Going South? (Or North?)

Dell' Arte in SF and Shaking Up Shakespeare Summer

"The List" in Sunday's SF Chronicle Datebook features a photo from the Dell'Arte production of Artemesia, which plays at the Magic Theatre in San Francisco through June 3. Artemesia premiered in Blue Lake at last summer's Mad River Festival. Www.magictheatre.org.

Also in Sunday's SF Chronicle Datebook, Robert Hurwitt describes several changes in various Shakespeare Festival organizations in and around the Bay Area. He also notes the changes underway for next year at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival:

The biggest changes are in store at the biggest festival of all, Ashland's Oregon Shakespeare Festival, where Artistic Director Libby Appel is stepping down at the end of the season. Her replacement, Bill Rauch, has already shaken things up considerably. As of next season, both popular associate artistic directors, Penny Metropulos and Timothy Bond, will be gone, replaced by designer Christopher Acebo instead of a director. Among many other changes, the old preshow Green Show has been outsourced. Perhaps most significant for the future is Rauch's complete overhaul of the festival's new-play development programs and, judging by his plans for '08, an increased emphasis on Asian and Latino works.

This article leads into a listing of "Shakespeare in the Bay Area" this summer. For North Coasters who saw North Coast Rep's recent production of Henry IV Part 1, it's worth noting that the play will be done in August at Marin Shakespeare Company, along with Part 2. (Details at www.marinshakespeare.org.)

Hurwitt notes that the most popular play this season is Macbeth, with a total of 5 Bay Area productions this spring and summer. A few months ago, when I was watching the second season of Slings and Arrows which deals with their production of the Scottish play at around the same time that I saw two old docus on Ian McKellen and Judi Dench, I was inspired to check out the old Peter Hall production of MacBeth starring those two great actors. (There is actually a restored version of this video with some sort of commentary by McKellen, but I saw the earlier VHS from the HSU library.) It was a fascinating production, all the more to me because I performed in the play in college. I played the Thane of Ross (and doubled some other characters) who of course is the fulcrum of the play. When Ross changes sides, it's decisive. Uh huh. Anyway, I was a little taken aback to see that the actor playing Ross in that production was Ian McDiarmid, later to achieve fame as the evil Emperor in the Star Wars movies.

In our Knox College production, I had an early scene with Richard Hoover, who played King Duncan. Hoover went on to become a production designer in Hollywood, for the classic Twin Peaks, the current series Numbers, and other TV shows and feature films.