Not so fast, says festival
Many Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival fans raised a tempest when they realized that the lineup for its 37th season has no plays written solely by the Bard.
Davis McCallum, the artistic director of the Philipstown-based festival, concedes that even his mother expressed reservations about the schedule. “She likes the straight Shakespeare, but his influence infuses all of these plays,” he says.
The 2024 productions include By the Queen (which incorporates dialogue from Richard III and Henry VI), Medea: Re-Versed and The Murder of Roger Ackroyd. All three shows begin in previews next week; the latter two are world premieres.
“We love these plays and have a high degree of confidence that audiences will love them, too,” says McCallum. In 2010, the festival produced A Bomb-itty of Errors, a rapped adaptation of A Comedy of Errors that went over well, he says.
“Shakespeare wasn’t ‘the Bard’ in his time,” he says. “People had to support him or else none of his work would have survived. We went for it this summer because these plays are great and we’re committed to developing the next generation of fantastic writers. This is my 10th year here and we’ve never been more excited about a season.”
(To be fair, HVSF brought a 90-minute version of Much Ado About Nothing to local schools in March and April and the company will present a reading on Aug. 17 of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Orlando Pabotoy, which it intends to produce in 2025.)
By the Queen is written by Whitney White, a 2024 Tony Award nominee for her direction of Jaja’s African Hair Braiding. White recasts the queen in question, Margaret, who “ages through her appearances” in Richard III and all three parts of Henry VI, says director Shana Cooper. “Of the three plays [being produced], this is the punk rock one.”
At least half the dialogue is by Shakespeare, says Cooper, and three actors portray Margaret at various stages of her life. “It’s like his greatest hits molded into a radical and inventive interpretation,” she says.
The play premiered in Providence, Rhode Island. “I went up there and I’ve never seen anything like it,” says McCallum. “It’s a killer piece of theater.”
Under the HVSF tent, it will feature Luis Quintero, Jacob Ming-Trent, Travis Raeburn, Malika Samuel, Stephen Michael Spencer, Sarin Monae West and Nance Williamson.
Another potential standout, Medea: Re-Versed, adapts the 2,500-year-old Greek saga of a woman scorned, though she perpetrates some horrible things to earn the wrath. Quintero, 30, in his fifth year as an HVSF cast member, wrote the inventive script and musical score.
Director Nathan Winkelstein co-conceived the project, which lashes the audience with creative wordplay and improbable rhymes that illuminate the work’s inherent conflicts.
The chorus members will rap, sing and speak as they prowl the stage, casting imploring gazes and menacing glances. Though they engage in a sophisticated call-and-response, the proceedings appear to unfold with spontaneity, like a freestyle lyrical battle.
The actors are accompanied by a band with minimalist guitar riffs from Siena D’Addario, furious bass lines by Melissa Mahoney and Mark Martin’s looped beatbox parts assembled on the fly.
After the run in Philipstown, the proceedings move to off-Broadway in Manhattan.
For its third production, HVSF commissioned The Murder of Roger Ackroyd, adapted by Heidi Armbruster from a 1926 Agatha Christie novella. Directed by HVSF veteran Ryan Quinn, it stars Mahoney, Raeburn, Samuel and Williamson, along with Sean McNall and Kurt Rhoads.
“Heidi tells the story in such a fluid and filmic way that is so right for us,” McCallum says. “The main question is: Will you figure out the murderer before the inspector and his apprentice?” Fourth-wall-busting soliloquies convey deep thoughts, “so people have to turn on their gray cells to keep up.”
The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival is located at 2015 Route 9 in Philipstown. Tickets are $10 to $100; see hvshakespeare.org or call 845-265-9575.
