Shakespeare in State Parks Becomes Shakespeare Online
When the COVID-19 pandemic came to Wisconsin in early March the performing arts were hit hard. Audiences could no longer gather in a theater, or even outdoors, to see a show. Some companies canceled their seasons. Others transitioned to Zoom readings and online performances. But the Wisconsin-based, traveling Shakespeare company Summit Players Theatre, which usually presents short adapted works in state parks, decided to change the focus of its programming, concentrating on arts education rather than play production.
“Like everyone, we’ve had to get creative and make adjustments to deal with the current situation safely and intelligently,” says executive director A.J. Magoon. “After we canceled our in-person tour, we started talking about what we could do to stay connected with audiences and offer the artists some financial support. We considered releasing archival recordings of our old shows, but quickly decided that wasn’t prudent, since our shows are so unique, interactive, and stylized.”
Because education has always been at the core of Summit’s mission, Magoon asked education director Caroline Norton to craft a thoughtful, rigorous schedule of content, adapting some of the company’s existing educational material for the web and imagining some new Bard-centric activities completely from scratch.
The result is the “No Bummer Summer: A Digital Shakespeareance,” available at summitplayerstheatre.com. There budding thespians will find a digital version of the company’s primary educational workshop, “Playing with Shakespeare: Get Outside with Will.” Participants can take part in Shakespeare games and exercises, culminating in performing a short scene.
Other videos available on the site explore aspects of Shakespeare’s life, work and poetry, with mini-lessons on how to write a sonnet, Elizabethan costuming conventions, stage combat, food mentioned in Shakespeare’s plays, and even how the plague affected the actors at the Globe Theatre in the early 1600s. Additional podcasts detail the company’s history and help listeners explore the text of three comedies that Summit produced in earlier seasons. There’s even a scavenger hunt, encouraging youngsters to find things outside that are mentioned in the plays and sonnets, including a beach, a bee, and “morning dew on a flower.”
“This is an incredible group of theater artists, and they’re doing a ton of work at a pretty tough time,” says Norton. “Obviously, it’s not what anyone expected to be doing, but we’re making the best of it and having a lot of fun thinking up ways to reach people.”
So far, the company’s reach has exceeded expectations. In an interview via email, Magoon estimates that since the program launched at the beginning of June, the Summit Players website has hosted more than 2,000 unique visitors and various “No Bummer Summer” videos have been viewed almost 10,000 times on social media. “This is exciting, because it's right in line with our goals,” says Magoon, adding that just over 2,000 people attended Summit shows last year in Wisconsin state parks, and they were hoping to reach 2,500 in 2020. “So we've attracted some new folks, because our videos aren't bound by geography or schedules,” says Magoon. “We'll hopefully see some of them in the parks once we make our return.”
And there’s good news for students returning to school online: “No Bummer Summer” will be available on the company’s website through the end of the year. “I have a feeling a lot of people will still benefit from a little levity, education and entertainment as we enter an uncertain fall,” Magoon says.