A couple of weeks back, I announced that the weekend of April 23, the Kingsmen Shakespeare Company will be celebrating the death-iversary with what they’re calling “a special, community-inclusive Bard-Day bash to mark the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare’s life and works!”
At that time, I teased not only my participation but that more details would be coming.
And arrive they have!
On Monday, the KSC released a tentative scheduled via their Facebook page:
The festivities will kick off Saturday afternoon at 4pm with a welcome reception, charge on through the night, taking a break–sometime in the middle of the night Saturday, following a reading of Macbeth and some musical works inspired by the Bard–only to ramp back up early Sunday morning with some yoga and rocketing through the day to wrap up 24 hours after the launch with a closing reception.
In between those receptions, there’s much to choose from: a presentation from the Kingsmen Shakespeare Educational Tour, games, interactive workshops, full-play readings (both Macbeth and A Midsummer Night’s Dream–which, by the way, is one of the two productions on tap for this summer’s festival), panel discussions, drama, music, dance and more.
And your humble blog moderator?
Well, after the opening ceremonies, I’ll be delivering a presentation on the role of Time (yep, capital “T”!) in Romeo and Juliet.
Then, later in the evening–and I’m incredibly excited by this–I get to moderate the panel discussion, “All the World’s a Stage? Traditional v. Alternative Stagings for Shakespeare.” We’ll have as part of the panel the directors of both KSC summer productions (Henry V‘s Michael J. Arndt and Midsummer‘s Brett Elliott), and we’re hoping to have some scenic and costume designers as well. This will be more informative (and much more entertaining) hour than that other “v” entertainment out there now (yeah, I’m talking about you “Batfleck v. man-of-wooden-performance“…).
And there’s a third event I may get a chance to participate in, but we’re still working out specifics on that one.
Remember, all of this is happening at Overton Hall on the campus of California Lutheran University, in Thousand Oaks, California. And if you can’t make it, the event will be live streamed at www.callutheran.edu/live.
If you’re too far away, I understand… but you locals, c’mon!