It's a great story. Back in 2006 a group of actors in Indianapolis got together and decided they needed more professional theatre opportunities in Indianapolis. They formed a company called Heartland Actors Repertory Theatre (HART). They started to put on shows and staged-readings.
In 2008 they decided to do a one-night only performance of Shakespeare's The Merchant of Venice. Their venue was a large ampitheatre in a state park that is right in the middle of downtown Indianapolis. It is a gorgeous location. The backdrop is a huge river. Off to stage right is a large pedestrian bridge. There are really cool lamps lining the bridge. The sun sets over the river and bounces off the water. It's just stunning.
Merchant was a hit. I wish I had seen it but I was kind of new to the Indy theatre scene. I had just been cast in a production of Macbeth at Indiana Rep (the biggest theatre in Indy), and many of the actors were coming straight from Merchant to Mac.
There was clearly a demand for professional summer Shakespeare in Indy and during the next two years I was fortunate enough to participate in productions of Much Ado About Nothing and Two Gentlement of Verona with HART. Much Ado moved to two performances and we had something like 2300 people over the course of two days. For Two Gents, we moved to three performances and had over 3000 people.
One problem is that the venue is a state park. There are all sorts of activities that go on there so it is tough to lock down the space for a few weeks to have a long run of the show. I think Othello has a chance to be real big. Hopefully, if the three performances can draw some big numbers, the city will start to see that perhaps they should start investing more time and money into this venture.
That's the other thing... it's free Shakespeare. Free Shakespeare is a beautiful thing... but when the cast and crew are professionals, well... money becomes more of an issue. What I'd love to do is figure out a way to eventually have the company do the show in Indy and then do it up in the Finger Lakes for a week. But yeah... money...
So.. the shout out of the day goes to The Lilly Endowment and Christel DeHaan Family Foundation for providing a whole lot of money to make this year's production possible.
If you want to check out more about HART... http://heartlandactors.com/ It's a really great website and you can see the actors the actors that make up the core company of HART, past production, and some great photos from past Shakespeare productions which will show you the beautiful setting including this sweet shot...
No comments:
Post a Comment