A look at the {Mostly} Virtual Festival
by Gail Obenreder, Arts Journalist -in-Residence
A festival – by nature and by definition – is a gathering often held annually and in the same place, built around a community, or a theme, or a cultural centerpiece.
In England’s Elizabethan age – the time of Shakespeare – there was a festival every month. These were regular markers, created mostly on religious themes or to honor saints, and people structured the ebb and flow of their lives around them. A few – like Michaelmas or St. Swithin’s Day or St. Crispin’s Day – have largely been sidelined now. But it’s surprising how many of them (brought here by English immigrants) are still American popular culture touchstones.
There’s Twelfth Night (January), St. Valentine’s Day (February), May Day (well, May), April Fool’s Day, All Hallows Day (Halloween), and the many December celebrations. And another one – transmuted from the June Midsummer Eve celebration (which featured, yes, mummers acting out legends and lore) – has become the summer arts festival.
“What time will we our celebration keep? What do you say?”
-Twelfth Night
For 15 of its 18 years, Delaware Shakespeare has gathered people in Wilmington, Delaware’s beautiful Rockwood Park for its version of the iconic summer festival. Built around the Bard’s plays, Del Shakes’ event is part of a world-wide outdoor tradition. Like those Elizabethans of long ago, many people see a summer Shakespeare festival as an annual marker, and those who gather annually for Del Shakes productions will enthusiastically concur. But in March 2020, as plans for the company’s production of The Tempest were building momentum, gatherings became at first unwise, then dangerous, then forbidden, and many markers of life and reality were shunted aside.
But Del Shakes couldn’t give up on the idea of doing something in 2020, when the need for something to celebrate seemed as great – or greater – than ever. So, working with a cohort of the dedicated actors who have come to see summer Shakespeare as a part of their work life, Producing Artistic Director David Stradley fashioned the 2020 {Mostly} Virtual Festival.
“Come . . . and help to celebrate . . . be not too late!”
-The Tempest
Taking place from July 17 through August 8, the {M}VF offered 9 varied online programs and one carefully structured, socially distanced Rockwood Park performance (hence the “mostly” moniker). Sponsors (both institutional and individual) quickly rallied to support the new Del Shakes endeavor. One corporate contribution came (unsolicited) from Janssen’s Market to support the Festival, with Paula Janssen saying, “Keep your spirits up, we will get through this and be better for it on the others side.”
Three light-hearted, summer-themed {M}VF events kicked off with the Janssen’s Market Picnic Contest Launch Party (July 18th). This lively Zoom-community evening was hosted by Stradley (with a photo of last year’s Rockwood Park audience behind him) and Del Shakes Associate Artist Bi Jean Ngo, who had directed the company’s Much Ado About Nothing (2018). Ngo was the “expert on food and community in Rockwood Park” for this virtual five-course culinary and literary meal where five actors presented Shakespeare monologues paired with gustatory delights.
The lively programming continued on July 25th with a matinee event – “Selena and Greg Get Engaged.” This reprised the Romeo-and-Juliet-like courtship of Selena and Greg Robleto, University of Delaware alums affiliated with the Festival since early days. As Stradley emceed, they recounted Greg’s marriage proposal during the company’s first year in Rockwood Park. An archival video was shared with this year’s virtual audience, who heard the 2006 crowd go wild with romantic glee.
And in the evening Stradley, Ngo, and Newton Buchanan (also a Del Shakes Associate Artist) hosted a virtual Wine and Cheese Party, whetting the appetite with curated food-and-drink tastings – some quite unfamiliar – as actors performed appropriate Tempest-themed monologues. Wines were selected by beverage purveyor and Del Shakes sponsor Swigg, and Janssen’s Market provided the delicious cheese matches. Participating audience members had pre-purchased the chosen pairings, and they enjoyed them live – again via Zoom.
Each virtual weekend included a “Family Sunday” presentation. For these 30-minute programs Cassie Alexander (Del Shakes’ Development Associate) was joined by guest actors for a children’s book reading, game, and craft activity. On July 19th, Del Shakes Associate Artist Emily Schuman read Will’s Quill, Don Freeman’s look at the Bard as a writer. Mo O’Hara’s Romeosaurus and Juliet Rex (read by Ngo on July 26th) is a light-hearted look at the famous lovers and their warring dinosaur families. And on August 2nd Alexander hosted Buchanan and Irvin Mayfield (a 2019 high school intern), as Buchanan read Ira’s Shakespeare Dream (by Glenda Armand, illustrated by Floyd Cooper), a look at the career of noted Black 19th century Shakespearean Ira Aldridge. These three family programs garnered over 800 viewers.
As well, there was a more serious side to some offerings, as each of three {M}VF online weekends featured hour-long artistic discussions. These kicked off on July 17th with “Becoming Prospero,” a 50-minute conversation between Stradley and actor Jolie Garrett. Garrett was slated to play Prospero in the Del Shakes’ postponed summer production of The Tempest (now scheduled for Summer 2021). Their discussion was modeled on “table work” – the reading with actors seated around a table that often begins a rehearsal period. The spirited dialogue took place on the very evening when Garrett should have been first striding onstage to portray Shakespeare’s magnificent and magical wizard.
On July 24th Del Shakes offered “Two Bald Guys Direct The Tempest,” another lively virtual conversation, this time from the director’s point of view. Both Stradley and Mike Ryan, Artistic Director of California’s Santa Cruz Shakespeare, were scheduled to open productions of the same play this summer. They shared some of their disappointments, as well as their scenic designs, casting ideas, differing directorial approaches . . . and the hope that they’ll both be presenting The Tempest next summer on stages a continent apart.
The {M}VF dialogue series concluded on July 31st with a serious and timely look at “Restorative Justice and The Tempest.” Stradley was joined by Barbie Fischer (Program Coordinator for the Victim Restoration & Community Mediation program at Delaware Center for Justice) and Saad M. Soliman (Founding Executive Director of Peers Mentoring Center), both of whom have been working in the arena of restorative justice and victim restoration for many years.
This deeply felt discussion began with a look at what Stradley believes to be The Tempest’s central questions – “What do you do when someone does you wrong? What do you do when you’ve done wrong to someone else?” And – though they acknowledged that the subject is huge and intricate – Stradley cited the trio’s “Shakespearean ambitions” as they explored how we can move forward toward equity both as individuals and as a society.
Amid the plethora of online programs, Del Shakes continued to feel that the {M}VF just had to be in Rockwood Park, though, and the Festival included one live event. The Soliloquy Stroll was a site-specific series of monologues performed for intimate audience groups. Patrons purchased timed tickets in groups of four, and for 30 minutes they were guided around the summer-lush Rockwood Park. At six locales they came into contact (but not closer than 6 feet!) with six Shakespearean characters: The Porter (Macbeth); Benedick (Much Ado About Nothing); Imogen (Cymbeline); Philip the Bastard (King John); Hamlet (Hamlet, of course); and Puck (A Midsummer Night’s Dream), who ended the Stroll perched in a tree.
For audiences who didn’t wish to ramble in person, DelShakes sold virtual tickets to a recording of the evening. The Stroll proved so popular that its original date (August 1st) sold out within hours, so a second night (August 8th) was added. Patrons and actors alike have suggested (rather strongly!) that this become a regular Del Shakes summer offering.
“They are ever forward in celebration of this day with shows, pageants, and sights of honor.”
-Henry VII
Enhancing the Festival was an ongoing Del Shakes Sonnet Project, begun in March at the onset of the coronavirus pandemic. For each donation by a supporter, an actor was hired to give a personalized online “coronavirus reading” of one of the Bard’s 14-line classics. The project began with Sonnet 1 (“From fairest creatures we desire increase”), and Stradley was hopeful that the company would make it through only a small part of the canon before normalcy returned. But as of this writing, actors (and donors) were at Sonnet 100 of the Bard’s 154 poems, with no stopping point in sight.
Del Shakes Summer Festival brings its biggest annual audience (generally around 3,500 people) to Rockwood Park. But surprisingly, {M}VF numbers surpassed both expectations and previous attendance. 92 people experienced the intimacy of the Soliloquy Stroll, and online program views numbered 4,008 as of this writing. The most-watched offerings were those linked to the summer’s postponed production: “Becoming Prospero” and “Restorative Justice and The Tempest” garnered almost half the Festival viewership.
The 2020 {Mostly} Virtual Festival was created to balance the serious themes engendered by these serious times with some lively and lighthearted activities. Del Shakes actors enjoyed getting a new view of their thespian peers through the Festival offerings, and many of the programs also proved to be audience favorites. As audiences experience more and more online programming – and begin to enjoy it – it could be that some of these by-necessity “{mostly} virtual” things may become “virtual {by request},” joining the year-round slate of Del Shakes offerings.
Binge Watch the {M}VF Offerings
Del Shakes {Mostly} Virtual Festival, July 17 – August 8, 2020
Devised, produced, and directed by David Stradley
A presentation of Delaware Shakespeare, Wilmington Delaware
Discussions: “Becoming Prospero;” “Two Bald Guys Direct The Tempest;” and “Restorative Justice and The Tempest.”
Virtual Gatherings: “Janssen’s Market Picnic Contest and Launch Party;” “Selena and Greg Get Engaged;” and “Del Shakes Wine and Cheese Party.”
Family Sundays: Will’s Quill, or How a Goose Saved Shakespeare (by Don Freeman); Romeosaurus and Juliet Rex (by Mo O’Hara, illustrated by Andrew Joyner); and Ira’s Shakespeare Dream (by Glenda Armand, illustrated by Floyd Cooper).
Soliloquy Stroll: Six socially distanced site-specific Shakespeare monologues, Rockwood Park.
Gail Obenreder (she/her pronouns) is a writer, producer, and arts professional who has lived and worked in Washington DC, New York, Atlanta, Seattle, southeastern Pennsylvania, and Delaware, where she lives in Wilmington. She is a 2016 Fellow of the O’Neill Theater Center’s National Critics Institute.