Plans coming together for inaugural The Great South West Shakespeare Festival this summer
William Shakespeare’s comedy A Midsummer Night’s Dream will be the kick off performance in The Great South West Shakespeare Festival debuting in Swift Current this summer.
The Festival will begin an 18 show run of A Midsummer Night’s Dream on Friday, July 26, and there will be six performances per week during their run from July 26 to August 17. The final week of the festival will run in conjunction with 2019 Western Canada Summer Games.
Gordon Mccall, Artistic Director of The Lyric Theatre, is excited to be bringing a Shakespeare festival to Swift Current.
“One of the things I’m most excited about is the community’s response that I’ve heard so far, which is very positive,” he said. “They’re saying they can’t wait and they want to come to it. That’s just a great, positive response that we’re really grateful for.”
Mccall has been working along with Lyric Theatre General Manager Aina Adashynski, the Lyric Board of Directors and other individuals to move plans forward over the past few months. He has been pleased with the way plans are progressing during this portion of the performance planning.
“The City of Swift Current has been very supportive,” he noted, explaining they are helping with infrastructure assistance in the areas of electricity, security fencing, and other necessities to having a successful event for the festival being hosted in a large tent at Riverside Park.
For the first year, the tent will be donated by the Art Gallery of Swift Current through funding provided from the City.
“They’re seeing the potential for this festival, and I think we’re fortunate,” Mccall said of the city’s support.
He pointed to the economic spinoff of the Shakespeare of the Saskatchewan since it was founded 34 years ago as a reason to attempt a similar endeavour in Swift Current.
“We eventually can be a pretty significant contributor to the economy,” he said. “People would say, possibly, ‘just with a tent and Shakespeare?’ And my answer is yes, absolutely.”
Mccall, who was the founder and first artistic director of Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan Festival in Saskatoon, says the tent environment of the performance adds to the experience for the audience.
“It’s kind of a magic environment in a tent. It’s a different experience, he said. “It creates a private space, but it’s not like you’re in a theatre. You’re in an environment.”
By having a more informal setting it allows the performers to help immerse the audience in this special environment.
“The approach that I’ve taken has told me that audiences really, really appreciate it. It’s a different experience, but it’s very theatrical. It’s theatre and it’s Shakespeare. Because we hold true to the text. We don’t do language adaptations.”
“Past experience has shown me that audiences will understand it quite easily. Our job is to make it very clear, and make sure that our actions in the theatrical environment are very connected to the language. So if you didn’t know what some words meant, you would understand what it means by the way we act it. So it’s a lot of fun.”
And while there is no formal stage for the actors, there are special features built to help establish the setting and the performance environment. When operating Shakespeare on the Saskatchewan, he oversaw unique tent settings including having the CPR build a railroad track through the tent for a performance of The Taming of the Shrew, to having Romeo and Juliet begin with a head-on car collision with the cars driven by the Montagues and the Capulets. The Great South West Shakespeare Festival replaces an initial Shakespeare at Speedy Creek themed idea for a few important reasons.
“This is rooted here in Swift Current, so it’s our own community first, but it’s all about the region,” he explained.
“So the region is Saskatoon, Regina, Moose Jaw, Maple Creek, Gull Lake, Val Marie, everything in our Southwest region. And the U.S.”
“We wanted the identity that it’s our festival. It’s not somewhere else, it’s the Southwest. And our hope is we will eventually, and in the not too different future, attract tourists to look at us as a destination.”
He added that being on the Transcanada Highway makes it an easily accessible stop
“If they know it’s here, it’s actually a very easy stop and it’s a good in between stop for many destinations when you’re driving on the Number 1.”
Mccall’s vision is they will need 15 actors along with a technical team of 10 people dedicated to specific tasks to put on A Midsummer Night’s Dream. He will be directing the production himself and he is hoping to develop a loose company of actors, with performers returning to various roles in subsequent performances.
He anticipates holding a series of auditions to find the right people, but admits there are performers right in Swift Current he hopes will participate, along with actors from surrounding communities and branching across Saskatchewan.
“I’m thrilled to participate in developing actors from our community and region into this world of Shakespeare. I’ve been connected to it for most of my career, and I teach it at the university level all the time. And I’m very thrilled when I see actors who have never experienced it before kind of catch onto it.”
Mccall is also excited to help expose the works of Shakespeare to a new audience.
“I believe we can plant seeds with children about the works of the greatest playwright in the English language, that actually assist them in their life journey. Because Shakespeare speaks so eloquently about the human condition, over a period of time seeing his plays you get life lessons.”
“These plays stand up to this day because they still speak about what feels very current to us about our lives - and eloquently and in a different form than we’re used to on television and other forms of entertainment we have.