Lisa Coffi
recalls. “I don’t think the attention span of today’s audience in our environment, out in a park, is going to sit that long. […] Shakespeare by the Sea is for [the] everyman.”
Coffi’s also learned that people turn up for what they know.
“When you pick shows where people are familiar with the titles, people will come and watch it,” she says. “So, like, Cymbeline was not particularly well attended because people didn’t know the title. But you pick Romeo and Juliet (which opens June 30), and we’re going to have a huge year this year.”
One plus from the COVID-19 pandemic, when SbtS stayed active by producing straight-to-streaming shows staged on Little Fish’s outdoor backlot (“There was a temptation to stop producing the festival, but as always with SbtS it seemed right to push through the dark times and back into the light”), was the opportunity to do the early, obscure Titus Andronicus, a show Coffi says they never would have mounted in the park due to its overthe-top grotesqueness, including rape, mutilation and feeding a mother a pie made of her sons’ ground-up bodies.
“We would never have been able to take a play like that out to the parks,” she laughs. “It’s just evil. […] ‘Free! Family-friendly!’”
Without getting into detail,
Coffi notes that there have been ups and down in SbtS’s relationship with San Pedro and Los Angeles. She’s learned the value of diligently keeping a paper trail (electronic or otherwise), because on more than one occasion the city has repeatedly asked for a form she’s already submitted.
“I think we’ve had a few little hiccups, but we’ve been able to make our way through,” she says. “[…] It depends on who the [Department of Parks and Recreation] person is. So let’s just say some years have been more difficult than others. Some years it feels like you’re banging your head against a brick wall, other years it’s just easy peasy. […] We haven’t really had any issues with the park for quite a few years.”
Although Coffi admits to regrets, her recollections of the last quartercentury are dominated by pride: patrons who donate year after year, castmembers who have become lifelong friends, letters from people who may not have seen Shakespeare or any theatre without an admissionfree festival in their neighborhood, mothers who brought their children who now bring their children.
“I’ve definitely had nights where I go to sleep remembering […] some things I wish I had done differently,” she says. “Maybe I was too snarky to someone or fired someone and then two years later wished I had talked it out with them. As you get older, you’re not as hot under the collar as you were at the beginning. I’m not sure whether it’s maturity or your passion is lessening. […] There are some things I regret, but there are a lot of shows that I can hold up and say, ‘Here we are. This is what we did.’ And it’s really nice to know that this will continue beyond me, which is something I always wanted to have happen.”
Shakespeare by the Sea kicks off its 25th season with Much Ado About Nothing at Point Fermin Park (807 W. Paseo Del Mar) on June 23 to 25. For a complete list of dates and locations visit ShakespeareByTheSea.org.