6th ANNUAL FALL FUNDRAISER

KING JOHN a staged reading

October 4, 2011, Buffalo, NY…Shakespeare in Delaware Park (SDP) is pleased to announce its 6^th Annual Fall Fundraiser, a staged reading of William Shakespeare’s KING JOHN, directed by Anthony Chase and sponsored by LPCiminelli.

Join Shakespeare in Delaware Park’s all- star cast, including SDP founder and artistic director Saul Elkin, Tim Newell, Eileen Dugan, Barbara Link LaRue, Adriano Gatto, Kristen Tripp-Kelley, Todd Benzin, Lisa Ludwig and a host of other familiar theatre favorites, as they tell the tale of unresolved family disputes that often end in murder. SDP has never produced this historic Shakespeare play on the main stage and is happy to continue this new yearly fundraising event of providing a reading of the Bard’s rarely produced work for all to hear and enjoy.

This special benefit performance for Shakespeare in Delaware Park will take place on Sunday, November 6th at the Buffalo Seminary. The evening will begin at 6pm with pre-show entertainment, hors d’oeuvres by Rich’s Renaissance Catering and wine tasting provided by Freedom Run Winery.  The KING JOHN reading will begin at 7pm with dessert and coffee served at intermission.

Tickets for KING JOHN (a staged reading) are $50 for Shakespeare in Delaware Park members and $55 for non-members.  All proceeds benefit Shakespeare in Delaware Park, just completing its 36^th successful season of FREE Shakespeare.  The production will take place at The Buffalo Seminary located at 205 Bidwell Parkway.  Special thanks to  sponsor  LPCiminelli, and generous  in kind donations from Rich’s Renaissance Catering, Freedom Run Winery, The Buffalo Seminary and Phillips Lytle LLP.  Seating is limited.   Reserve your tickets before November 2^nd by calling 856-4533 or visit Shakespeare in Delaware Park on the web at www.shakespeareindelawarepark.org.

Some call this intern production the “Bee’s Knees!” Some call it the “Cat’s Pajamas!” Some even call it the ”Elephant’s instep!”  We call it “Shakespearience!” and not to “Blow our own trumpet,” but we think it is “a good time had by all!”  So join us for the fun!

Shakespearience is truly a collaborative process.  The teacher (Susan Drozd) and students have rehearsed four days a week for three weeks and have worked together to work  the script, develop the concept and perfect their Shakespearian characters.  This educational experience for the students promises to be a fun filled entertaining performance for the audience.

The Shakespearience Program is open to area high school students and is designed to provide in-depth theatrical experience with theatre professionals.  Each session runs for five weeks, beginning the week prior to regularly schedule professional Shakespeare in Delaware Park performances. In addition to attending classes, students gain hands-on experience in a professional production as part of SDP technical crew.

All performances are FREE of charge.

Shakespeare in Delaware Park is now in its 36th Season of FREE Shakespeare. AS YOU LIKE IT runs nightly at 7:30pm until August 14th.    Shows take place on Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park, next to Hoyt Lake behind the Rose Garden, off Lincoln Parkway near the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Further information may be obtained at www.shakespeareindelawarepark.org or by calling (716) 856-4533

Dave Harter Reporting for Green Options Buffalo:

Near – Shakespeare in Delaware Park

Shakespeare in Delaware Park has the crown for my favorite date spot in Buffalo. Riding up to the park with a blanket on my rack and panniers full of snacks still gets me way more pumped than most other potential date venues. I remember seeing Much Adu About Nothing on The Hill in my teens with a date who had not yet ventured to this Buffalo treasure. She thought it was about the coolest thing in the world and I (as most teenage boys on a date with a swooning girl might) felt like Zeus. “Thank you Shakespeare in the Park,” I thought, while packing up the blanket and pondering the appropriate timing for the goodnight kiss I was now sure to maneuver.

This weekend marks the closing of Shakespeare in the Park’s 2011 season with the final performances of As You Like It. Like Much Adu About Nothing, As You Like It is a rolling comedy filled with precarious romance, well-intentioned (though disastrous) errors and of course, weddings. This is a perfect date show and your bicycle is the perfect date vehicle. Shakespeare in the Park is even willing to reward you for choosing a healthy, community friendly transport option. If you ride your bike to the show with your Bicycle Benefits sticker slapped on your helmet you’ll get %10 off at the merchandise table.

So take some of that money you save on gas, repairs, oil changes and parking from riding your bicycle all summer and take someone special out for some giggles at Shakespeare Hill. With gas hovering around $4/gallon you should be able to afford a generous donation to this (astonishingly) FREE production (employing lots of local actors and technicians!) and still have plenty left over to buy some neat merchandise with your Bicycle Benefits reward. Afterwards you might just be happy that you supported one of the world’s largest outdoor Shakespeare festivals (right here in beautiful Buffalo, NY) or perhaps you’ll also feel like throwing some lightning around.

Shows start at 7:30 on Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park behind the Rose Garden. Coming early is recommended. Shows run through Sunday and are weather contingent.

In response to this challenge, Shakespeare in Delaware Park announces their “AS YOU HELP US” Campaign, which will take place closing weekend of SDP crowd favorite AS YOU LIKE IT.    On Friday August 12th, Saturday August 13th and Sunday August 14th , all hill donations from audience members  will go specifically towards this $10,000 matching grant.

With the many struggles SDP has faced this year, including budget cuts from Erie County and unsure support from the City of Buffalo, we are proud to be celebrating 36 incredible years of high-quality professional theatre which remains FREE for the public to enjoy.   We are very grateful to all or our sponsors, audience members and Foundations like this who are determined to keep SDP alive and well for another 36 years and beyond.

So join us this weekend at Shakespeare In Delaware Park, enjoy the words of the Bard under a star filled sky in a beautiful Olmsted park and dig a little deeper as every ducat counts just a little bit more.

Shows take place on Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park, next to Hoyt Lake behind the Rose Garden, off Lincoln Parkway near the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Further information about Shakespeare in Delaware Park can be obtained at www.shakespeareindelawarepark.org or by calling (716) 856-4533. Make sure to like us at www.facebook.com/shakespeareindelawarepark.

July 21,2011  Buffalo, NY … Shakespeare in Delaware Park is pleased to announce that tonight is the opening of their second show of the season of free professional outdoor theater. After a record breaking and successful run or MERCHANT OF VENICE, the ever popular pastoral comedy, AS YOU LIKE IT hits the stage tonight at 7:30pm.  Eileen Dugan directs this audience favorite known for the famous and oft quoted “all the worlds a stage” speech.  Appearing in this production will be Morgan Chard, Anne Roaldi and SDP veterans Tim Newell, Gerry Maher and Norm Sham.

Shakespeare in Delaware Park reaches over 40,000 audience members each season and is proud to be celebrating 36 amazing years of high-quality professional theatre that remains FREE to the public. AS YOU LIKE IT  runs July 21st –August 14th. Performances are held every evening (except Mondays) at 7:30 p.m.  Shows take place on Shakespeare Hill in Delaware Park, next to Hoyt Lake behind the Rose Garden, off Lincoln Parkway near the Albright-Knox Art Gallery. Further information may be obtained at www.shakespeareindelawarepark.org or by calling (716) 856-4533. Or like us on facebook at www.facebook.com/shakespeareindelawarepark.

Season Sponsors Provide Generous Support

2011 Season Sponsors include M&T Bank, Fund for the Arts, New York State Council on the Arts, WGRZ Channel 2, The Buffalo News, WBFO, Rich’s Catering, Brodo, Bickford Paper Company, Wynn Creative and CPI.  Additional funding comes from members, donors and audience donations.

Morgan Chard, Norm Sham, Anne Roaldi

Morgan Walker/ Buffalo News

Seldom have humor and menace combined in such a potent brew as Shakespeare’s “The Merchant of Venice,” a tale of improbable comedy in the face of fierce prejudice that opened the 36th season of Shakespeare in Delaware Park in grand fashion on Thursday night.

And this production, fraught with tension and loaded with deeply felt performances, achieved a rare immediacy that kept audience members on the hill utterly rapt across the play’s very fast three hours. This is no small task, as anyone who has slogged through lesser productions of outdoor Shakespeare can readily attest.

Director Brian Cavanagh has taken the straightforward approach. There’s no daring directorial concept at work here, just a sense that the cast was given enough time and space to grow comfortable in their characters’ often unsavory skins and to pay deep attention to the emotional thrust behind the play’s utterly spellbinding language.

The plot, for the uninitiated, goes like this:

The affable but poor Bassanio (Adriano Gatto) has an incurable thing for Portia (Susan Drozd), a smoking-hot young heiress hotly pursued by dukes and princes with tons of money but absolutely no game. Portia loves Bassanio, but she shall hath no scrubs, so Bassanio asks his main man Antonio, a Venetian merchant, to spot him some cash.

Antonio, in turn, makes the truly boneheaded move of borrowing the money from a spiteful Jewish moneylender by the name of Shylock (Saul Elkin), who has an ancient ax to grind against Antonio specifically and Christianity in general. Shylock lends the money with the grim caveat that if Antonio does not fully repay the debt within three months, he is entitled to a pound of of the merchant’s flesh. Think of Shylock as the godfather of predatory lending.

Bassanio, after going through an absurd ritual involving three locked boxes to win Portia’s hand—a sort of 14th-century mixture of “The Bachelorette” and “The Price is Right” — gets what he was after. But Antonio isn’t so lucky. After his ships are reported lost at sea, he forfeits his end of the bloody bargain, and things really start to heat up.

Elkin’s performance as Shylock is a study in withering condescension and untempered disgust, a chilling embodiment of the prejudices at the center of this play, the ways in which they draw on deep historical roots and seem doomed to propagate themselves endlessly.

Peter Palmisano, an actor who rarely disappoints in Shakespearean roles, brings Antonio, in all his affected honor and his own detestable prejudices, to brilliant life. As Bassanio, Gatto is the picture of affability and Drozd, as Portia, gives her character a confident and deeply appealing interpretation. David Autovino has some great comic moments, while the interplay between Chris Labanca as the clownish Launcelot and David Lundy as his father is more than a bit cute. A couple of glaring performances lag far behind the lot, but on the whole this cast deserves accolades for rendering their lines so deftly and with so much genuine feeling.

As usual, sound designer Tom Makar plays an indispensable role in establishing the play’s alternately lighthearted and deeply menacing tenor with a sound design that inserts itself into the play without ever making itself too apparent. He’s helped by the able lighting designer Chris Cavanagh, set designer Ron Schwartz and costumer designer Ken Shaw.

The result of all this is a “Merchant of Venice” that in some ways reduces the distance between 14th century Italy and 21st century Buffalo to a hair’s breadth. It makes it not just easy but utterly necessary for us consider just how far our prejudices have traveled since then and gives us an opportunity to reflect on the corrupting forces of dehumanization, revenge and redemption that sit at the play’s heart.

Location

Shakespeare in Delaware Park is pleased to announce our 36th Anniversary Season. Join us on the hill in 2011 for The Merchant of Venice, starring Shakespeare in Delaware Park’s artistic director and founder, Saul Elkin, running June 16th through July 10th, directed by Brian Cavanagh. Then director Eileen Dugan will helm our production of As You Like It which will take the stage July 21st through August 14th.

Shakespeare in Delaware Park has been a Buffalo summer tradition since 1976. It is one of the country’s most successful outdoor Shakespeare festivals in terms of audience, attracting an average of 40 to 50 thousand patrons each summer. New York City is nearby but this FREE festival is right in Western New Yorkers beautiful back yard.

Our spectacular performances take place in a historic park designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, father of landscape architecture, and the nation’s foremost park maker. Behind the Park’s rose garden stands our grand Tudor-Style stage on a sweeping hill of green. In this beautiful setting under the stars where Shakespeare’s stories live on to explore the truths of the human heart; tragedy, jealousy, foolishness, passion, laughter, and love.

As You Like It
July 21 – August 14

Duke Frederick has usurped the title and throne of his older brother, Duke Senior. Duke Senior has escaped to the Forest of Arden with his band of loyal followers, leaving his daughter, Rosalind, behind at court. Into this situation, enter Orlando and Oliver de Boys, two brothers divided because of Orlando’s long standing mistreatment by his brother. When Orlando enters a wrestling match sponsored by Duke Frederick, Oliver tells Orlando’s opponent, Charles (a champion wrestler) that he wouldn’t care if Charles were to break Orlando’s neck.

To the surprise of all, Orland wins the match, and, in so doing, attracts the romantic attention of Rosalind and the anger of Oliver. Orlando and his servant, Adam, escape to the Forest of Arden. Duke Frederick decides to banish Rosalind to Arden as he did with her father. Celia, Frederick’s daughter and Rosalind’s best friend, decides to go with her. Rosalind disguises herself as a boy named Ganymede and Celia assumes the role of “his” sister, Aliena. They are joined in their flight by the clown, Touchstone.

Orlando joins Duke Senior’s men. Pining for his lost Rosalind, he goes about the forest carving her name in the trees and leaving love poems scattered about and pinned to trees.

Still disguised as Ganymede, Rosalind seeks out Orlando. She promises to cure his heartache by letting him pour out his feelings to Ganymede as if “he” were Rosalind. Rosalind also attempts a match between two shepherds, Silvius and Phebe, that goes wrong when Phebe falls instead for Rosalind’s Ganymede. Meanwhile, Touchston courts a country girl, Audrey, adding to the multiple romance plots.

The resolution begins when Oliver, who has come to the forest, is saved from a lion by Orlando and the brothers are reconciled. Oliver meets Celia and falls in love with her, and Duke Senior promises to marry them the next day (no time lost). Rosalind makes Phebe promise to marry Silvius if she can’t have Ganymede and then tells Orlando that Rosalind will marry him that day as well.

When all have gathered for the wedding, Rosalind removes her Ganymede disguise. Orlando and she are happily reunited, Phebe agrees to marry Silvius, and Touchstone will marry Audrey. At this point, Jaques, a discontented melancholy Lord, brings the news that Duke Frederick has repented his ways and opted for a monastic life. Duke Senior is restored to his rightful position and all live happily ever after.

Cast:

Director: Eileen Dugan
Duke Senior- Jerrold Brown
Rosalind-Morgan Chard
Duke Frederick- Steve Vaughn
Celia- Anne Roalidi
Jacques -Tim Newell
Amiens – Anthony Alcocer
Le Beau – RJ Voltz
Charles – Will Vaughn
Oliver – Chris Kelly
Adam – Larry Roswell
Touchstone – Norman Sham
Phebe – Arin Lee Dandes
Corin – Gerry Maher
Audrey – Andrea Andolina
William – James Robert Steiner
Orlando – Patrick Cameron
Jacques (the brother)- Jose Riveria
Silvus – Jake Bradley
Lords -Billy Horn, Nicholas Lama

The Merchant of Venice
June 16 – July 10

Antonio, a Venetian Merchant, is approached for a loan by his friend Bassanio who is desperately in need of money to court Portia, a wealthy heiress. Antonio agrees, but is unable to make the loan because his money is invested in a number of trade ships that are still at sea. Antonio and Bassanio approach Shylock, a Jewish money lender, for a loan. Shylock nurses a longstanding grudge against Antonio who has made a habit of berating Shylock and other Jews in public. Shylock: “You call me dog, and spit upon my Jewish gabardine.” Although Antonio refuses to apologize for his behavior, Shylock acts agreeably and offers to lend Antonio 3000 Ducats without interest. Shylock adds, however, that, should the loan go unpaid, he is entitled to a pound of Antonio’s flesh. Shylock refers to this as “a merry bond,” to which Antonio agrees in spite of Bassanio’s warnings.

In Shylock’s own household, his servant Launcelot decides to leave Shylock’s service to work for Bassanio, and Shylock’s daughter Jessica schemes to elope with Antonio’s young Christian friend Lorenzo. That night, the streets of Venice are filled with revelers, and Jessica escapes with Lorenzo dressed as his page, taking with her a sum of Shylock’s wealth and a ring Shylock had given his late and much beloved wife.

There follows a scene in Belmont at Portia’s home where Bassanio and two other suitors for Portia’s hand must select from three boxes of gold, silver and lead. The suitor who chooses correctly will win Portia. Bassanio, needless to say, selects the lead box and wins the girl. Portia gives Bassanio a ring as token of her love and makes him swear that, under no circumstance, will he ever part with it. Gratiano, Bassanio’s friend, proposes to Portia’s lady in waiting, Nerissa, who also gives him a ring, and a double wedding is planned. The celebration is cut short by the news that Antonio’s ships have been lost at sea, and that he has forfeited his bond (contract) to Shylock.

A trial is called to decide the matter. This is perhaps the most famous scene in the play. The Duke of Venice, who presides over the trial, announces that he has sent for a legal expert who turns out to be Portia disguised as a young man of the law accompanied by Nerissa, also disguised as her clerk. Portia asks Shylock to show mercy (the famous “Quality of mercy” speech), but Shylock, angered by the loss of his daughter and generations of anti Semitic abuse, insists that the “pound of flesh” is legally his.

Shylock is about to collect his “bond”, when Portia reminds him that he must do so without causing Antonio to bleed, as the contract does not entitle him to any blood.

Trapped by the logic, Shylock agrees to take the money that Bassanio has offered him to settle the contract, but Portia reminds the court that Shylock is guilty of threatening the life of a Venetian citizen and that this is a capital offence. The Duke spares Shylock’s life, but fines him the sum of all his property– half to the state and half to Antonio. Moreover, he must convert to Christianity. Shylock leaves the court a defeated man.

Bassanio and Gratiano do not see through Portia and Nerissa’s disguses and give them the rings they promised they would never part with as payment for the trial. Back in Belmont, Portia and Nerissa reveal the ‘trick,” the lovers are reunited, and word is received that Antonio’s ships have in fact made it back safely. The group celebrates their good fortune.

In many contemporary productions, Jessica, Shylock’s daughter, is left alone on stage clearly regretting what has befallen her father.

Cast:

Director: Brian Cavanagh
Antonio- Peter Palmisano
Shylock- Saul Elkin

Portia- Susan Drozd
Bassanio- Adriano Gatto
Nerissa- Kay Kerimian
Gratiano- David Autivino
Lorenzo- John Kaczorwoski
Salerio- Matt Witten
Solanio- Joe Cassidy
Jessica- Leah Russo
Launcelot- Chris Labanca
Old Gobbo- David Lundy
Prince of Arragon- Larry Smith
Tubal- Brendan Cuningham
Duke of Venice- Jay Desiderio
Prince of Morocco- Monish Bhattacharyya

Session I: Merchant of Venice will run from June 11 to July 10.

Session II: As You Like It will run from July 16 to August 14.

This season’s productions are:

Merchant of Venice
directed by Brian Cavanagh
June 16– July 10

As You Like It
directed by Eileen Dugan
July 21 – August 14

Shakesperience is open to area high school students; this program is designed to provide in-depth theatrical experience with theatre professionals. Each session runs for five weeks, beginning the week prior to regularly scheduled performances. Applicants will be required to participate in an enrollment interview on Saturday, April 30 between 1:30 and 3:30 p.m. In addition to attending theatre classes taught by local actress, director and theatre teacher Susan Drozd, students gain hands-on experience in a professional production as part of SDP technical crew and will perform on stage during the season productions and in a special student performance during the season.

Tuition is $400 per five-week session. Scholarships are available.

Applicants must call for an interview appointment. No interviews will be conducted on a walk-in basis.

For an appointment or further information call 856-4533.