Bard’s Bash fundraiser a celebration on a variety of levels
Party like it’s 1564.
The Shakespeare Company is holding its annual Bard’s Bash fundraiser on April 21 at the Wild Rose Brewery. Artistic director Haysam Kadri says the event celebrates Shakespeare’s 454th birthday, recognizes the company’s longtime supporters and fundraises for the 2018/2019 season.
Also, during the event, Kadri will announce the four plays that will make up his new season.
This past season, The Shakespeare Company celebrated another anniversary — four years of a partnership with the Olds College Fashion Institute.
This program is housed in the Bow Valley College South Campus under the direction of Robert Laflamme.
Laflamme explains his senior students always work on the Shakespeare Company’s winter play. “Our first collaboration with the Shakespeare Company was on As You Like It in 2015 and then we also worked on Macbeth, The Three Musketeers and this season’s King Lear.
“It’s an invaluable collaboration because our students get to work with professional designers, directors and actors, which means they have to deliver quality garments. The designer for each of the shows works hand-in-hand with the students, who must execute the designer’s vision.”
The students also meet with the director of each show and with the actors they are dressing.
The actors know what they need from a costume and that is a good learning experience for the students.
“Through this program, our students learn how a costume gets from the page to the stage. That means following a particular costume from the initial designs right up to the final dress rehearsal.”
For King Lear, the Olds students built costumes for eight of the major characters in the play.
“The rest of the costumes are pulled from the existing stock and that’s not as easy as it probably sounds.
“These secondary costumes must match the new ones we are building and often have to be altered for the new actors who will be wearing them.”
Kadri says this partnership with Olds College “is invaluable. Robert and his students are helping us build an impressive stock of period costumes, which takes a great deal of pressure off our designers.
“The college absorbs the cost of building these costumes, which is again invaluable for us.”
Kadri also points out the proximity of the fashion department in Bow Valley College to the Vertigo Studio Theatre is very convenient.
Tickets for the fourth annual Bard’s Bash, at 4580 Quesnay Wood Drive S.W., are $40 and include entry and appetizers.
They can be purchased online at shakespearecompany.com.