What do cocktails and The Tempest have in common? You decide! Enter our Cal Shakers Tempest cocktail contest!

Invent a vodka-based drink, name it, and tell us about it no later than Monday, June 4 one of these ways:

• Email marketing@calshakes.org with the subject header “Tempest cocktail contest.”
• Post your recipe on Twitter with the hashtag #tempestcocktail.
• Share on our Facebook wall by June 4.

The creator of the winning cocktail will be rewarded their choice of a Tempest T-shirt or free entry to our June 8 pre-performance Cal Shakers party at the Bruns.

Cal Shakers, start your jiggers and join us where the winning cocktail will be served.  Tickets available now for the pre-show party on Friday, June 8 at 6:30pm.  We’ll be serving up warm and gooey gourmet grilled-cheese sandwiches, sumptuous soup shots, luscious desserts, and our Tempestuous drink winner, compliments of Stockholm Krystal Vodka.  Meet our tarot readers and see what the summer has in store for you (besides attending lots of Cal Shakes shows). Tickets for this exclusive event are only $40 per person for Cal Shakers members and $60 for nonmembers.  Price includes one ticket to that evening’s performance. Buy tickets here. Want to become a member of Cal Shakers? Visit our membership page.

Our popular, free Inside Scoop events have moved; they are now being held at the Orinda Theatre, 4 Orinda Theatre Square. Inside Scoops are lively panel discussions and Q&As, offering context, conversation, and the ever-desirable sneak peek provided by those who know the show best. Get inside the creative process with our cast and creative team while they’re still deep in the rehearsal process—and enjoy complimentary sweet treats and Peet’s coffee and tea beforehand.

Appearing at the star-studded Tempest Inside Scoop are director Jonathan Moscone, actor Michael Winters (Prospero), actor James Carpenter (Alonso), choreographer/actor Erika Chong Shuch (Ariel), actor Emily Kitchens (Miranda), costume designer Anna Oliver, and Resident Dramaturg Philippa Kelly.

DETAILS

• What: The Tempest Inside Scoop
• When: Mon, May 14. Sweet treats and Peet’s at 6:30pm, panel at 7pm
• Where: Orinda Theatre, 4 Orinda Theatre Square. Please use the special entrance from the sidewalk to the left of the cinema’s main doors; look for a Cal Shakes greeter who will help you find your way.
• Cost: Free
• Seating: Seating is on a first-come, first-served basis for most guests.
• Cal Shakes Champions at the Supporting Cast ($250) level or higher: To reserve seats, email bsandefur@calshakes.org or call 510.809.3297.
• Parking: Free parking is available for this event in Orinda Theatre Square’s garage with validation. Please remember to bring your parking ticket into the cinema to receive validation.
• More info: 510.548.9666, info@calshakes.org, calshakes.org/events.

Date, time, and artists subject to change. Pictured above, clockwise from top left: Erika Chong Shuch and Jonathan Moscone in conversation (photo by Jamie Buschbaum); James Carpenter; Philippa Kelly at a 2011 Inside Scoop (photo by Jay Yamada).

SFBATCC winners Carpenter and Campbell in TITUS; photo by Kevin Berne.

On April 2, the San Francisco Bay Area Theatre Critics Circle (SFBATCC) announced its 2011 award winners during a ceremony at the Palace of Fine Arts. In the categories for Plays at Venues Over 300 Seats, our productions of Candida and Titus Andronicus took home several awards each: Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone got the nod for his Candida direction, and Will McCandless for that production’s sound design; for Titus, James Carpenter garnered the Performance by a Male Actor in a Principal Role prize for his portrayal of the title character, Rob Campbell’s Saturninus role won him the Male Actor in a Principal Role category, and Paloma H. Young earned the costume design award.

Read the full list of winners here, and hearty congratulations to all!

Photo of Philippa Kelly by Jay Yamada.

Our very own Resident Dramaturg Philippa Kelly will be the featured speaker at the Commonwealth Club of California—the nation’s oldest and largest public affairs forum—on Tuesday, March 13, in conversation with Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone. The talk is titled “Only Connect—Dramaturgy and Shakespeare’s Living Theater,” and will address The King and I, Dr. Kelly’s 2011 memoir of Australian life as seen through the lens of King Lear, and how theater can connect us to universal themes. ’Love, death, the human will to connect, the failure to do it—these big themes are at the heart of Shakespeare’s plays. How do we make such themes “live” on the stage today?  Kelly considers this question as dramaturg, author, and Australian.

The event will take place at 6pm at the San Francisco Club Office (595 Market St.). Tickets cost $7 for students, $8 for Cal Shakes patrons (using the coupon code “AskPhilippa”) and Commonwealth Club members, and $20 for the general public; they are available via the Commonwealth Club’s website. Check their online schedule for future broadcast times.

Bay Area sculptor and theater professional Michael Cook, a resident designer and production manager for eight years during the early days of our company—then called Berkeley Shakespeare Festival—is paying homage to the artists he calls the “unsung heroes” of theater. His sculpture exhibit, Berkeley Shakespeare Festival: Memories of the Early Years is a series of 40 busts of the directors, set designers, stage managers, sound and lighting technicians, costume designers, graphic artists, and stagehands who brought Shakespeare to the stage in those years in Berkeley’s John Hinkel Park and then, as we became the California Shakespeare Festival, to our current home, the Bruns Amphitheater in the Orinda hills. Included in the collection are likenesses of such luminaries as inaugural Artistic Director Dakin Matthews; original Bruns architect Gene Angell; San Francisco Chronicle critic Rob Hurwitt; Jim Reber (who started San Jose Rep); actors Robert Sicular, Nancy Carlin, Howard Swain, James Carpenter, and Julian Lopez-Morillas; and many others.

The installation is on display through January 30 at Addison Street Windows Gallery (2018 Addison St, Berkeley, in the windows across the street from Berkeley Rep and Aurora Theatre), and can be viewed 24 hours a day from the sidewalk. The exhibit is sponsored by the Civic Arts Program of the City of Berkeley, in cooperation with the Civic Arts Commission. Cook now teaches at Saint Mary’s College of California, where he is also the resident scenic and lighting designer for the Performing Arts department, the manager of the in-house theater, and much more. In 2006, Cook was honored with the Freeman Award from the Eugene O’Neill Foundation in Danville.