Click for a complete schedule: This Week at GRSF
Join us for the 4th of July
After the 3pm performance of The Tempest (buy tickets), join us for a free concert by Charile Parr, grilling on the green, Jonathan Gillard Daly reading The Declaration of Independence and more. (read more)
Mark your calendar:
July 3rd: Glorious Revolution Baroque returns to GRSF for a free Prelude Concert titled “The Sweet Smoke of Retoric.” (read more)
July 12th: The Frozen River Film Festival on the Front Porch: American Outrage and Ride of the Mergansers followed by a discussion. (read more)
July 13th: Special Benefit Performance: The Daly News: Festival favorite Jonathan Gillard Daly (Prospero) presents his original play, a true story of his own family history during World War II. (read more)
What kind of madman would write a play that requires the audience
to read a dozen books in advance? Come as you are; you’ll be fine.”
-Tom Stoppard
If you are reading this website, you probably already know that Shakespeare is for everyone. You may know that he wrote plays that sold tickets to illiterate peasants and to educated nobles. You have seen that the language doesn’t need changing, the plays don’t need dumbing down: any fourth grader can understand Shakespeare done well - no preparation required.
Not everyone has taken that leap. What do you say to those who think that Shakespeare is only for the elite? Or to those who fear they would be bored? This summer at GRSF, we have two great comedies: while we may spend an entire evening debating the placement of a colon, you needn’t be such a nerd. If we’ve done our work (and we have), you need only listen. In that spirit, here is what you don’t need to know to laugh away a summer’s evening at GRSF:
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“To make a virtue of necessity…”
-Two Gentlemen of Verona
This season at GRSF, we are trying to do more with less, and we need your help. While we have little money to buy ads, we still need to fill our theater. Luckily, we have what wealthier advertisers dream of: you, an audience that knows our work, loves what we do and will recommend it to their friends. At least, that is what we hope. Our budget makes it a necessity for us to ask your help in promoting our plays.
Nothing gets people to the theater like friends telling friends to see a show. There simply is no more powerful marketing tool. If you are grateful to whoever first brought you to the theater, if you are thankful that someone convinced you that Shakespeare is for you, or if you’d just rather see GRSF plays in a full theater, then tell your friends. You may awaken in them an appetite they never knew they had.
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You’ve been backing a winner.
We recently received word from the National Endowment for the Arts that GRSF would receive a $10,000 grant in support of our 2009 season production of The Tempest. Although the award is only one third of our request for funding, the fact that we received anything at all on our very first application to the Endowment is an unusual and noteworthy accomplishment.
Jim Volz, President, Consultants for the Arts and one of the founding members of the Shakespeare Theatre Association of America (STAA) said this when he heard the news: “Few Shakespeare Festivals have received NEA funding in such record time and, of course, many are never recognized with this national stamp of artistic approval. It is certainly an indicator of artistic integrity, administrative stability and a growing awareness of the joys of Shakespeare in Winona, Minnesota!”
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Are you a fan of the sonnet, or are you just curious about the oldest form of modern poetry? Winona’s Poet Laureate, Jim Armstrong, and the Shakespeare Festival’s Alec Wild invite you to come down to the Book Shelf/Blue Heron Coffee house on Friday, May 8 at 7 pm for an evening of sonnet appreciation.
Armstrong will talk briefly about the structure and history of the sonnet and will read fresh examples of sonnets new and old which he has been collecting over the past year. Wild will talk about Shakespeare’s interest in the sonnet; both will also read some of the winning sonnets from last year’s Great River Shakespeare Festival City-Wide Sonnet Contest, which saw over 50 entrants writing nearly 80 sonnets. In addition, everyone is encouraged to bring a favorite sonnet to share. It should be a fun evening of sonneteering for everyone who shows up. The event is free and open to the public. Refreshments will be available. RSVP The Book Shelf.
For more about the contest or to enter online click here.
ROCHESTER, Minn— The Great River Shakespeare Festival will sponsor an organizational social event at the Rochester Public Library on Monday, May 4th at 7p.m. Associate Director and acting company member Doug Scholz-Carlson will give a preview of the upcoming season and GRSF Board member Karen Fawcett will talk about volunteer opportunities. In addition to offering ways to get involved in the Festival, the event will provide a chance to connect with other Shakespeare lovers. [click to continue…]
“The most melancholy thing about human nature, is, that a man may guide others into the path of salvation, without walking in it himself; that he may be a pilot, and yet a castaway.” — Augustus William Hare and Julius Charles Hare, Guesses at Truth by Two Brothers, 1827.
I think it was P.G. Wodehouse who said — and let’s face it, there isn’t any way on this good green earth that I’m going to haul myself up the long stairs to examine my concordances on the matter, if I had any concordances on the works of Pelhman Granville W., which I’m very sure I do not — but as I was saying, I think it was P.G. Wodehouse who said, or wrote rather, that one should never apologize: the right sort of people never require apologies, and the wrong sort of people take mean advantage of them. [click to continue…]
. . . and the 2009 Season.
Over the last five years, you’ve built one of the finest Shakespeare Festivals in the United States. You’ve been volunteers, individual donors, corporate sponsors, and playgoers (many for the first time). Without you, we never would have come this far.
Now, we need to ask for your help once again. The global financial crisis has crippled arts funding in this country, and has forced many of our generous sponsors and donors to curtail or cancel their gifts. GRSF, in anticipation of our funding challenges this year, has cut $100,000.00 from this season’s budget. [click to continue…]
