December 2, 2011

Cal Shakes builds community. Our work—whether onstage, in classrooms, or in community settings—helps people of all ages discover and develop vital imaginative tools that improve lives and strengthen our society.

By giving to Cal Shakes this year, you will directly impact individuals  and communities, many of whom desperately need creative resources to survive, let alone thrive. You make a difference when you invest in Cal Shakes. You became a fundamental partner in our distinctive service: Fostering a vital culture of creativity that makes the Bay Area the most innovative, inclusive, and interesting super-neighborhood in our country.

Cal Shakes needs a major influx of donations in order to successfully meet our financial goals this year, and to ensure that we’re in the strongest position to meet the challenge of fulfilling our mission in 2012.

As government funding for the arts and arts education continues to decrease, many people are less and less able to access the creative tools and experiences that connect us as people and help our communities thrive. That’s where Cal Shakes comes in. And that is why I need your help, as our partner, to sustain and expand the work we do: building community through theater.

With your support for our Annual Fund, we can:

• Respond to the ever-growing demand for Cal Shakes arts education programs, and serve more Bay Area students.
• Ensure that future generations of artists and theatergoers—including your children and grandchildren—will be able to experience the beauty and power of Shakespeare and the classics.
• Create new outlets for marginalized voices, as Cal Shakes makes new American plays in collaboration with members of disparate Bay Area populations.

Your support makes the work of this Theater—your Theater—possible, and impacts thousands of people, many of whom would not have access to the arts or arts education without you.

Your investment in our work is an investment in building our community. Please make a 2011 contribution today.

Thank you for all that you do.

Sincerely,

 
Jonathan Moscone
Artistic Director

P.S. Click here to make your gift online; or to speak with someone personally, contact Donor Relations Coordinator Ian Larue at 510.548.3422 x107. Gifts can be made in installments.

P.P.S. By giving $100 or more in a 12-month period, you become eligible for benefits as a Cal Shakes Champion. If you’re already a Champion, increasing your gift may make you eligible for additional benefits.

Photo by Kevin Berne.

San Francisco’s elegant Four Seasons Hotel, its foyer lined with exquisite costumes and larger-than-life photos of some of the Bay Area’s finest actors, provided the dramatic setting for California Shakespeare Theater’s One Great Party on Saturday, March 19, 2011.

With extraordinary assistance from event- and lighting-design firms Blueprint Studios and Got Light?, Cal Shakes transformed the Four Seasons’ elegantly understated ballroom into a theatrically glowing hall filled with mirror-topped dining tables reflecting the room’s continuously-shifting colored lighting.

“That we were able to raise record funds for arts education in this economic climate is a testament to the incredible generosity and responsiveness of our donors,” commented Cal Shakes Managing Director Susie Falk. ”It truly was One Great Party, but only because we’re a part of One Great Community.”

Following a lively cocktail hour with spirits courtesy of Stockholm Krystal Vodka, 350-plus party-goers joined Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone and Falk, and honorary co-chairs Nicola Miner, Robert Mailer Anderson, Carole Shorenstein Hays, and Dr. Jeffrey P. Hays in the ballroom to dine on delectable spring risotto, truffled potatoes gratin, and filet mignon, with wines generously provided by Alpha Omega Winery, Goosecross Cellars, Honig Vineyard and Winery, The PlumpJack Group, and Trinchero Family Estates.

After being entertained—and moved—by a video detailing the broad and deep impact of artistic education on Bay Area youth, the party kicked into high gear with an energetic live auction helmed by auctioneer extraordinaire Greg Quiroga. The elated guests bid enthusiastically and generously on one-of-a-kind packages: trips to France, Italy, New York, and San Francisco; private behind-the-scenes tours of Pixar, the fabled Getty Mansion, and Disney’s newest hit, Shake It Up!, starring Cal Shakes alumnus, Zendaya; and exclusive access to some of the finest wineries and golf courses in the country. Finally, guests packed the dance floor and boogied into the night to the sounds of the CoolTones big band.

Guests at the spectacular evening included The Hon. Willie Brown, Wilkes Bashford, Gina Moscone, Sharon and Barclay Simpson, John Adams and Deborah O’Grady, Ellen and Joffa Dale, Frank and Carey Starn, Harvey and Gail Glasser, Bronwyn and Kevin Brunner, Nita and Jim Roethe, and Francesca Vietor. Also there to celebrate Cal Shakes: William Taggert, Carey Perloff, Phil and Chris Chernin, Ed and Denise Del Beccaro, Kate Stechschulte and David Cost, Octavio Solis and Jeanne Sexton, Susie Medak, Nina and David Bond, Joe Di Prisco and Patti James, Mike and Ginny Ross, Jeff and Janie Green, Arline Klatte and Jon Ennis, Phillipa Kelly, and David and Diane Goldsmith.

The evening’s auctions, ticket sales, and donations raised more than $465,000 to support Cal Shakes’ artistic and educational programming, with the Fund-a-Need appeal single-handedly garnering more than $150,000 to bring Shakespeare to underserved youth throughout the Bay Area.

The evening was made possible in part through the generosity of Blueprint Studios, City National Bank, Got Light?, Mechanics Bank, Meyer Sound, Peet’s Coffee & Tea, San Francisco Magazine, Safeway, Simpson Strong-Tie, and Stockholm Krystal Vodka.

Read more about the party—and view pictures—in Kathryn Bigelow’s Social City and Willie Brown’s column, both in the San Francisco Chronicle.

This week in Washington, DC, the East Coast will get to experience a little bit of California heaven when excerpts from John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven are performed alongside fellow inaugural selections of the National Endowment for the Arts New Play Development Program. January 19–30, the American Voices New Play Institute at Arena Stage presents the New Play Festival, full-length presentations and readings including selected scenes from Pastures, which was adapted by Octavio Solis and developed in collaboration with Cal Shakes and Word for Word Performing Arts Company.

For this presentation, Word for Word company member Sheila Balter will restage excerpts from Jonathan Moscone’s production, with members of the world-premiere cast—Catherine Castellanos, Julie Eccles, Amy Kossow, Andy Murray, Charles Shaw Robinson, and JoAnne Winter—reprising their original roles alongside such familiar Cal Shakes faces as Clifton Guterman (Smike in 2005’s Nicholas Nickleby) as Tularecito and Mannie Munroe; and Nicholas Pelczar (Banquo and Lennox in Macbeth, Don Pedro in Much Ado) as Richard Whiteside, Jimmie Munroe, and Bill Whiteside. Recent A.C.T. MFA grad Lakisha May will play Molly Morgan and Mae Munroe; and popular Bay Area actor Jarion Monroe will play John Whiteside, Allen Huenecker, Pancho, and Jakob Stutz.

Click here for more information on the New Play Festival.

Our development of John Steinbeck’s The Pastures of Heaven was underwritten
by numerous individual donors and generous support from:

In keeping with fall tradition, our final show of the 2010 season, Much Ado About Nothing, had five very special a.m. performances: our Student Discovery matinees. This year more than 2,500 students, teachers, and chaperones from 44 Bay Area schools got to see Jonathan Moscone’s joyful production. Thanks to funding from the NEA’s Shakespeare for a New Generation, more than 50% of these student tickets were underwritten, and many of the students attending had never seen a Shakespeare play or any live theater at all. Here at Cal Shakes, we know that participation in art is not a luxury, but rather a necessity to becoming a thoughtful, tolerant, and joyfully well-rounded human being; enthusiastic reactions to this year’s Student Matinee series proved it to us yet again.

In his spirited pre-show welcome and synopsis, Associate Artist Clive Worsley asked the students: “Do you ever see two people who don’t really like each other, are always picking on each other, can’t stand to see one another … but are always hanging out together?” A rumble of agreement welled up from the young crowds, and we knew they were hooked into the romance about to unfold.

Student reactions are sometimes louder and often broader than the evening audiences. They delighted in Dogberry calling himself “an ass”, laughed loudly as water was poured over Beatrice’s eavesdropping head, and let out big sighs of happiness during the final marriage scene. After each performance is a 15- minute Q&A, with many of the actors returning to the stage to engage in a direct dialogue with students. “Do you really kiss and do you like it?” was a commonly posed question. The actors always replied thoughtfully, explaining that performing with someone—whether in an embrace or a fight—takes a great deal of trust and respect. “What happens when you forget a line?” one student inquired. “Well,” Danny Scheie quickly retorted, “you do Fakespeare!” When a young girl asked where the actors were from, Catherine Castellanos stood up and proudly stated “Stockton!,” eliciting huge applause, as, on that particular day, more than 250 kids had come from Stockton Unified Early College Academy.

“I thought it was going to be boring,” summarized one student, “but it was really fun.”

Teachers were pleased with the event as well. “Once again,” wrote Barbara Cohen of St. Anthony’s School in Oakland, ”thanks for making this possible for children who are now so proud that they’ve seen a ‘real’ play and that, even though their English isn’t perfect yet, they understood what the author was saying.”

Pictured: Beatrice (Domenique Lozano) hides out among a Much Ado Student Matinee audience; photo by Jay Yamada.

$300K gift to launch partnership between Cal Shakes and
San Francisco-based Intersection for the Arts + Campo Santo

California Shakespeare Theater today announced it has received its first-ever three-year, $300,000 grant from the Andrew W. Mellon Foundation. The grant was awarded to support the creation of a sustained partnership with San Francisco-based Intersection for the Arts and its resident theater company, Campo Santo for the creation of new works of theater in collaboration with diverse communities. This partnership, born of both companies’ desire to further develop their common vision for the creation of new theatrical works, aims to build on the shared goals of fostering community through theater and a desire to increase each organization’s impact in disparate communities.

Deborah Cullinan, Executive Director of Intersection for the Arts, says “Intersection for the Arts is thrilled with the opportunity afforded by the Mellon Foundation to forge a bold programmatic partnership with Cal Shakes that will explore new ways of genuinely engaging new people in the work that we do. This leadership support clearly recognizes the unique ability that theater has to cultivate community and have positive impact in our neighborhoods.”

“This is a significant moment in the story of our Theater,” said Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone. “Even before we began our first collaboration with Intersection and Campo Santo on Naomi Iizuka’s Hamlet: Blood in the Brain, the inaugural project of our New Works/New Communities program, I have always held a deep admiration for the work Deborah, Sean, and the entire staff at Intersection does to make theater that comes from, and matters to, diverse communities. This partnership is going to change our organizations and make us both stronger, smarter and expansive in our vision to fulfill the role of theater in our society today.”

“It is an honor and an inspiration to be a part of a project like this,” says Campo Santo co-founder Sean San José. “The encouragement from the Mellon Foundation supports the belief that by directly connecting and communicating with the real world in which our theaters exist, we can create stories informed by real people and buoyed by real relationships. The community building then becomes the priority that theater-making supports.”

The Andrew W. Mellon Foundation, long a leading advocate of the performing arts in the United States, recently undertook a four-year inquiry into new play development and production in the US, an overview of which is available online here. As a result of this investigation, the Foundation’s priorities and goals have shifted; the Foundation now seeks to fund leading theaters of all sizes that contribute to the advancement or preservation of theater as an art form and which are characterized by distinctive and ambitious artistic programming, a commitment to artists, intellectual relevance, and the capacity to engage audiences. Its goals are to help artistic leaders who are “swimming upstream” to continue to take artistic risks; to support processes that will improve the quality of work being produced; and to support collaborations between organizations that develop, premiere, and mount second and third productions of a work. It also endeavors to support long-term commitments to artists by institutions. In addition to support for theaters, the program provides direct support to a handful of leading playwriting centers that are critical to the development of artists and new work.