Orlando Shakes coming home to Lake Eola
Community support helps bring theater company back to Lake Eola
The region’s largest professional theater company, which first performed in 1989 at the lake, will return to open “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on April 2.
Orlando Shakes is learning you can go home again — but it takes a lot of work and community support.
The region’s largest professional theater company, which got its start in 1989 performing at Lake Eola Park as the Orlando-UCF Shakespeare Festival, will open “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the park on April 2.
Returning to Lake Eola’s Walt Disney Amphitheater after 15 years was an idea born of necessity. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the theater has been staging plays for online viewing. But to return to in-person performances, the company needed a big stage and extra seating to keep actors and audience members separated. And, preferably, the space should be outside.
“Where in the world could we go that had all those things?” artistic director Jim Helsinger asked rhetorically at a Monday-morning news conference. “We could go back home.”
Helsinger’s first gig with Orlando Shakes was acting in a 1992 production of “Midsummer Night’s Dream” at the amphitheater. In 2001, the company moved to the Lowndes Shakespeare Center
in Loch Haven Park. Its last performance at Lake Eola was in 2006.
“The set’s a lot more hightech than it was 20 years ago,” joked City Commissioner Patty Sheehan at the news conference.
That’s because of weeks of work by theater professionals such as Delonte Smith, Orlando Shakes’ assistant master electrician.
“Every show has its challenges,” Smith said in an interview. “In this case, you’re outside, it’s 90-degree weather” — and equipment that’s usually down the hall is now miles away.
“There’s a truck probably coming down every day,” Smith said. And the unloading? “It’s always all hands on deck.”
Using a combination of the Shakes’ and rented audio-visual equipment from Electronic Theatre Controls in southwest Orlando, the creative team has constructed a truss and hoisted more than 100 stage lights 20 feet in the air. And it’s being done day and night, while a scenic team builds out the set — continuing to work even during the press event.
“It’s kind of like a puzzle” as the workers stay out of each other’s way, both as a coronavirus precaution and a logistical practicality, Smith said.
While the set was being built, Helsinger was making cuts of a different sort. To follow recommendations on the length of public gatherings, he shaved Shakespeare’s text down to 100 minutes. That means the show can be performed comfortably without an intermission.
“It was actually not difficult … it is one of Shakespeare’s shorter plays, and he often repeats plot points several times, so if we take
away the repeats, we are left with a beautiful, shorter play,” Helsinger said.
Yet another team was determining the seating layout for the audience to keep parties distanced. In all, months of preparation have gone into “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and a follow-up production of the musical “Little Shop of Horrors,” which will open in May.
“It hasn’t been as stressful as one would think because of the planning,” Smith said.
Still, all that planning would have been fruitless if not for economic support. Among the local businesses sponsoring “Midsummer”: Massey Services, A. Brian Phillips P.A., Computer Business Consultants
Inc. and Orlando Health. In addition, the city of Orlando has offset fees normally charged to use the amphitheater, and the city’s parks and recreation department has been working with the theater.
Without the city, “there’s no way these productions would have been financially viable,” said Orlando Shakes managing director Douglas Love-Ramos. “We couldn’t be more grateful for their support.”
At the news conference, Orlando Mayor Buddy Dyer stressed the importance of the arts to Central Florida and said he couldn’t think of an industry more affected by the COVID-19 pandemic.
“As a city, we want to do everything we can to support our local arts groups,” said Dyer, adding that along with the jobs the industry provides, its artistry provides “food for our souls.”
Orlando Shakes has brought back to work its furloughed staff members, plus added workers such as overnight security guards.
“This is involving extra costs,” said Love-Ramos, who said making money wasn’t the objective of the shows. “This is about making a statement that we won’t be a casualty of the pandemic. Our theater will survive and come out the other side.”
Actors are also looking to get back to work. Timothy Williams, who will play Oberon and Theseus in “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” said he hadn’t been on a stage in a year.
“These gathering places are where we draw life from one another and where we can share our stories,” said Williams, while co-star Trenell Mooring described the show as “full of heart, love, laughter and a whole lot of magic.”
Watching an Orlando Shakes student matinee years ago at Lake Eola inspired Mooring, who will play the “bucket-list” role of Hermia, to pursue acting. She said: “Sometimes the best thing to do is come back home.”
‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream’
When: April 2-17 Where: Walt Disney Amphitheater at Lake Eola Park, 195 N. Rosalind Ave. in Orlando
Cost: $22-$56; a “park pass” to both “Midsummer” and “Little Shop of Horrors” costs $112
Info: Orlandoshakes.org or 407-447-1700