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The curtain rises again Royal Shakespeare Company back in town
Sunday, October 22, 2006
News Arts Writer
Friends, Ann Arborites, countrymen (and women), lend me your ears.
You won't be sorry. The news is big.
Today - thanks to the University Musical Society, an independent, nonprofit performing arts presenter housed at the University of Michigan - the Royal Shakespeare Company is scheduled to arrive in Ann Arbor for its third three-week residency at the University of Michigan. Company members will participate in educational programs and offer seven performances each of three classic Shakespeare plays: "Antony and Cleopatra,'' "Julius Caesar'' and "The Tempest.''
Not only that. "Antony'' and "The Tempest'' will feature Patrick Stewart - of "X-Men'' and "Star Trek: Next Generation'' fame - in the lead role, making those tickets the hottest in town.
The chance to get them had led to strong sales earlier this year and even inspired hundreds of U-M students to head out to the Power Center in the rainy, wee hours of a recent Saturday morning for a special, limited student ticket sale. One was U-M engineering freshman Adam Higuera of Annapolis, Md., who's excited to see the RSC's rendition of "Caesar.''
"Shakespeare is recognized as the best playwright in the history of English playwriting, and the Royal Shakespeare Company is recognized as one of the best groups to perform Shakespeare, so we figured that this was our opportunity to get some culture, courtesy of the University of Michigan, and see something not many people get to see,'' he said.
Indeed, the RSC's three residencies at U-M - the first happened in 2001, and the second in 2003 - mark the first (and thus far only) such extensive collaboration with an American university. The relationship initially grew out of talks between the RSC, UMS President Ken Fischer and former U-M President Lee Bollinger.
This year, people from 34 different states and Canada plan to come to the Power Center for the only shows that will be seen on this side of the Atlantic from the RSC's Complete Works Festival.
That festival - the ambitious brainchild of RSC Artistic Director Michael Boyd - aims to feature all of Shakespeare's works, including his poetry, in the course of a single year. The project kicked off April 23 (the day Shakespeare's birthday is celebrated), and it will conclude in April 2007 with a production of "King Lear,'' starring Stewart's "X-Men'' co-star Ian McKellen.
The RSC is producing 23 plays for the festival, while the rest of Shakespeare's work - as well as Shakespeare-inspired work - will be performed on RSC stages by theater groups from around the globe, America included.
The preparations
Think that bringing shows in from abroad requires a lot of coordination behind the scenes? Just ask Doug Witney, UMS director of production, who has been making sure every RSC set, costume and prop makes it to Ann Arbor. Now, as the full company arrives, he and a crew of workers will be constantly shifting sets for the different shows.
"We only have a few days that all we do is one show, because the goal was to create as many combinations of being able to see three shows in two days,'' said Witney. "So we have a lot of changeovers.''
A tight time frame on the other side of the ocean, meanwhile, determined the building of new sets for the Ann Arbor shows.
"The sets that we're using ... have been built specifically for the run here, because they were doing the productions (in England) up until a week ago,'' said Witney. "There wasn't enough time to ship the sets that they're using in Stratford, so they designed and built three duplicate sets to send for use here.''
This past week, Witney and his crew have been working hard to unload containers and put together sets, some of which contain pieces that literally weigh a ton. In addition, many of the company's air-shipped costumes, props and special effects - because of the RSC's extremely tight production schedule - were scheduled to arrive no sooner than Saturday.
"It keeps us off the streets,'' joked Witney.
Also working hard is UMS residency coordinator Claire Rice, who's been planning RSC events behind the scenes for nearly two years.
"It hasn't been full time, obviously, over those two years, but at this point, it most certainly is,'' said Rice. "Full time plus.''
Rice coordinated the many, many auxiliary events - lectures, exhibits, outreach programs, etc. - planned for the RSC residency. "Because of the broad and really meaningful ... engagement that we're striving for in the education area, some of the most challenging and exciting events have been the ones that we're producing internally, in collaboration with the RSC, in the education realm.''
This includes a program with the Detroit school district called "Playback,'' in which different schools each focus on one section from "Julius Caesar'' and then put the pieces together with the help of an RSC director; and a teen-oriented Sonnet Slam here in Ann Arbor.
Now that the company's arriving, though, Rice's job "just moves into a real execution mode. I've got this 30-page schedule, and a 200-page planning document, and we just get through page by page.''
The anticipation
The community, meanwhile, seems more than ready to get this Bard-party started. The first RSC residency at U-M found Boyd in the director's chair of a War of the Roses tetrology, "Henry VI'' parts I, II, and III and "Richard III'' - a momentous theatrical event that still inspires awed remembrances from locals. In 2003, the company returned to U-M with "Coriolanus,'' "The Merry Wives of Windsor'' and the American premiere of Salman Rushdie's "Midnight's Children.''
And although the RSC had been struggling just to survive during this period, Boyd became RSC artistic director in 2003, and - by way of grand projects like the Complete Works Festival - has breathed new life into an old company.
"It's nice that there's been this rejuvenation of the company,'' said John Neville-Andrews, a U-M theater professor and the artistic director of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival. "It was in dire straits at one time, ... and it looked like it could collapse very easily. But Michael's a very passionate and very energetic young man, and I think his ideas, and the innovations he brought to the Royal Shakespeare Company have brought a freshness now to it. I think there's an exuberance, and there's a passion for the work that wasn't there a few years ago.''
A native of England, Neville-Andrews appreciates that this beloved bit of home is coming to him in Ann Arbor again. Yet for Ann Arbor's Dave Herzig, each RSC residency at U-M has been a family affair, drawing family members from Ohio, Illinois, and Massachusetts to Ann Arbor.
According to Herzig, the RSC shows are rendered all the more irresistible by "the fact that they can get free room and board without going to London.''
Jenn McKee can be reached at 734-994-6841 or
jmckee@annarbornews.com.
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Our lives are the songs that sing the universe into existence.~David Zindell
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