August 3, 2024 • 21 mins
Shakespeare fans have been flocking to Boston Common for years to take in the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company's summer productions. From the Bard's best known classics to some lesser known titles, the performers do this night after night for free in hopes of boosting accessibility to the arts. Now, the Company is taking its next step, putting its own spin on a Christmas classic for the very first time. Founding Artistic Director Steven Maler joins Nichole this week to talk about their Common production, "A Winter's Tale", and their efforts to expand their offerings into the winter season.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:07):
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
We're each and every week we come together, we talk
about all the topics important to you and the place
where you live. It is great to be back with
you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis. Now, if you
walk through the Boston common these days, right after sunset,
you might be surprised to hear the sounds of Shakespeare.
For many years, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has been performing
(00:30):
some of the Bard's best known classics and even some
not quite as well known, for free for anybody to
come and watch, and people do in droves. Now that
we're making our way into the latter half of the
summer for the first time, the company's eyes are looking
toward the winter months. Here to explain is Stephen Mahler.
He is the founding artistic director at the company. Stephen,
it is so good to have you here. For people
(00:52):
who might not be from the Boston area, they might
not know about your work. Let's start with that. Give
us the rundown here about your mission and what you want.
I'll do.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah. So, in nineteen ninety six we started the company
with this vision that theater and shakespeare and the performing
art should be truly accessible to everyone. And part of
that accessibility problem has always been ticket price. And you know,
it gets more and more expensive every year to go
to the theater. So we wanted to create a company that
(01:22):
was truly barrierless, that truly anyone and everyone could enjoy
and partake in, just like frankly kind of a Shakespeare's
theater in his day that everybody went to the theater.
So the two big ideas were make it free and
put it in the nation's oldest park. And you know,
no walls, no barriers, no portals, You just walk in,
(01:43):
show up, grab a peach, patch of grass, and sit
down and listen to some of the greatest stories ever written.
And so since nineteen ninety six we've been doing that
every year out on the Common and over a million
and a half people have come out and seen these plays,
and we worked with some extraordinary actors and designers and
directors over the year, really just bringing the very best
(02:04):
of the work that we can do in the theater
community to the people of Boston for free, and they
respond wonderfully. They've built really fantastic audiences over the years,
you know, and a good Saturday night, we'll see ten
thousand people out on the Boston Common enjoying the store
and enjoying these great plays.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I was actually walking through the Common this past Saturday night.
I had somewhere else to be, Otherwise I would have
stopped and watched, but I saw they were getting ready
for the Winter's Tale to start, and the crowd was excited,
they were engaged. They were there. It wasn't quite sundown
just yet, but you could tell they were ready, they
were waiting. How often do you just walk out on
(02:44):
that stage or look around, peek around the curtain and say,
oh my gosh, like we're doing this. This is the
coolest thing to do.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's you know, it's truly an honor and you know,
our life's work really to have built this company with
my dear friend Joan Wanna, who we founded the company
in nineteen ninety six together, and she and I have
really from the ground up built this institution. It's not
a radical idea. You know, it obviously exists in other cities,
(03:12):
but I do think that ours is probably the largest
in the country based on how many people see the
productions every summer, and there is something just so awe
inspiring to come out onto the common and see you know,
families and diverse the diversity of Boston represented in our audience,
and there's a playfulness and an excitement. People start showing
(03:34):
about five o'clock fro an eight o'clock performance, but once
the play starts, there's this hush descends over the audience,
and there's this incredible attention and focus to the story
because people are there to see the play and see
the story. And what's really exciting about Winter's Tale is
this is one that most people haven't seen it. It's
(03:54):
kind of not a center of the canon peace and
we do that from time to time. We'll do you know,
we'll do the Tempest, we'll do Macbeth. But then we
also like to explore plays that aren't as familiar to
audiences and introduce them to new narratives.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, Shakespeare. I think for some people, they think of
Shakespeare and they think, I could never understand what that
guy's trying to say. And this is all in Old
English and I have no idea what any of this means.
But it's all about accessibility. Right, You've got a free performance,
you put it in the nation's biggest public park, and
I'm sure you do your best to try, through your
(04:28):
acting and through your interpretation to make it accessible and digestible.
I think is the word I'm trying to go for,
because Shakespeare can be really overwhelming, I think for a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, I think it's overwhelming to read Shakespeare. I think
even me, frankly, when I'm reading a play that I'm
not super familiar with, I struggle. You know, you have
to look at definitions and glosses and understand what's going on.
But Shakespeare in performance is an incredibly different thing. And
what I have found over the many, many years of
(05:00):
doing this is that you know very quickly the audience's
ear tunes to the language, and they adjust to the language,
and they it's like listening to someone with an accent.
You start to learn how to listen to them, and
you like to learn how to listen to these stories.
And a lot of that is due to the incredible
work that the actors do to bring the language to life,
(05:23):
to make it transparent and contemporary and fresh. And we
are the style of our productions for people who haven't
seen them. We don't do English accents, we don't do
double the tights, I mean these very fresh modern interpretations
of the plays that are both respectful, of course, of
the language and the history, but also bring the place
(05:44):
forward to today. Shakespeare isn't profoundly contemporary writer, and that's
what makes his writing so, you know, such an evergreen
and then continue to inspire us. So the comment that
I love the most, that I get almost every year
is a kid will come up to me after the
show or at intermission and say, was that Shakespeare? Because
(06:07):
I understood everything and that we know we've won. Yes,
it's really just that leap of faith that we ask
our audiences to do. And I feel like once they
come out there and discover the work that we do
and discover the power of this writer and these stories,
they're hooked and we get them year after year.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I think when people hear Shakespeare they think of, you know,
Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. You know, all the basics, right,
the ones we all read in high school and you know,
call it a day or try to read in high school.
But Winter's Tale, I will confess I have read my
share of Shakespeare. I am not familiar with Winter's Tale.
So how did you come to choose this specific play
for this year.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yes, well, the play is directed this year by CSC's
Associate Artistic Director, Bren Boyce. Bren is, you know, an
award winning director. We're very, very lucky to have her
on our team at CSSEC, and this is actually her
first production on the Common. She's directed for us in
other venues, and she's directed all across Massachusetts in Boston,
(07:05):
but she was deeply, deeply passionate about this play. This
was the play that she wanted to do. And you know,
for me, when I look to when I'm not directing
the plays and we're looking at plays that we want
to do, that passion on the part of the director
is a big indicator to me of the success of
(07:26):
the production. And she's ferociously passionate about this play. It is,
you know, a bit unfamiliar for folks, but it does
have some of the greatest language and particularly some of
the greatest language for women in the play In the Cannon,
it's a story about a mistaken betrayal a very jealous man.
(07:47):
At the beginning of the play begins the King of
Cecilia believes completely without any foundation, that his wife has
been unfaithful to him, and that sets in motion a
series of tragic and ultimately comedic and revelatory and celebratory
events over the course of the play. But it is,
(08:10):
you know, I think it's a play that has such
richness and has such a spectrum. There's a world of
Sicily where Cecilia, where he came from. And then there's
the world of Bohemia, which is the sort of wild, wonderful,
exuberant place that's you know, full of color and full
of dance and full of music and wonderful characters. And
(08:31):
then there's this resolution of the play, which is probably
I'm not going to spoil it, but it's probably the
most beautiful resolution of any play in Shakespeare's cannon. And
there's some really great endings. This is the greatest. I think.
It's a real treat to be able to kind of
discover this hidden gym in the canon that most people
(08:54):
have not seen, and they'll they'll be you know, kind
of learning the story as un full. But that's also
one of the great things about Shakespeare. On the common
I remember we were doing Hamlet coming up at the
very end of the walking onto the site at the
very end of the performance, and people gasping when Hamlet
died because they just didn't know that's how the story ended.
(09:15):
They'd heard the story, they knew about it, but they've
never actually seen it. And so there's something very electrifying
about our audiences and being out there on the Boston
Common because we are all discovering the power of these
plays and the glory of these plays in that real time,
almost as if it was being preshly minted in Shakespeare's day.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And as you had mentioned, it's the actors that really
bring it to life. And I kind of wanted to
ask you. We did a story a couple of weeks
ago about this on WBZ, but for people who might
not have heard, it's been really hot and humid lately,
how on earth do the actors dress in Shakespearean sort
of garb because it's not exactly like you can wear
(09:59):
a crop top in shorts in these sorts of plays.
How are you dealing with the heat and the humidity
during these productions?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, well, I think Bohemia has its its share of
crop tops and shorts because quite a fun interpretation of
Bohemia in this production. But no, seriously, it is a
very serious concern. We take it extremely Uh seriously. And
of course it's not just the actors. It's also the
(10:27):
technicians there, people you know in the grid holding a light,
a follow spot and following the actors to the entire
action of the play. So they're they're standing, sitting, sitting
with a hot instrument in their lap. And of course
the whole team that's backstage, that's running the production and
moving the scenery around and dressing the actors, all of that.
It's it's a it's a small army back there. We
(10:50):
we are very careful with heat mitigation protocols. When the
heat gets to a certain level, we slow down, we
break more, make sure people stay hydrated. But it's really challenging,
and it's you know, I think sadly getting more challenging
as time goes by. But you know what often happens,
(11:12):
and almost always happens, is by eight o'clock the heat
sort of breaks, and for the audiences and the performers,
it becomes sort of this magical moment of the sunset
over the Boston Common and the heat abating a little
bit and a nice breeze kicks up and it feels
really pretty spectacular out there.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, those beautiful summer nights, and let's kind of segue
from summer nights to wintertime because obviously Shakespeare on the
Common is big. It's happening right now, but you're already
looking ahead toward Christmas and you have a very popular,
well known title that's going to be performed this Christmas season.
So tell us a bit about your plans.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, so we've been working almost for a year and
a half at the board level and the staff level
on planning this production because it is a big new
move for CSC. It increases the budget of the organization
by fifty percent. So it's a bold move and a
big move. It is probably the boldest thing we've done
(12:12):
since we started the company when created Shakespeare in the Common,
this tradition of Shakespeare in the Common. And you know,
what what we feel like will happen with this production
is that it will become yet another Boston tradition. And
there's so many wonderful holiday things to do in Boston,
from the Nutcracker to Messiah and to you know, great
(12:34):
things in the Seaport and other festivals and such, but
you know, there's not really a major production in downtown
Boston of this iconic story by Charles Dickens, and it
is our joy and pleasure to sort of bring this
story this summer, this winter to life with some truly,
(12:55):
truly you know, amazing performers and designers and of writing team.
It's it's it's going to be an epic production. I'm directing.
It's been adapted by Steve Wargo. It's a really wonderful
and you know, kind of faithful adaptation of Dickens's narrative.
(13:15):
What's really beautiful about it is that it has almost
twenty Christmas carols from Dickens erastore woven into the narrative,
sort of advancing the story just in the way that
a song does in a musical. It's not a musical
per se, but it is a musical. And those arrangements
are by Diane Adams McDowell, who's really a massive talent.
(13:39):
And the music is so beautiful and so powerful and
so rich that it's going to be just truly an
epic production. We're thrilled to be doing it at the
Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater, which is right down the street
from where we perform Shakespeare on the Common. It's a
glorious you know Prosenium eleven hundred seat theater, fabulous renovation
(14:01):
some years ago. It is truly one of the jewels
in our town of theaters. And we'll play for two
weeks in December, and then hopefully as years go by,
we'll keep adding more performances and it'll become a big
holiday hit for everybody to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, and I noticed obviously Ebenezer Scrooge. You can't do
Christmas Carol without having a solid Scrooge because he's kind
of the main guy of this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, lyman is a favorite actor of mine and CSCs.
He's been on the common many many years over the
years with US, I think most recently he played King
Lear for US. But he's also so known to the
community and to the world. Frankly, he's the voice of Frontline.
(14:46):
He does all the voiceovers for Frontline. He's had a beautiful,
beautiful voice he does. He was the Dozakes most interesting
man in that campaign. He was the voice of BMW
for many years. I think. So he's such a powerful actor.
He has such richness and humanity, and that arc of
(15:10):
that character is what makes the play. The character transforms
over the course of the play and I can just
think of no one better to do this role than
Will and was so thrilled when he said yes. And
we're just now putting the rest of the team around him,
starting to put the rest of the team around him,
And that looks like it's going to be just like
(15:32):
Shakespeare in the Common the kind of all stars of
our community are going to be on our stage for
the winter as well.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Creatively, how do you feel about this new move? I mean,
obviously it's something new, it might be a little overwhelming,
but I'd love to know how you're feeling as you
make your way into this next step of CSC.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah. I think I feel very confident. We've got an
incredible team of designers that are already in place and
are working close with me on building the project for us.
I think it is a story that just works. It's
it's a narrative that just works. It's of course performed
all over the country, all over the world, and it's
(16:15):
it's it is because like Shakespeare, it just has these great,
great themes and great characters and this incredible journey towards
joy and celebration and you know a sense of a
community and humanity coming together as one and I think
(16:35):
that is what is so powerful about this piece is
the sense of community. And I think you know, for us,
what we love about the piece is it has this
sort of epic scope that Shakespeare has and so this
big tapestry, it's a big story which we love. But
you know, incredible characters, incredible narrative. But for us, also
(16:59):
for many many people, people you know, holiday shows or
when they come together as a family to engage in
the arts. You know, for many people, the Nutcracker is
the first ballet that they ever see and they get
excited about dance and ballet through that. Similarly, you know,
of course across the country, this production is a staple
(17:19):
of many, many regional theaters and it too introduces theater
to a whole new generation of audiences. And that's what
we feel like we do on the Boston Common is
we bring people who are in the tent, but also
people who are not at all in the tent to
live theater and get them excited about going to see
(17:39):
shows that the lyric and speakeasy in Huntington Art. We
think this too is the same kind of opportunity that
Christmas Carol is one of these great common Denominators in
that it just brings the whole of the community to
gather around this great story. So we're feeling really really
excit about it. We're eager to get the team together
(18:04):
and get the cast together and start working in the
rehearsal hall just as soon as we possibly can.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
On Well, we're probably not thinking technically Christmas in July.
I guess Christmas could be on the brain right now,
even though it's been like ninety degrees. But the good
thing is that if you want to plan ahead, perhaps
as a holiday present or a Thanksgiving present or something
I don't know, you can buy the tickets now. So
tell us about the pre sale that's already underway.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, we are really excited to be offering pre sale
tickets to our friends and family and audiences that are
coming out to the Common or hearing about this production upcoming.
There's some incredible discounts. We're basically discounting tickets twenty percent
off of the single ticket pricing. You can go to
Calmshakes dot org slash Carol c Arl for more information,
(18:52):
but we've really priced it very very accessibly. There are
tickets as low as twenty dollars and that was something
that was super important to us, is that as we
add this new production and we're in an indoor venue
and you know, not just sort of giving the show
away for free in the Boston Common. We wanted to
make sure that this true show was really accessible from
(19:13):
a pricing point of view. So there are of course
more expensive seats, but we hope anybody and everybody can
get in the door to see this production. And that's
one of the great things about being in the Majestic
is it's a relatively big house, so there's a lot
of room for folks to be there and for us
to be able to price you know, quite a spectrum,
(19:33):
to be able to make the numbers work financially for us,
but also again make it a great family experience for
folks this holiday.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
And you're getting a lot of support, i'm sure from
the community, fiscally and otherwise to make this happen.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yes, absolutely, we're so so honored and grateful that Jay
and Christy Cashman, who are Christie's a board member, they've
been longtime supporters. They've made a big commitment to support
this project. Other board members have stepped up as well
to support it, and we're out there talking to corporations
and foundations and other individuals about helping to support this
(20:09):
production so again we can make it a new Boston
tradition and create something that's a family friendly, fun event
for decades to come. So we're very very excited about it,
and people seem to be very excited.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
About I'm excited about this. Look, longtime Bostonian here. I
am all for all the Christmas stuff we can get,
So let's do it. If people want to find out
more about Winter's Tale that's on right now in the Common,
if they want to get these pre sale tickets, learn
more about your production, where can they find you? Website,
social media, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, Calmshakes dot org is the best place to start,
and we're on all of the platforms, so just google
around and find us. But we're out there every night
now except for Monday nights, so you can also just
stop buy and chat with us because we're out on
the Boston Common right now.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Easy enough. Well, Steve Maylor break a leg. A lot
of people who might not know theater might be like,
why are you telling him to break a leg? But
good luck with all your productions. This summer and moving
into the wintertime, and all the best with this new
venture of yours.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Thank you so much, Thank you for your time. Today
is such a thrill to chat with you about all
the work that we're doing.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And of course have a safe and healthy weekend. Please
join us again next week for another edition of the show.
I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
From WBZ News Radio in Boston. This is New England Weekend.
We're each and every week we come together, we talk
about all the topics important to you and the place
where you live. It is great to be back with
you again this week. I'm Nicole Davis. Now, if you
walk through the Boston common these days, right after sunset,
you might be surprised to hear the sounds of Shakespeare.
For many years, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has been performing
(00:30):
some of the Bard's best known classics and even some
not quite as well known, for free for anybody to
come and watch, and people do in droves. Now that
we're making our way into the latter half of the
summer for the first time, the company's eyes are looking
toward the winter months. Here to explain is Stephen Mahler.
He is the founding artistic director at the company. Stephen,
it is so good to have you here. For people
(00:52):
who might not be from the Boston area, they might
not know about your work. Let's start with that. Give
us the rundown here about your mission and what you want.
I'll do.
Speaker 2 (01:00):
Yeah. So, in nineteen ninety six we started the company
with this vision that theater and shakespeare and the performing
art should be truly accessible to everyone. And part of
that accessibility problem has always been ticket price. And you know,
it gets more and more expensive every year to go
to the theater. So we wanted to create a company that
(01:22):
was truly barrierless, that truly anyone and everyone could enjoy
and partake in, just like frankly kind of a Shakespeare's
theater in his day that everybody went to the theater.
So the two big ideas were make it free and
put it in the nation's oldest park. And you know,
no walls, no barriers, no portals, You just walk in,
(01:43):
show up, grab a peach, patch of grass, and sit
down and listen to some of the greatest stories ever written.
And so since nineteen ninety six we've been doing that
every year out on the Common and over a million
and a half people have come out and seen these plays,
and we worked with some extraordinary actors and designers and
directors over the year, really just bringing the very best
(02:04):
of the work that we can do in the theater
community to the people of Boston for free, and they
respond wonderfully. They've built really fantastic audiences over the years,
you know, and a good Saturday night, we'll see ten
thousand people out on the Boston Common enjoying the store
and enjoying these great plays.
Speaker 1 (02:23):
I was actually walking through the Common this past Saturday night.
I had somewhere else to be, Otherwise I would have
stopped and watched, but I saw they were getting ready
for the Winter's Tale to start, and the crowd was excited,
they were engaged. They were there. It wasn't quite sundown
just yet, but you could tell they were ready, they
were waiting. How often do you just walk out on
(02:44):
that stage or look around, peek around the curtain and say,
oh my gosh, like we're doing this. This is the
coolest thing to do.
Speaker 2 (02:51):
It's you know, it's truly an honor and you know,
our life's work really to have built this company with
my dear friend Joan Wanna, who we founded the company
in nineteen ninety six together, and she and I have
really from the ground up built this institution. It's not
a radical idea. You know, it obviously exists in other cities,
(03:12):
but I do think that ours is probably the largest
in the country based on how many people see the
productions every summer, and there is something just so awe
inspiring to come out onto the common and see you know,
families and diverse the diversity of Boston represented in our audience,
and there's a playfulness and an excitement. People start showing
(03:34):
about five o'clock fro an eight o'clock performance, but once
the play starts, there's this hush descends over the audience,
and there's this incredible attention and focus to the story
because people are there to see the play and see
the story. And what's really exciting about Winter's Tale is
this is one that most people haven't seen it. It's
(03:54):
kind of not a center of the canon peace and
we do that from time to time. We'll do you know,
we'll do the Tempest, we'll do Macbeth. But then we
also like to explore plays that aren't as familiar to
audiences and introduce them to new narratives.
Speaker 1 (04:08):
Yeah, Shakespeare. I think for some people, they think of
Shakespeare and they think, I could never understand what that
guy's trying to say. And this is all in Old
English and I have no idea what any of this means.
But it's all about accessibility. Right, You've got a free performance,
you put it in the nation's biggest public park, and
I'm sure you do your best to try, through your
(04:28):
acting and through your interpretation to make it accessible and digestible.
I think is the word I'm trying to go for,
because Shakespeare can be really overwhelming, I think for a
lot of people.
Speaker 2 (04:39):
Yeah, I think it's overwhelming to read Shakespeare. I think
even me, frankly, when I'm reading a play that I'm
not super familiar with, I struggle. You know, you have
to look at definitions and glosses and understand what's going on.
But Shakespeare in performance is an incredibly different thing. And
what I have found over the many, many years of
(05:00):
doing this is that you know very quickly the audience's
ear tunes to the language, and they adjust to the language,
and they it's like listening to someone with an accent.
You start to learn how to listen to them, and
you like to learn how to listen to these stories.
And a lot of that is due to the incredible
work that the actors do to bring the language to life,
(05:23):
to make it transparent and contemporary and fresh. And we
are the style of our productions for people who haven't
seen them. We don't do English accents, we don't do
double the tights, I mean these very fresh modern interpretations
of the plays that are both respectful, of course, of
the language and the history, but also bring the place
(05:44):
forward to today. Shakespeare isn't profoundly contemporary writer, and that's
what makes his writing so, you know, such an evergreen
and then continue to inspire us. So the comment that
I love the most, that I get almost every year
is a kid will come up to me after the
show or at intermission and say, was that Shakespeare? Because
(06:07):
I understood everything and that we know we've won. Yes,
it's really just that leap of faith that we ask
our audiences to do. And I feel like once they
come out there and discover the work that we do
and discover the power of this writer and these stories,
they're hooked and we get them year after year.
Speaker 1 (06:24):
I think when people hear Shakespeare they think of, you know,
Hamlet or Romeo and Juliet. You know, all the basics, right,
the ones we all read in high school and you know,
call it a day or try to read in high school.
But Winter's Tale, I will confess I have read my
share of Shakespeare. I am not familiar with Winter's Tale.
So how did you come to choose this specific play
for this year.
Speaker 2 (06:44):
Yes, well, the play is directed this year by CSC's
Associate Artistic Director, Bren Boyce. Bren is, you know, an
award winning director. We're very, very lucky to have her
on our team at CSSEC, and this is actually her
first production on the Common. She's directed for us in
other venues, and she's directed all across Massachusetts in Boston,
(07:05):
but she was deeply, deeply passionate about this play. This
was the play that she wanted to do. And you know,
for me, when I look to when I'm not directing
the plays and we're looking at plays that we want
to do, that passion on the part of the director
is a big indicator to me of the success of
(07:26):
the production. And she's ferociously passionate about this play. It is,
you know, a bit unfamiliar for folks, but it does
have some of the greatest language and particularly some of
the greatest language for women in the play In the Cannon,
it's a story about a mistaken betrayal a very jealous man.
(07:47):
At the beginning of the play begins the King of
Cecilia believes completely without any foundation, that his wife has
been unfaithful to him, and that sets in motion a
series of tragic and ultimately comedic and revelatory and celebratory
events over the course of the play. But it is,
(08:10):
you know, I think it's a play that has such
richness and has such a spectrum. There's a world of
Sicily where Cecilia, where he came from. And then there's
the world of Bohemia, which is the sort of wild, wonderful,
exuberant place that's you know, full of color and full
of dance and full of music and wonderful characters. And
(08:31):
then there's this resolution of the play, which is probably
I'm not going to spoil it, but it's probably the
most beautiful resolution of any play in Shakespeare's cannon. And
there's some really great endings. This is the greatest. I think.
It's a real treat to be able to kind of
discover this hidden gym in the canon that most people
(08:54):
have not seen, and they'll they'll be you know, kind
of learning the story as un full. But that's also
one of the great things about Shakespeare. On the common
I remember we were doing Hamlet coming up at the
very end of the walking onto the site at the
very end of the performance, and people gasping when Hamlet
died because they just didn't know that's how the story ended.
(09:15):
They'd heard the story, they knew about it, but they've
never actually seen it. And so there's something very electrifying
about our audiences and being out there on the Boston
Common because we are all discovering the power of these
plays and the glory of these plays in that real time,
almost as if it was being preshly minted in Shakespeare's day.
Speaker 1 (09:38):
And as you had mentioned, it's the actors that really
bring it to life. And I kind of wanted to
ask you. We did a story a couple of weeks
ago about this on WBZ, but for people who might
not have heard, it's been really hot and humid lately,
how on earth do the actors dress in Shakespearean sort
of garb because it's not exactly like you can wear
(09:59):
a crop top in shorts in these sorts of plays.
How are you dealing with the heat and the humidity
during these productions?
Speaker 2 (10:07):
Yeah, well, I think Bohemia has its its share of
crop tops and shorts because quite a fun interpretation of
Bohemia in this production. But no, seriously, it is a
very serious concern. We take it extremely Uh seriously. And
of course it's not just the actors. It's also the
(10:27):
technicians there, people you know in the grid holding a light,
a follow spot and following the actors to the entire
action of the play. So they're they're standing, sitting, sitting
with a hot instrument in their lap. And of course
the whole team that's backstage, that's running the production and
moving the scenery around and dressing the actors, all of that.
It's it's a it's a small army back there. We
(10:50):
we are very careful with heat mitigation protocols. When the
heat gets to a certain level, we slow down, we
break more, make sure people stay hydrated. But it's really challenging,
and it's you know, I think sadly getting more challenging
as time goes by. But you know what often happens,
(11:12):
and almost always happens, is by eight o'clock the heat
sort of breaks, and for the audiences and the performers,
it becomes sort of this magical moment of the sunset
over the Boston Common and the heat abating a little
bit and a nice breeze kicks up and it feels
really pretty spectacular out there.
Speaker 1 (11:29):
Yeah, those beautiful summer nights, and let's kind of segue
from summer nights to wintertime because obviously Shakespeare on the
Common is big. It's happening right now, but you're already
looking ahead toward Christmas and you have a very popular,
well known title that's going to be performed this Christmas season.
So tell us a bit about your plans.
Speaker 2 (11:51):
Yeah, so we've been working almost for a year and
a half at the board level and the staff level
on planning this production because it is a big new
move for CSC. It increases the budget of the organization
by fifty percent. So it's a bold move and a
big move. It is probably the boldest thing we've done
(12:12):
since we started the company when created Shakespeare in the Common,
this tradition of Shakespeare in the Common. And you know,
what what we feel like will happen with this production
is that it will become yet another Boston tradition. And
there's so many wonderful holiday things to do in Boston,
from the Nutcracker to Messiah and to you know, great
(12:34):
things in the Seaport and other festivals and such, but
you know, there's not really a major production in downtown
Boston of this iconic story by Charles Dickens, and it
is our joy and pleasure to sort of bring this
story this summer, this winter to life with some truly,
(12:55):
truly you know, amazing performers and designers and of writing team.
It's it's it's going to be an epic production. I'm directing.
It's been adapted by Steve Wargo. It's a really wonderful
and you know, kind of faithful adaptation of Dickens's narrative.
(13:15):
What's really beautiful about it is that it has almost
twenty Christmas carols from Dickens erastore woven into the narrative,
sort of advancing the story just in the way that
a song does in a musical. It's not a musical
per se, but it is a musical. And those arrangements
are by Diane Adams McDowell, who's really a massive talent.
(13:39):
And the music is so beautiful and so powerful and
so rich that it's going to be just truly an
epic production. We're thrilled to be doing it at the
Emerson Cutler Majestic Theater, which is right down the street
from where we perform Shakespeare on the Common. It's a
glorious you know Prosenium eleven hundred seat theater, fabulous renovation
(14:01):
some years ago. It is truly one of the jewels
in our town of theaters. And we'll play for two
weeks in December, and then hopefully as years go by,
we'll keep adding more performances and it'll become a big
holiday hit for everybody to enjoy.
Speaker 1 (14:17):
Yeah, and I noticed obviously Ebenezer Scrooge. You can't do
Christmas Carol without having a solid Scrooge because he's kind
of the main guy of this whole thing.
Speaker 2 (14:25):
Well, lyman is a favorite actor of mine and CSCs.
He's been on the common many many years over the
years with US, I think most recently he played King
Lear for US. But he's also so known to the
community and to the world. Frankly, he's the voice of Frontline.
(14:46):
He does all the voiceovers for Frontline. He's had a beautiful,
beautiful voice he does. He was the Dozakes most interesting
man in that campaign. He was the voice of BMW
for many years. I think. So he's such a powerful actor.
He has such richness and humanity, and that arc of
(15:10):
that character is what makes the play. The character transforms
over the course of the play and I can just
think of no one better to do this role than
Will and was so thrilled when he said yes. And
we're just now putting the rest of the team around him,
starting to put the rest of the team around him,
And that looks like it's going to be just like
(15:32):
Shakespeare in the Common the kind of all stars of
our community are going to be on our stage for
the winter as well.
Speaker 1 (15:39):
Creatively, how do you feel about this new move? I mean,
obviously it's something new, it might be a little overwhelming,
but I'd love to know how you're feeling as you
make your way into this next step of CSC.
Speaker 2 (15:52):
Yeah. I think I feel very confident. We've got an
incredible team of designers that are already in place and
are working close with me on building the project for us.
I think it is a story that just works. It's
it's a narrative that just works. It's of course performed
all over the country, all over the world, and it's
(16:15):
it's it is because like Shakespeare, it just has these great,
great themes and great characters and this incredible journey towards
joy and celebration and you know a sense of a
community and humanity coming together as one and I think
(16:35):
that is what is so powerful about this piece is
the sense of community. And I think you know, for us,
what we love about the piece is it has this
sort of epic scope that Shakespeare has and so this
big tapestry, it's a big story which we love. But
you know, incredible characters, incredible narrative. But for us, also
(16:59):
for many many people, people you know, holiday shows or
when they come together as a family to engage in
the arts. You know, for many people, the Nutcracker is
the first ballet that they ever see and they get
excited about dance and ballet through that. Similarly, you know,
of course across the country, this production is a staple
(17:19):
of many, many regional theaters and it too introduces theater
to a whole new generation of audiences. And that's what
we feel like we do on the Boston Common is
we bring people who are in the tent, but also
people who are not at all in the tent to
live theater and get them excited about going to see
(17:39):
shows that the lyric and speakeasy in Huntington Art. We
think this too is the same kind of opportunity that
Christmas Carol is one of these great common Denominators in
that it just brings the whole of the community to
gather around this great story. So we're feeling really really
excit about it. We're eager to get the team together
(18:04):
and get the cast together and start working in the
rehearsal hall just as soon as we possibly can.
Speaker 1 (18:09):
On Well, we're probably not thinking technically Christmas in July.
I guess Christmas could be on the brain right now,
even though it's been like ninety degrees. But the good
thing is that if you want to plan ahead, perhaps
as a holiday present or a Thanksgiving present or something
I don't know, you can buy the tickets now. So
tell us about the pre sale that's already underway.
Speaker 2 (18:28):
Yeah, we are really excited to be offering pre sale
tickets to our friends and family and audiences that are
coming out to the Common or hearing about this production upcoming.
There's some incredible discounts. We're basically discounting tickets twenty percent
off of the single ticket pricing. You can go to
Calmshakes dot org slash Carol c Arl for more information,
(18:52):
but we've really priced it very very accessibly. There are
tickets as low as twenty dollars and that was something
that was super important to us, is that as we
add this new production and we're in an indoor venue
and you know, not just sort of giving the show
away for free in the Boston Common. We wanted to
make sure that this true show was really accessible from
(19:13):
a pricing point of view. So there are of course
more expensive seats, but we hope anybody and everybody can
get in the door to see this production. And that's
one of the great things about being in the Majestic
is it's a relatively big house, so there's a lot
of room for folks to be there and for us
to be able to price you know, quite a spectrum,
(19:33):
to be able to make the numbers work financially for us,
but also again make it a great family experience for
folks this holiday.
Speaker 1 (19:41):
And you're getting a lot of support, i'm sure from
the community, fiscally and otherwise to make this happen.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Yes, absolutely, we're so so honored and grateful that Jay
and Christy Cashman, who are Christie's a board member, they've
been longtime supporters. They've made a big commitment to support
this project. Other board members have stepped up as well
to support it, and we're out there talking to corporations
and foundations and other individuals about helping to support this
(20:09):
production so again we can make it a new Boston
tradition and create something that's a family friendly, fun event
for decades to come. So we're very very excited about it,
and people seem to be very excited.
Speaker 1 (20:23):
About I'm excited about this. Look, longtime Bostonian here. I
am all for all the Christmas stuff we can get,
So let's do it. If people want to find out
more about Winter's Tale that's on right now in the Common,
if they want to get these pre sale tickets, learn
more about your production, where can they find you? Website,
social media, that sort of thing.
Speaker 2 (20:41):
Yeah, Calmshakes dot org is the best place to start,
and we're on all of the platforms, so just google
around and find us. But we're out there every night
now except for Monday nights, so you can also just
stop buy and chat with us because we're out on
the Boston Common right now.
Speaker 1 (20:56):
Easy enough. Well, Steve Maylor break a leg. A lot
of people who might not know theater might be like,
why are you telling him to break a leg? But
good luck with all your productions. This summer and moving
into the wintertime, and all the best with this new
venture of yours.
Speaker 2 (21:09):
Thank you so much, Thank you for your time. Today
is such a thrill to chat with you about all
the work that we're doing.
Speaker 1 (21:14):
And of course have a safe and healthy weekend. Please
join us again next week for another edition of the show.
I'm Nicole Davis from WBZ News Radio on iHeartRadio.
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