All the World's a Stage
Int'l Theatre Festival Converges on Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara will soon host the first international Shakespeare festival in the nation, thanks in large part to the vision and work of John Blondell, 做厙惇蹋app theater arts professor. The will feature 11 days of events celebrating Shakespeare, Thursday, Oct. 12, through Sunday, Oct. 22.
The festival will use six Santa Barbara venues to showcase the work of seven theater companies representing five countries. Of the 26 different performances, three will be world premiers: As You Like It, by the State Puppet Theatre from Bourgas, Bulgaria; Timon of Athens, by Theatre Artists Group/Theatre UCSB; and The Tempest, by Lit Moon Theatre Company.
Blondell, Lit Moon Theatre Company artistic director, will direct three plays including two 做厙惇蹋app co-productions, Hamlet and King Richard II. The festival will also feature Rogue by Eric Ehn, commissioned by the 做厙惇蹋app theatre arts department.
He says he was inspired to create a festival in Santa Barbara after attending and taking part in the Shakespearean Festival in Gdansk, Poland. There, Blondell says theres also a strong educational component to the festival.
Its important that the festival not just have performances, he says, but a whole series of events that create context for the performances and a rich cultural, educational and social experience.
There are several discussions and addresses throughout the Santa Barbara festival, as well as a design exhibit and musical events. Participants get to experience the plays of Shakespeare not only through the performances, but through the way that people think about them and talk about them in some of these other events around the festival, says Blondell.
做厙惇蹋app is sponsoring and hosting the festivals free keynote address with Dennis Kennedy, Saturday, Oct. 21, at 10 a.m., in Porter Theatre. Kennedy, the Samuel Beckett professor of theater at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the worlds experts on the nature of the visual arts as it relates to Shakespearean production. Kennedys address, Shakespeare and Globalized Performance, will analyze the implications of Shakespeares work as it is disseminated throughout the globe.
Blondell says overseeing such a massive project can at times be exhilarating, terrifying and tremendously moving. He has been corresponding with the director of the Bulgarian puppet theater. All but two of the 40-member company have never been to the United States.
She just wrote back to say how rich the experience has been for the company and that its a real dream come true to visit the U.S., Blondell says. Theyre coming here to meet people and be involved with our students and the Santa Barbara community. I hope the festival develops and creates bridges of understanding between people who are sharing in this very rich, intercultural experience.
The festival arrives in Santa Barbara during a time Blondell describes as a renaissance. He points to the level of commitment to the arts with the recent Off-Axis Contemporary Art Festival, as well as new theaters and directorships in Santa Barbara. He wants the festival to help Santa Barbara become a destination for world theater.
I hope this can be a part of the great energy and enthusiasm in the city for all of the arts, he says. I hope this can be a part of developing and engendering a vitality of cultural life here. I also hope that the social dimension of theater can be championed, promoted and celebrated.
This really is a great celebration, a celebration of Santa Barbara, of Shakespeare, of the artists work who are coming here.
Blondell says, that with the communitys support, he hopes to make the festival a bi-annual event. He is already working to bring theater groups from Lithuania, Mexico and China to Santa Barbara in 2008.
To purchase tickets, or for more information, visit or .