Pity the poor person who has to read this play and try and make sense of it. That would be me in college.One of the problems is that there are so many rapid reversals of fortune, emotion and loyalty. But the appreciation of this play is in the doing of it not the reading. This production made it all clear and electrifying.Surrounded by her adoring bookends Cleopatra’s animated face, gestures and body language make her instantaneous changes of mood very believable, seductive and curiously modern.Later in the show Antony enters exulting in triumph in battle and in the very next scene enters in despair of defeat. By now the audience has been conditioned to the compression of time and it works beautifully.Special kudos for Enorbarbus for his masterful performance in his soliloquies which are themselves a play within the play echoing the themes of frail humanity caught up in grand historical events.

OMG! Shakespeare must be smiling down on Forest Meadows at the conversion of our three ‘cursed’ scoffers into enthusiastically ‘obedient’ applauders last Friday night (following the world-class Rat Girl and her Cirque du Sewer warm up act) at the Taming of the Shrew.My son actually said, “Thank you, Mom, for taking me to see this!” after the show. Now when he reads the play this year in 9th grade, he will have seen it as Will meant it to be enjoyed. Thank you, thank you, thank you one and all for your fine efforts on the boards.Kudos to ‘Cap’n Jack Petruchio’ for a brilliant layered performance.I only wish my son’s entire English class could come and see your show. Many thanks to everyone!!

We love Stoppard and have seen Travesties, a few times—from ACT to Ashland. So . . . I was a little apprehensive. No need! This was a stellar performance. Bravo to all the “stars”—actors, stagehands, director, set and costume people. We look forward to the rest of the season.

We attended last nite’s preview performance and thoroughly enjoyed the evening!  This is our 3rd year of attending your performances, and they are great!  Thank you!

I saw the preview of “Travesties night” - thoroughly enjoyed it. Bravo to William Elsman in his part as Henry Carr. What a performance. I think he should be more singled out at time of bows. Cast should part or stand back so he can get the recognition due.Well done by all.

I enjoyed the word play as well as the bouncing around of both ideas and people in “Travesties”.I am amazed at the abilities of the actors to memorize so much; however, the play is too long.

Wow!  I had not seen this classic performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream by the Fab Four.  Yes, it’s really the boys performing…  Enjoy!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=y24geONER0k&feature=related

Aargghhh!  It’s our season of pirates!!  We are excitedly working to put together our shows: building sets, sewing costumes, learning lines, rehearsing fights and dances.

“The Taming of the Shrew” will be set in a “Pirates of the Caribbean” world, with sea shanties, cutlases, and a plank Kate might have to walk if she continues to be such a shrew!

“Antony and Cleopatra” needs no pirates added — Pompey and his men, who would like to overthrow Mark Antony, Octavius Caesar and Lepidus and seize control of the world for themselves are called “famous pirates.”  The action in “Antony and Cleopatra” includes great sea battles as powerful forces clash.  Love and marriage complicate things for Antony as personal and political desires contend with each other and Cleopatra beckons Antony away from his responsibilities in Rome, and back to the luxurious excesses of Egypt.

There are no pirates in Tom Stoppard’s “Travesties,” which is set in land-locked Zurich during World War I as James Joyce tries to mount a production of “The Importance of Being Earnest” while Vladimir Lenin schemes to return to Russia for the revolution, and Tristan Tzara creates Dada poetry.  But then, in a world of surrealism, futurism and Dada, anything goes.

Our summer camps began today, June 21.  Eleven Acting Interns and seven Technical Theatre Interns are learning and participating in the summer productions.  Our Shakespeare at San Quentin program is continuing for a seventh year with a performance of “Romeo and Juliet” later this month.  We’re planning arts education programs in the schools for the Fall.  It’s all happening.  Come join us!

See you soon at Forest Meadows!

Lesley Currier

Dear All:

Now that our season is finally over — including our quickest ever strike (I picked trash and screws out of the gravel backstage for two hours yesterday while Bob and Mark shoved the last of the heavy things into the trailers) — with the cloud-capped towers and solemn temples all dissolved, I wanted to thank you all for being part of our extraordinary 20th season celebration, a season we will always remember as our “summer of love.”

The summer culminated Saturday with a gorgeous and heartfelt wedding ceremony for the new Mr. and Mrs. William Elsman, complete with prayers of thankfulness, heaps of gratitude for both sets of parents, sage and magic rocks, tears and laughter, and of course some rock-and-roll drumming.  As Bill might have said, these guys really hit it out of the park.  Indeed!  Bill and Alex were beat to the punch by Barry and Jessica, who tied the knot — at Trader Joe’s ! — the week before.  (Imagine how happy my inner yenta is to have had a hand in bringing both of these couples together.)  I never heard Orsino say “here is my hand” or Caesar refer to “my wife” (knowing he’d rehearsed the scene often with Jessica) without thinking of the masses of true love swirling about Forest Meadows like the worst of the wind.

Each of the productions was superb.  Each of you were a joy to work with.  Amazingly (in this economy) our audiences were up by a whopping 12% over last summer, and were 6% higher than our previous high water mark.  Almost 11,000 people attended the shows this summer.

Everyone is asking what we’ll be doing next summer.  It’s difficult for us to decide quite yet, because we are still so in love with this summer we don’t quite want to let it go and move on to the next year’s projects.  But as the memories linger on, we’re also considering many options for next year.  We’d like to try to replicate the joy, the fun, the excitement, and the high quality of this year’s productions.  We’ll be trying to figure out how to do that, hoping that many of you will be back to play and work with us again next year.  (Bob is open to suggestions — but he’ll be traveling off-road through Baja for the next three weeks, deeply meditating (when sober) on how to create another power-house season, I’m sure.)  Expect an official announcement sometime in November.

Meanwhile, please share our pride in an amazing season.  Please share our gratitude for the opportunity to create with such talented, funny, sexy, honest, smart, hard-working and dedicated colleagues.

Thanks, thanks, and ever thanks.  The weather still continues charming.  And let slip the dogs of…something…

(imagine confetti cannons here and your favorite beatles tune)

Peace and love,

Lesley (and Bob)

To my great pleasure, I attended the final 2009 performance of Julius Caesar in addition to the pre-show supper.  This morning I read Barry Kraft’s reflections on playing Julius Caesar and his desire to have the audience, leave pondering the thought: “Do evil so that good will result, and see what happens”. Kraft succeeded. A superb Caesar with a superb cast and direction!!  Jay Karnes infused Brutus’ complexity with honor, dignity, empathy.  Jack Powell’s Cassius and William Elsman’s Mark Antony delivered their roles with character, emotion, and depth, well balanced counter weights to Kraft’s Caesar and Karnes’ Brutus. I found myself totally focused on the fine performances of these talented actors not wanting the final scene to come.