Students' idea spawns Shakespeare festival

By Sarah R. Buchholz, Chronicle staff

Queen Elizabeth I, played by assistant professor of Theater Dominica Borg, listens to plans for an upcoming play by William Shakespeare, portrayed by Harley Erdman, chair of the Theater Department. (Sarah Buchholz photo)

hat began as a small idea between two undergraduates late last semester grew into a full-blown Shakespeare Festival at the Renaissance Center on a warm spring day with a cast of 70 plus dozens of crew members.

      The festival staged scenes from seven of the Bard's plays May 4 and offered four sonnet readings, music, and costumed entertainers who roamed the grounds, juggling, conversing with visitors and even fighting. Several faculty participated, including assistant professor of Theater Dominica Borg, who played Queen Elizabeth I around the grounds, Theater chair Harley Erdman, who played the Bard himself, and interim Provost Charlena Seymour, who played Margaret in a segment of "Much Ado about Nothing." Arthur Kinney, director of the Renaissance Center, roamed the festival in costume and Denise Wagner, typist II in Theater, played the nurse in a scene from "Romeo and Juliet."

      Students dressed as "serving wenches" sold food and drink.

      "It came from two amazing undergraduates," Erdman said. "I was really thrilled to see that kind of initiative. They thought big, and they went big - a lot of scenes, people, costumes. They raised the money and pulled it off."

      Sophomore Midori Harris and junior Shannon Stillings had taken courses in Shakespeare taught by Borg and Kinney in the fall. Near the end of the semester, they had the idea of creating an outdoor Shakespeare festival of scenes from the plays. Within a short while, Kinney had offered the Renaissance Center as a site for the production. The center would like to renovate its barn for such events, Erdman said, so it was a natural site for the festival.

Junior Mike Dwan as Othello makes his point felt to Timothy McDermott as Iago during a scene from "Othello" during a May 4 Shakespeare Festival at the Renaissance Center. (Sarah Buchholz photo)

      Harris and Stillings applied for grants, researched the people they wished to represent and rounded up volunteers and musicians. They received funding from the Student Affairs Cultural Enrichment Fund, the Alumni Association, the Arts Council and Theater.

     "The whole department was involved," Erdman said, "half our faculty and staff and most of our students. About 80 percent [of the participants] were undergraduates with faculty, staff and graduate student support."

      All six of the directors were Theater students, and five of them were undergraduates, he said.

      "Everyone worked really hard," Stillings said. "Costumes, makeup, sets. We're so happy."

      "What really impressed me was they had their act together with research," Erdman said. "They gave me information about [Shakespeare's] family, roles he probably played in his own plays, and his theater way in advance, and they gave me a website with more information."

      Borg, too, praised the students' research.

      "I knew a lot about the era because I teach Shakespeare," she said, "but they did a wonderful job of providing us with information."

      Erdman said Stillings and Harris and other students would like to make the festival an annual event and that he supports the idea.