ASSSISTANT DIRECTOR - MANDY MERSHON
STAGE MANAGER - LIZZY KAPLAN
COSTUME DESIGNER - RAYNA DEXTER
ASSISTANT COSTUME DESIGNER - ELLIOT MERSHON
DRAMATURG - EVLEEN NASIR

Why This Show?

When I reached out to the Lake Walk in Bryan, TX about the possibility of doing the first-ever free, summer Shakespeare event on their Pavilion stage, I wasn’t sure that they’d ever email me back. I definitely didn’t expect a response 15 minutes later, an hour-long meeting in the same week, and approval and plans in place within two weeks…but that’s exactly what happened.

I chose The Tempest for a few reasons, not the least of which was the beautiful views of the lake directly behind the stage. It seemed silly to use the space and ignore the water, so why not pick the most water-centric of Shakespeare’s work? It helped that The Tempest is not as oft-performed as the usual Shakespearean comedies, but still a recognizable name that would draw people out.

Lessons Learned

The biggest lesson learned was not to underestimate your audiences. This being the first performance of its kind in the community, I was expecting a reasonable turnout and would have been thrilled if we had averaged 50 people per performance. Instead, on opening night, over 250 people arrived to see the show, a number that stayed relatively constant across all four performances, meaning that almost 1000 community members were able to see our show. Additionally, the makeup of the audience was much more diverse than most theatre audiences in our community, including a lot of people who didn’t regularly attend theatre in the area. It was a delightful surprise.

Concept

Operating on a shoestring budget, I knew that we were going to be minimalist and simple with everything from set to costumes to amplification. I also knew that, based on the talent pool in the area, it was likely that this was going to be a women-heavy production. I also had to contend with the reality of an outdoor production in the Texas summer. As a result, the concept I passed to my production team was “Gilligan’s Island meets Easy, Breezy, Covergirl.”

My goal, as with any classic work that I direct, was simple: make the story and the relationships clear. We started with significant text work, working on language, delivery, and character upfront, especially since over 75% of the cast were in their first-ever Shakespeare show. The only male actors in the show played Ferdinand, Trinculo, Stephano, Fransisco, and the Boatswain (with the last two doubling as sprites). This gave us a lot of fun things to play with, since the primary conflict was between sisters rather than brothers, and the mother-daughter dynamic of Prospero and Miranda was slightly less patriarchal.

The final element that became central was my decision to cast Ariel in triplicate, with all three actresses on stage simultaneously, with dialogue being taken in turns and/or spoken simultaneously throughout the play. This gave us the ability to play with Ariel’s constantly-shifting ephemeral nature physically on stage, as well as have her be literally in three places at once. Each actress brought something different to the role, giving us room to play with different aspects of Ariel’s personality as well.