New Colorado Shakespeare Festival producing artistic director Philip Sneed began a new tradition Saturday night — announcing the next season’s offerings on opening night of the season before. That’s about six months sooner than in previous years.
So before Saturday’s 2007 opening performance of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” which launched the Festival’s 50th season, Sneed revealed his choices for Season 51. Members of his acting company performed excerpts from each.
The quotes that follow are Sneed’s:
“Macbeth”: “This timeless tale of unchecked ambition is arguably more relevant than ever in what will be an election year.”
“Woody Guthrie’s American Song”: This will be the 20th anniversary production of a musical created by Jeff Glazer and Jeff Waxman, the same team that made “Almost Heaven: Songs and Stories of John Denver” the longest-running show in Denver Center Theatre Company history. Sneed’s commitment to non-Shakespeare works, such as this year’s “Around the World in 80 Days,” was thought to be limited to Shakespearean peers or other classicists. “Our nation can claim many artists whose work qualifies as classic … And in our relatively young nation, our classics are often of a more recent vintage.”
“The Three Musketeers”: Based on the 1844 Alexandre Dumas novel, it recounts the adventures of a young man named d’Artagnan, who leaves home to become a musketeer like his three inseparable pals Athos, Porthos, and Aramis (“One for all, and all for one”). This one’s for kids and families. “I can think of few better theatrical goals than introducing young people to the classics.”
“Henry VIII”: Sneed is committed to CSF completing Shakespeare’s canon a second time, and the fest has performed this well-known but rarely staged title only once, in 1971. “The festival’s reputation is based in part on our having completed the Shakespearean canon, but … We present this play not just for bragging rights but because it speaks to us about power — especially about how a nation’s leader can be influenced by powerful, ambitious members of his inner circle.”
“Love’s Labor’s Lost”: This is one CSF hasn’t tackled in 10 years. “It’s one of Shakespeare’s most poetic and musical comedies.”
