Much Ado About Nothing (the Musical), as it has come to be called, runs through July 11th. If you plan to attend, and I recommend it highly, I suggest you arrive early, because if the crowds of the past two weeks are any indicator, the hill will fill quickly for these final shows.
This has to be the most colorful, riotous, boisterous, and yes, musical Shakespeare production the park has seen in years. The cast is a good mix with veterans like Tom Loughlin as Leonato, Dan Walker as Don Pedro, Tim Newell as Don John and Jim Maloy as Antonio. Loraine O'Donnell anchor a very capable troupe of singers and some wonderful young actors, in particular Adam Rath and Leah Russo, who play the young lovers Claudio and Hero.
John Fredo and Lisa Ludwig (who is also the company's Managing Director) play the immortal Benedict and Beatrice. As one insightful friend declared, "They are perfect leads for Shakespeare as musical comedy."
In the interest of full disclosure, my recommendation does come with a caveat, as this writer also appears in the production (as Friar Francis--I am almost always cast as clergy for some reason, quite unrelated to my actual life). In fact, this writer is not remotely impartial, having appeared in or produced some twenty-five Shakespeare in Delaware Park productions since 1980, including several years as the chairman of the board of directors and a five-year stint as the CEO.
This is the 35th Anniversary Season of Shakespeare in Delaware Park, a huge achievement. When founder Saul Elkin began the festival, back in 1976, The Winter's Tale was produced on a postage-stamp sized stage with simple lights powered on a single electric cord, and with no amplification. Now averaging 50,000 patrons a season, Shakespeare in Delaware Park has grown to become the second best attended free outdoor Shakespeare Festival in the country (after New York's in Central Park). It is also the third oldest, after New York Public's and the Louisville, KY festival. Coincidentally, all three take place in Fredrick Law Olmsted designed parks.
Much Ado is a fitting play for this anniversary season, a perennially popular and easily followed comedy, it also lends itself to song and dance, which to some degree has been included in each of the previous four company productions (1979, 1989, 1997 and 2003).
Director Elkin can take the most casual reference and build an entire Busby Berkley production around the concept. In 1997, Shakespeare's simple (sexual) references to "horns" led to the invention of a wildly popular 1870's "Wild West Texas" production of Much Ado (yours truly played Leonato in that one). This time around, the Bard's reference is "oranges" and Much Ado is suddenly set in an orange grove in the 1940's, and is accompanied by your parent's (or grandparent's) favorite big band hits (with the exception of a show stopping rendition of Aretha Franklin's "RESPECT", belted out by Norm Sham as the bumbling constable, Dogberry. Crazy? Yes. Does it work? Yes).
Outdoor theatre is not indoor theatre, Shakespeare in Delaware Park is not Shakespeare at Stratford, but Shakespeare it is, and much beloved by Buffalo audiences. Some people cannot abide the adaptations of time and place, nor the re-interpretations of characters and story-line, although Elkin's productions always stay largely true to Shakespeare's script. And what a great script Much Ado is, I still laugh out loud at lines I have heard a hundred times.
Some people simply cannot tolerate the distractions of outdoor theatre. I argued for years with Buffalo News Theatre Critic Terry Doran about the virtue of Shakespeare in Delaware Park, but he could never quite get over the occasional barking dog, or the passing ambulance or the jetliner overhead. Admittedly, it can be hard to focus.
But I find it an almost primal experience. There comes a point in the evening, when watching Shakespeare in Delaware Park, sometime just after the intermission, when a sort of hush descends upon the urban landscape, the hustle and bustle of the traffic settles down, the darkness envelops us, the stage lights, set and costumes vibrate with color, the production takes on a magical quality, a kind of gentle extension of Hoyt Lake, suspended in air, floating among the surrounding trees.
It is then one feels transported--hearing the faint strum of a Renaissance troubadour, a strolling feudal minstrel, envisioning the flickering lights of an amphitheater with ancient Greek chorus, a shaman reciting tribal myths before the campfire, and so the lineage extends to the dawn of human language.
Someone once said that live theatre is the last act of community. In so many ways it is, especially outdoor theatre, and especially Shakespeare, whose 400-year-old plays remain a touchstone of Western culture and values.
Sitting on the hillside below the Rose Garden, audiences composed of couples and families, young and old, friends and strangers, all share a communal moment, a fleeting few hours, huddled in the twilight. They watch the actors craft a story in that very moment, just for that moment, like a snowflake which will never be repeated exactly the same way again.
So it has been in Delaware Park for the past 35 years.
Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Saul Elkin, with Theresa Quinn, Musical Director, at Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park, through July 11th.
Followed by Macbeth, July 22nd - August 15th, directed by Eileen Dugan. 7:30 pm every day except Mondays.
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This has to be the most colorful, riotous, boisterous, and yes, musical Shakespeare production the park has seen in years. The cast is a good mix with veterans like Tom Loughlin as Leonato, Dan Walker as Don Pedro, Tim Newell as Don John and Jim Maloy as Antonio. Loraine O'Donnell anchor a very capable troupe of singers and some wonderful young actors, in particular Adam Rath and Leah Russo, who play the young lovers Claudio and Hero.
John Fredo and Lisa Ludwig (who is also the company's Managing Director) play the immortal Benedict and Beatrice. As one insightful friend declared, "They are perfect leads for Shakespeare as musical comedy."
In the interest of full disclosure, my recommendation does come with a caveat, as this writer also appears in the production (as Friar Francis--I am almost always cast as clergy for some reason, quite unrelated to my actual life). In fact, this writer is not remotely impartial, having appeared in or produced some twenty-five Shakespeare in Delaware Park productions since 1980, including several years as the chairman of the board of directors and a five-year stint as the CEO. This is the 35th Anniversary Season of Shakespeare in Delaware Park, a huge achievement. When founder Saul Elkin began the festival, back in 1976, The Winter's Tale was produced on a postage-stamp sized stage with simple lights powered on a single electric cord, and with no amplification. Now averaging 50,000 patrons a season, Shakespeare in Delaware Park has grown to become the second best attended free outdoor Shakespeare Festival in the country (after New York's in Central Park). It is also the third oldest, after New York Public's and the Louisville, KY festival. Coincidentally, all three take place in Fredrick Law Olmsted designed parks.
Much Ado is a fitting play for this anniversary season, a perennially popular and easily followed comedy, it also lends itself to song and dance, which to some degree has been included in each of the previous four company productions (1979, 1989, 1997 and 2003).
Director Elkin can take the most casual reference and build an entire Busby Berkley production around the concept. In 1997, Shakespeare's simple (sexual) references to "horns" led to the invention of a wildly popular 1870's "Wild West Texas" production of Much Ado (yours truly played Leonato in that one). This time around, the Bard's reference is "oranges" and Much Ado is suddenly set in an orange grove in the 1940's, and is accompanied by your parent's (or grandparent's) favorite big band hits (with the exception of a show stopping rendition of Aretha Franklin's "RESPECT", belted out by Norm Sham as the bumbling constable, Dogberry. Crazy? Yes. Does it work? Yes).
Outdoor theatre is not indoor theatre, Shakespeare in Delaware Park is not Shakespeare at Stratford, but Shakespeare it is, and much beloved by Buffalo audiences. Some people cannot abide the adaptations of time and place, nor the re-interpretations of characters and story-line, although Elkin's productions always stay largely true to Shakespeare's script. And what a great script Much Ado is, I still laugh out loud at lines I have heard a hundred times.
Some people simply cannot tolerate the distractions of outdoor theatre. I argued for years with Buffalo News Theatre Critic Terry Doran about the virtue of Shakespeare in Delaware Park, but he could never quite get over the occasional barking dog, or the passing ambulance or the jetliner overhead. Admittedly, it can be hard to focus.
But I find it an almost primal experience. There comes a point in the evening, when watching Shakespeare in Delaware Park, sometime just after the intermission, when a sort of hush descends upon the urban landscape, the hustle and bustle of the traffic settles down, the darkness envelops us, the stage lights, set and costumes vibrate with color, the production takes on a magical quality, a kind of gentle extension of Hoyt Lake, suspended in air, floating among the surrounding trees.
It is then one feels transported--hearing the faint strum of a Renaissance troubadour, a strolling feudal minstrel, envisioning the flickering lights of an amphitheater with ancient Greek chorus, a shaman reciting tribal myths before the campfire, and so the lineage extends to the dawn of human language.
Someone once said that live theatre is the last act of community. In so many ways it is, especially outdoor theatre, and especially Shakespeare, whose 400-year-old plays remain a touchstone of Western culture and values.
Sitting on the hillside below the Rose Garden, audiences composed of couples and families, young and old, friends and strangers, all share a communal moment, a fleeting few hours, huddled in the twilight. They watch the actors craft a story in that very moment, just for that moment, like a snowflake which will never be repeated exactly the same way again.
So it has been in Delaware Park for the past 35 years.
Much Ado About Nothing, directed by Saul Elkin, with Theresa Quinn, Musical Director, at Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park, through July 11th.
Followed by Macbeth, July 22nd - August 15th, directed by Eileen Dugan. 7:30 pm every day except Mondays.
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Neil Garvey,
attorney/actor/writer, is a native East Auroran and 30 year resident of
Buffalo's Elmwood neighborhood. Long involved in the cultural &
civic life of Buffalo, he has served on several theaters & civic
boards, including the Delaware Park Steering Committee. The first board
chair of Shakespeare in Delaware Park, he served as the company's first
CEO and appeared in or produced some 25 Shakespeare plays. Stage credits
include Shea's, Studio Arena, The Kavinoky, The Irish Classical, Road
Less Traveled, and played Santa Claus for the BPO Holiday Pops for the
past eight seasons.
Images courtesy of Shakespeare in Delaware Park
Photography by Christopher Scinta.