As his twelve-year tenure as Producing Artistic Director draws to a close, David Stradley reflects on key moments during his time leading Delaware Shakespeare.
A REFLECTION ON HAMLET
When I look back over my time at Del Shakes, our 2014 production of Hamlet marks a clear inflection point. That was my third year leading Del Shakes, and we had been exploring the question, “Does the community want more from Del Shakes or have we reached the limit of how we can serve?”
At that time, the Summer Festival consistently served 2,500 people. While we had some success adding smaller programs like “Shakespeare/Poe” and “Shakespeare + St. Valentine,” it wasn’t clear that there was much more of an audience for Del Shakes.
Several factors came together in 2014 to let us know that was not the case! We hired Matt Sullivan as Managing Director, and he put together a great marketing campaign for Hamlet with more of a budget behind it. The performance run was blessed with a week of a “polar vortex” – consistent days of no rain and highs in the 70s. And, if I do say so myself, we had a really great production!
I directed the play and got to partner throughout the year with Griffin Stanton-Ameisen, who took on the title role, as we plotted out a journey through this very complex story that would be human, relatable, and funny.
Audiences responded in droves – with over 3,500 people coming out (an audience increase of more than 1,000) – and found the production absolutely thrilling. I had my answer as to whether we could do more for and reach more of our community.
Hamlet launched Del Shakes into an exciting decade of growth – as we added productions, audiences, and staff members. I will be forever grateful for the summer of 2014!
INTO EVERY LIFE, A LITTLE RAIN MUST FALL
A Midsummer Night’s Dream was the first production in my tenure. I directed the production and had a great time with the all the artists involved (DSO’s Music Director Laureate David Amado wrote the original score!).
Opening night came. I gave the curtain speech, and then sat down next to my wife in the audience to enjoy the show. About 15-20 minutes in, I felt a drop of precipitation on my face. I whipped out my phone, checked the weather app, and left my wife in the audience so that I might nervously pace for the rest of the night to try to ward off the rain.
We got that performance in, but thus began twelve summers of getting really good at watching weather apps.
We did lose a couple of Midsummer performances to rain, including one particularly memorable night when an intense storm brewed up in the distance right as Titania talked about the winds “have suck’d up from the seas / Contagious fogs.” Outdoor theatre – gotta love it!!
SHAKESPEARE DAYS
From 2016-2019, we celebrated Shakespeare’s birthday with “Shakespeare Day.” We worked with a different town each year to put together a fun, whirlwind 1-hour event where community volunteers would read lines from every play Shakespeare wrote!
We made a point of getting volunteers from a wide variety of backgrounds, demographics, and professions. It was really wonderful seeing them bring their own special spins to Shakespeare – and we’d often try to align the selected lines to some aspect of the volunteer’s life.
It was silly – but also a perfect demonstration of Del Shakes’ vision to bring people together from all walks of life to explore their shared humanity through Shakespearean works. I loved mc’ing these events.
Personal highlights for me included the first year, when we had so many people show up we had to close down Market Street in front of The Grand Opera House in Wilmington and had somebody ride by on a bike and shout, “Shakespeare my ass!!!” In 2018, we held Shakespeare Day at the iconic bandstand on the Rehoboth Beach boardwalk. Several students from First State Community Action Agency in Georgetown participated, including the young woman pictured here. It’s one of my favorite photos from a Del Shakes event. I love the gleam in her eye as she looks to select the title of the play from which she read a quote.
SHAKESPEARE, POE & FIENDS
In my first full year running Del Shakes (2012), we tried an experiment: adding fall programming with “Shakespeare/Poe” – spooky readings of Shakespeare and Edgar Allan Poe. We sold out the two showings we did at Rockwood Museum that year, and so started expanding to other historic locations the next year – including the Read House & Gardens in Old New Castle (pictured here, operated by Delaware Historical Society).
We did several years at the Read House, and I always remember them as a step back in time to a more relaxed, more civilized time. No matter how stressed out I was on the details of running a theatre company, I’d load our items into the Read House, welcome the audience, and then sit out in the hallway and listen to these evocative words echo in a historic, dignified space. It made me stop, breathe, and be grateful for the opportunity to be doing what I was doing. We’d finish up for the evening, and I’d step out into the night – often with a gorgeous moon reflecting off the surface of the Delaware River. I always counted myself lucky.
We added several more partners over the years (Stone Stable in Historic Odessa, Wilmington Town Hall, New Castle Court House Museum) – and expanded into other authors (hence, the “Fiends.”) There were some very passionate audience members for the program who still ask if it is coming back! COVID put a pause on the program, but who knows what may happen in the future.
SHAKESPEARE AT LONGWOOD GARDENS
1599 was Shakespeare’s “Annus Mirabilis,” when in theory he wrote Henry V, Julius Caesar, As You Like It, and Hamlet.
I think 2018 might have been my miracle year at Del Shakes. We had our biggest summer box office hit in Much Ado About Nothing; a powerful Community Tour of The Merchant of Venice that engaged in dialogue around antisemitism at the same time as the Tree of Life Synagogue shooting; had a huge Shakespeare Day in Rehoboth Beach; and got to bring Shakespeare to Longwood Gardens.
Longwood Gardens was wild! We staged six scenes in site specific locations throughout the Gardens: “Friends, Romans, Countrymen” in the Italian Water Garden, the Balcony Scene overlooking the Main Fountains, the lovers’ fight from A Midsummer Night’s Dream in front of the Meadow, the Gulling Scene from Much Ado About Nothing, in three inches of water on the Fern Floor in the Conservatory, and Macbeth and Macduff dueling on grass stairs outside the Conservatory.
The incredible team at Longwood whisked us around on golf carts as we hurried from location to location.
Over two days, we shared Shakespeare with over 3,600 people. And the performances activated the grounds at Longwood in ways that they hadn’t been before. That is one of the cool things about all the site-specific theatre Del Shakes has done over the last twelve years – it makes people see familiar spaces in new and unexpected ways.
My wife works at Longwood Gardens, so I get to visit a decent amount. It’s always fun strolling around, and remembering when we brought Shakespeare to the Gardens. And perhaps I should have “dropped the mic” in 2018. It was a hard year to top!
November 3, 2016 – THE START OF THE COMMUNITY TOUR
After 2+ years of dreaming, planning, fundraising, and creating, the Del Shakes Community Tour finally came into being with the kick-off performance of Pericles, hosted by the Achievement Center of the Wilmington HOPE Commission.
At show time, the 50-60 seats in the conference room were probably about ½ empty – but a couple of neighborhood moms brought a group of kids, and that made things feel fun at the start. As the first act of the show progressed, people kept coming in – and by about 20 minutes in, the place was packed and it was rocking! It was everything I had dreamed about the Community Tour being. A group of people who didn’t think Shakespeare was for them were laughing, shouting, rolling with the story, and getting totally involved. Even if some people kept leaving, and then coming back in…
At intermission, Board President Nancy Lynch found me in the hallway and she was ecstatic – “Did you see? People are crying!!!”
After intermission, however, some people didn’t come back. And then, folks started leaving during the 2nd half, including some of those kids (it was a school night after all). By the end of the show, there were probably less people there than we started with. But those who were there were still totally into it – and gave such enthusiastic applause at the curtain call.
When the show ended, I was simultaneously over the moon at how well it had gone, crestfallen that so many people had left, and exhausted by all the swings of emotion.
I learned many things that night. First, there will always be magic! Second, every Community Tour performance will feel like six hours of life have gotten packed into two hours of real time! Third, as much as people love the show, sometimes life trumps art – and you never know what’s going on in someone’s life that makes them need to leave. Fourth, never make assumptions. One of those people who kept leaving in the first half and then coming back in – he wasn’t leaving because he was bored. We found out afterwards, he was going outside to call family members and friends and tell them, “You got to get down here and see this play!”
The Community Tour changed my life in so many ways – and it all started that November night at the Achievement Center.
DANCING IN THE LABYRINTH
When the world shut down, and the theatre industry along with it, due to COVID-19 at the beginning of 2020, Del Shakes didn’t slow down. We went right to work with The Sonnet Project, the {Mostly} Virtual Festival, and the in-person Soliloquy Stroll at Rockwood Park in the Summer. But that in-person Stroll was performed for very small groups (8 or less) and featured one performer at each location. We missed performing in a group – and for a group!
Delaware Art Museum approached Del Shakes about creating an event for the Copeland Sculpture Garden in September 2020. We knew right away that we wanted “Shakespeare in the Garden” to start and end with a group. While most of the program featured solo actors performing in front of sculptures for small groups, we started with the audience of 50 in a large circle on the lawn doing a movement exercise connected to Sonnet 18.
And then, after the smaller groups traveled through the solo performance stops, we regathered (in a large, socially-distanced circle) in the Labyrinth in the Anthony N. Fusco Reservoir. Emily Schuman and Evan Raines wrote a rousing fiddle and guitar song version of Sonnet 18, and played it live. And we danced! Some folks using gestures they had created in the opening movement exercise, some people free-styling. It was glorious.
After one of the performances an audience member shared with us, “It’s so good to have a collective experience again.”
Theatre brings us together. And after six months of the COVID-19 pandemic, it was so nice to dance together in the Labyrinth.
A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM IN RODNEY SQUARE
After the Community Tour started in 2016, we talked about the “two pillars” of Del Shakes programming – the Summer Festival and the Community Tour. But we realized that those two pillars were living in mostly separate universes: the large-scale, mass appeal, traditional outdoor Shakespeare production with a somewhat homogenous audience and the hyper-local, community-centric, super-intimate Shakespeare production with a wildly diverse audience. We were having challenges cross-fertilizing the audience groups and making our offerings feel like one unified Del Shakes world.
In 2021, the Community Tour had been on pause for two years due to COVID and we had been granted some COVID relief funds that gave us the flexibility to try a big experiment. Associate Artist Bi Jean Ngo suggested, “What if we do a production at Rodney Square?”
We reached out to Tina Betz, Director of the Mayor’s Office of Cultural Affairs, and pitched the idea. An initial proposal for Julius Caesar was greeted with a little doubt, but when we shifted to A Midsummer Night’s Dream there was immediate enthusiasm. We were off and running, with about 4 ½ months of prep time from approval to opening night!
We quickly assembled an awesome team (bonus of producing theatre in a pandemic: lots of talented artists are available) and got to work. Bi would direct, and we would collaborate with the Choir School of Delaware, Arreon Harley-Emerson, and Jonathan Whitney on music.
We knew we were on the right track when we were rehearsing on weekends out at Rodney Square and unhoused individuals stopped to have detailed conversations with the actors about what was going to be happening!
It was a ton of work to turn the cement and brick plaza into a theatre space, but it went smoothly. On our first night of tech, our lighting designer turned on her lights and bathed the Hotel du Pont in illumination. I was transported – and felt I was in some larger metropolis of boundless cultural offerings. The city square was transformed into an epic ampitheatre of dreams.
We had four nights of gorgeous weather (pro tip: fall Shakespeare is cooler than summer Shakespeare!) and the city turned out with 1,000 people attending the free production. It seemed like everyone was talking about it—city police, residents in downtown high-rises, individuals experiencing homelessness, even the security guard hired to provide 24-hour watch. He got his family to come up from Virginia to watch the joyous production. There were so many audience highlights – topped by the “Pryamus and Thisby” play-within-the-play that ended up as a Spanish language telenovela performance!!!
But most importantly, we proved we could unify the Summer Festival and the Community Tour. The Rodney Square Midsummer combined the large-scale, outdoor aesthetic of the Summer Festival with the wildly diverse audiences of the Community Tour. The impact on Del Shakes was seismic – and we’re still trying to figure out how to best harness the resulting energy.
One thing is for sure – I will never walk by Rodney Square without thinking of those four magic nights in September 2021.
AS YOU LIKE IT AT SACRED HEART VILLAGE
If someone were to ask me, “Okay, give me your one absolutely unforgettable Del Shakes experience,” I wouldn’t think twice: “Let me tell you about As You Like It at Sacred Heart Village.”
It was the second year of the Community Tour, and Sacred Heart Village was our second performance – October 26, 2017. Matthew Lynch, husband of then Board President Nancy Lynch, was working at Ministry of Caring at the time and assembled a huge tour audience of 130 people representing Ministry of Caring clients from the senior village and substance abuse facilities. There was also a youth group from Christina Cultural Arts Center and a handful of Del Shakes fans.
The mood was electric from the start, and director Madeline Sayet’s production was really ringing true. And then, we got to the Seven Ages of Man speech. Liz Filios was playing Jacques, and I could see her mind working as she said the first words, “All the world’s a stage…and one man in his time plays many parts, his acts being seven ages.” I think Liz and I had the same thought at the same time – every age of humanity is present in this room, right now. But Liz took it one step further.
As she started talking about “the infant,” she brought a little infant in the audience into the playing space and acted out that portion. And then, age by age, she found a different audience volunteer and incorporated them into the monologue – climaxing with Sam (shown with Liz in the picture), a boisterous older man who took on the role of the sixth age: “the lean and slipper’d pantaloon.” The audience and Sam were hooting and hollering.
I wondered how Liz would get from this sitcom to the seventh age – dying humanity, “mere oblivion.” But she simply ushered Sam back to his seat, and said the final words. The laughter effortlessly stopped, and you could hear a pin drop as the whole room contemplated our shared mortality.
I knew immediately that I would never see another theatre moment like that. You could see an As You Like It with the highest paid stars and the most immaculate set, and it would never reveal the truth of that moment in Shakespeare any more powerfully than what Liz was able to do in that simple basement room in Sacred Heart Village. When your audience contains everyone – and the actors are committed to connecting to everyone – the plays come to life with beauty, grace, and unending resonance.
Thank you, Liz!!!
LOVE
People would frequently refer to Delaware Shakespeare as being a “labor of love” for me. But at its best, at its core, it was much simpler. It was an experience of love, an expression of love.
My wife Michelle and I met acting in Del Shakes’ Love’s Labour’s Lost in 2005 (yep, that’s us in the picture). 17 years later, that love that started at Del Shakes further manifested itself in the birth of our son, Anderson. (Although the Board brainstormed many appropriate Shakespeare-inspired names – Goneril? Dogberry? – we went a different way.)
This year I was lucky enough to be able to share with Anderson – this being who has so expanded my sense of love – some of the ways I’ve tried to express love to my community – Del Shakes productions. Anderson got to see Macbeth and Cymbeline!
Although he didn’t make it all the way through either of them, he was fascinated and observant. After I took him out of the OperaDelaware Studios about half way through the closing performance of Cymbeline, we were able to retreat to the third floor “skybox” and watch some of the rest through the windows. Like the rest of the audience, he loved the dance battle!
I look forward to sharing more Del Shakes productions with Anderson in the future. And I want to thank Michelle for being such a gracious partner during these last twelve years – you were the Del Shakes audience member I always most wanted to please!
If you can’t tell from reading these reflections, the opportunity to lead Delaware Shakespeare has provided me with abundant gifts. I will always be grateful.
I told incoming Artistic Director Mariah Ghant and Managing Director Robert Tombari my wish for them was simple – may Del Shakes bless you as much as it has blessed me. It’s about love.
See you in the audience!
