Great River Shakespeare Festival
{ 0 comments }
Watch this page. We’ll add a company member a day and let you know what they are playing in 2010.
Kate Mazzola
Kate Mazzola returns to play Bianca in Othello and Luciana in The Comedy of Errors. Here she is in last season’s Love’s Labour’s Lost playing Catherine (with Shanara Gabrielle, Tarah Flanagan and Nicole Rodenburg directed by Paul Barnes). She also played Juno in The Tempest.
David Rudi Utter
Rudi returns to GRSF for his third season to play Gratiano in Othello and Dr. Pinch in The Comedy of Errors. Rudi came to GRSF straight from St. Olaf College as a member of the Apprentice Actor Training Program. He’s played Leonardo in The Merchant of Venice, Curtis in The Taming of the Shrew, Costard in Love’s Labour’s Lost and the Boatswain in The Tempest. In this photo, he plays Brutus in Julius Caesar directed by Rick Barbour for the Intern/Apprentice Project.
Evan Fuller
Evan, seen here playing Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew with Bob Fairbrooke and Michael Fitzpatrick (directed by Alec Wild), returns for his 5th season at GRSF. He’ll play the Clown in Othello and Nell/Luce in The Comedy of Errors. Yes, you read that right, he’ll be our first performer in drag at GRSF since Dan Colman’s Flute/Thisbe in A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and there are more surprises to come in Comedy. Evan started his GRSF career in the Apprentice Actor Training Program playing Orlando in As You Like It. He returned the next year to intern as a voice and text coach, and then joined the acting company in 2008 to play Tranio in The Taming of the Shrew and Solanio in The Merchant of Venice. Last season, he was Adrian in The Tempest and Moth in Love’s Labour’s Lost.
See the others we’ve post so far: Stephanie Lambourn, Brian White, David Coral, Erik Paulson, Corey Allen, Andrew Carlson, Shanara Gabrielle, Michael Fitzpatrick, Doug Scholz-Carlson, Tarah Flanagan, Christopher Gerson and Jonathan Gillard Daly:
[click to continue…]
{ 3 comments }
Chris Gerson’s latest video featuring GRSF Company Members Chris Gerson, Tarah Flanagan, David Graham Jones, Zachary Michael Fine and Nick Abeel with photos of Carla Noack, Michael Fitzpatrick, Kim Martin-Cotten, Chris Mixon, Marcus Trushinski, Shanara Gabrielle, Heidi Armbruster, Jonathan Gillard Daly, Laura Coover, Jacques Roy, Andrew Carlson, Brian Frederick, Dan Coleman, Rex Young, Kern McFadden and more.
Visit our new YouTube channel at www.youtube.com/user/GreatRiverShakes
{ 0 comments }
Get your tickets now: GRSF.org/tickets
Thanks to all who were at Signatures for the Season Preview Event.
See more photos on our Facebook page. While there, become a fan, let us know what you think and add your own photos to our new Fan Photo section.
The Winona Post: “It’s official: Winona loves the Great River Shakespeare Festival. The annual Season Preview event at Visions Event Center used to be a diminutive affair years ago when the festival was just starting out. But Sunday, at the preview of season seven, more than 200 people flooded into the banquet hall to welcome back producers and hear what is in store for 2010.” (read more)
The Rochester Post Bulletin: “The season of change is upon us. No, not just spring, but also the Great River Shakespeare Festival, which is about to embark on some of the biggest changes in its seven-year history.” (read more)
Winona Daily News: “It’s still more than three months until the curtain rises, but anticipation for the seventh season of the Great River Shakespeare Festival is already building.” (read more)
{ 0 comments }
One more week, one more show.
Two by Shakespeare, one by Daly.
A comedy, a tragedy, a musical.
The green-eye’d monster
Boys lost at sea. Brothers found at home
A whore. A wife. An abbess. A handkerchief.
Visitors to a new land.
News from the front. News from home.
Sons and Fathers
Sins and Forgiveness
Swindles
Schemes
Slyness
Guile.
Venice.
Cyprus.
Elvis.
The Tragedy of Othello, The Comedy of Errors, The Daly News
June 23 through August 1, 2010.
{ 2 comments }
Chris Gerson
 Kim Martin-Cotten 
Zachary Michael Fine
 Tarah Flanagan  Doug Scholz-Carlson |
|
|
|
{ 0 comments }
I’m writing from Boca Raton, Florida, where I’ve spent the last two days (with one more to go), meeting faculty and talking to students in the theatre department at Florida Atlantic University, watching auditions and rehearsals, and enjoying the delicious January weather in south Florida before heading your way: Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to be precise, where I begin rehearsals for “Duet for One” at Milwaukee Chamber Theatre on January 25. I can’t help but anticipate the winter weather I know all too well from time in the Upper Midwest (and with which I’ll soon collide), but am trying hard not to let those apprehensions diminish the enjoyment of my time here. [click to continue…]
{ 0 comments }
Let’s admit it, last year at this time we were pretty desperate. We cut our budget to the bone. Even so, our fund raising goals looked impossible. The economy was in the tank, many foundations and major donors were cutting back. The one hopeful sign for GRSF was the steady stream of gifts from individuals. By some standards, the gifts were small, but together they added up to almost $80,000. It was the one area of funding that actually increased from 2008. We cut some salaries, worked longer hours, got creative and together we weathered the storm.
This fall, major donors noticed that vote of confidence from the community. We have new grants from the Kelly Foundation and the Minnesota State Arts Board to name just two. Both were impressed by the community’s support for GRSF – and they should be impressed. In tough times, people were choosing to support what truly matters to them.
Our community does matter. Now is the time to dream big, and we can do it with your help. Will you support the Festival with a year-end contribution of $10, 25, $50, $100, $500 or more? There is no such thing as a small gift.
Click here to make a donation to GRSF’s end-of-year campaign.
[click to continue…]
{ 1 comment }
Breaking news: Paul Barnes is at the Acoustic Cafe in Winona along with Doug Scholz-Carlson and Jonathan Gillard Daly announcing our 2010 season. It will, no doubt, be on CNN shortly, but we’d hate to see any of our patrons die of suspense, so here it is:
…and a surprise – GRSF’s first ever play by someone not named William, first musical, first original work by members of our company:
It’s been our tradition to pair something comedic with something more serious, and in so doing to stretch our resident company in two entirely different directions while also offering audiences a broad and varied playgoing experience. Othello and Comedy continue the tradition we established in our 2004 inaugural season and have endeavored to maintain ever since.”
The Daly News returns as the third production in the GRSF seventh season, after playing a sold-out, one-night only benefit performance in 2009. Written by GRSF founding company member and veteran actor, Jonathan Gillard Daly with music by Larry Delinger and Gregg Coffin, composer of GRSF’s 2009 production of Love’s Labour’s Lost and 2005’s Much Ado About Nothing. A musical adaptation of newsletters compiled by Gillard Daly’s grandfather, Martin Daly, The Daly News chronicles the true story of a family separated by the events of World War II.
[click to continue…]
{ 1 comment }
