support the long-term growth of GRSF and other arts organizations in the area. I look forward to watching it blossom over the coming years.
This year GRSF is presenting two of Shakespeare's plays, one of the most commonly produced and one of the least, and has employed an eight-person company of talented actors from near and far, all of whom appear in both plays and play multiple characters in each. The directors and designers have not only fully embraced the new space, but used it as a source of inspiration. The set and costume design feature pieces they found in the building left over from the Masons, as well as items from past GRSF productions, connecting the past to the present and future of the space.
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| photo credit: Dan Norman |
We began the theater portion of the weekend with the Saturday opening night of
Pericles, Prince of Tyre. It's one of Shakespeare's lesser produced plays, and
believed to be only partly written by him. I've only seen it twice, both in 2016,
at the Guthrie and Ten Thousand Things. It's one of those plays that is difficult to classify because it encompasses comedy as well as tragedy. It can also be tricky to stage, as it includes incest, human trafficking, shipwrecks, pirates, and people coming back from supposed death. But in the hands of GRSF and director Shaun Patrick Tubbs, making his debut at GRSF, it works, and is a compelling story. It helps that the play includes a prologue before every act that lets us know where we are in this island-hopping story, who we're checking in on, and what the situation is. GRSF Co-Associate Artistic Director Melissa Maxwell delivers these prologues in a conversational way, with inflections and facial expressions telling us what she really thinks. Our hero Pericles is played by #TCTheater artist William Sturdivant in his 7th season with GRSF, playing all of the pathos of this man who finds love only to lose it, and then unexpectedly get it back again. The plot spans multiple locations and decades, with marriages, deaths, kidnappings, and glorious reunions that (almost?) make all of the pain worth it. It's both funny (with a hilarious performance by longtime company member Tarah Flanagan as a bawd) and poignant, as it's ultimately about the undying love of family.
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| photo credit: Dan Norman |
A Midsummer Night's Dream opened Friday night, but we saw the following Sunday matinee before heading home.
Midsummer just may be my favorite Shakespeare play, and it definitely is one that I've seen the most (
including just a few weeks ago, and at
my first GRSF in 2018). But I'm always happy to see it again, and this production is utterly charming, with breathlessly physical scenes in the woods as the four lovers chase each other around. Director Doug Scholz-Carlson leans into the play-within-a-play storyline that features artists making art with what they have available to them, and also the history of the building, setting it in the 1910s, as if we're time-traveling back to the opening of the space. This is a play you might want to see twice, because company members William Sturdivant and Tarah Flanagan swap roles every other performance, with one play Bottom (the one that gets turned into an ass) and the other play Quince (director of the rude mechanicals). We saw Will as a very funny and pompous Bottom, with Tarah as the fastidious director, and I hear it's a very different experience to see it the other way around. Melissa Maxwell reigns as both the Queen of the fairies and the mortals, and longtime company member Michael Fitzpatrick plays Puck as a player piano man, literally sitting behind the piano and pretending to play, and also playing these foolish mortals as if they were mere keys under his fingers. He even uses his magic to make the mechanical's play better, a surprising and lovely touch I've not seen before. The four lovers Annie Barbour, Benjamin Boucvalt, Diana Coates, and Dharma Wyatt are all so charming and funny, particularly in the sparring-in-the-woods scenes, getting more and more disheveled as they wrestle and toss each other around. The play begins and ends with the entire company on stage as they don their characters to tell the story, and then remove them in Puck's final speech, slowly waking us out of the dream and delivering us back to reality.
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| photo credit: Dan Norman |
The two plays share a performance space and design team, but each has a distinct look. Much of
Pericles is set on or near the sea, and we learned in the Sunday morning Company Conversation (which they hold every Sunday of the festival, featuring different guests and topics), theaters used to be commonly built by shipbuilders, so they really leaned into that with the design. The stage is open to the historic walls, the floor painted to look like the deck of a ship, with the curling bow and stern of a ship added on either side, populated with three elegant and simple sails, a stark bare tree, and lots of crates, boxes, and other flotsam and jetsam. The organ pipes on either side have smaller stages underneath, creating additional performance spaces that are well used in both plays.
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| photo credit: Dan Norman |
For
Midsummer they were able to incorporate the theater's historic painted drops that were found in the building, and I was stunned at just how beautiful they are in person. A pastoral scene gives way to the woods, with partial pieces added in front of it to create a three-dimensional look, including trees and a garden. The drops glow as if from within under the lighting design, changing colors and revealing hidden depths. These historic pieces are rare gems, almost worth the drive to Winona alone, and they work so perfectly in this show. The stage also features pop-up footlights, and what sounds like a very cramped and slightly creepy trap space beneath the stage, used sparingly and to great effect.
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| photo credit: Dan Norman |
The
Midsummer costumes fit the 1910s aesthetic, with sepia-toned trousers, slim skirts, and period-appropriate hats, with charmingly makeshift pieces added for the fairies and the play-within-the-play, including a fantastic lion's mane made out of paintbrushes that we got to see up close and personal. The
Pericles costumes are more classical, with tunics and capes and skirts over pants, also with clever pieces that allow for quick changes between characters. (Scenic and props design by Karl Gfall, costume design by John Merrit, lighting design by Avery Reagan and Co-Associate Artistic Director Lonnie Rafael Alcaraz, sound design by Matthew Tibbs.)
If you're a theater fan who's never been to a theater festival, you owe it to yourself to experience it.
American Players Theatre in Spring Green, Wisconsin just deservedly won the regional theater Tony Award, and I'll be
going back for my 4th visit this fall. But Great River Shakespeare Festival is right here in Minnesota and has also been doing great work for decades, with a shorter drive from the Twin Cities and a more intimate community feel. A theater festival is a great opportunity to get away from the grind of daily life and the endless and endlessly horrifying news cycle, with no distractions of home, and just immerse yourself in theater and community. GRSF's offerings really create that community feel, including Thursday night post-show discussions, Friday and Saturday night post-show ice cream socials, Sunday morning Company Conversations, pre-show performances by the apprentice company, and more.
All details can be found on their website.
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have theater blog, will travel!
Rob (The Stages of MN), Carol and Julie (MN Theater Love),
Jill (Cherry & Spoon), and Micky (plus one) |
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