California Shakespeare Theater concludes its 2011 season with Shakespeare’s most biting romantic comedy, The Taming of the Shrew, playing at the Bruns Amphitheater September 21 through October 16.Shana Cooper, former Cal Shakes Associate Artistic Director whose production of Love’s Labor’s Lost is currently playing at Oregon Shakespeare Festival, directs.

We are very pleased to announce that we have successfully completed the first phase of our Building for the Future campaign. Under the leadership of campaign co-chairs Jim Roethe and Sharon Simpson, the campaign exceeded its original goal of $8.2 million by raising more than $8.7 million for improvements to the Bruns campus in the Siesta Valley of the East Bay hills between Berkeley and Orinda.

The Sharon Simpson Center at night; photo by Bruce Damonte.

“When we began this project more than two years ago, we knew we were taking a bold step to ensure that Cal Shakes had a viable home for the future,” said campaign co-chair and former board president Jim Roethe. “The success of this campaign ensures that future generations will be able to experience and enjoy world-class theater in one of the most beautiful places imaginable.”

“We’d like to thank the Bay Area community for their generous support of this project, especially during the challenging economic times of the past few years”, said campaign co-chair Sharon Simpson. “Cal Shakes is a Bay Area treasure; our supporters were with us every step of the way to create a permanent, sustainable place for artists and audiences alike, and for that, we are deeply grateful.”

Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone added, “This is a major achievement for a company of our size. And it is all due to the support of a loyal and loving community of individuals and foundations who believe in the work we do on stage, in classrooms, and in diverse communities throughout the Bay Area.”

Building for the Future transformed the Bruns campus with an emphasis on sustainability and ecological sensitivity. The renovations were designed by San Francisco-based Leddy Maytum Stacy Architects. Construction began in October of 2009, and opened to the public on June 3, 2010. The most notable feature of the improvements is the Sharon Simpson Center, a 7,850-square-foot patron and artist center topped by the Ellen & Joffa Dale Living Roof. The Center houses 23 new restrooms, a modernized café, and new theater store for patrons; greatly expanded dressing rooms and green room for the actors; a wardrobe room, and new offices and storage for house and production staff and volunteers. Among the many other improvements,  are a re-grading and landscaping of the Bruns Amphitheater complex featuring native and drought-resistant plants; the creation of a spacious new Sue & George Bruns Plaza, shaded by a mini-grove of freshly-planted Chinese pistachio trees; the addition of  the Carol Ann Read & Family Garden & Pathway; a wheelchair-accessible path between the plaza and the theater’s upper seating area; installation ofup-to-date electrical and other infrastructure throughout the complex to support future renovations to the amphitheater; and working capital to provide fiscal stability.

We officially launched Phase One of the campaign in September 2009; campaign committee members included co-chairs Jim Roethe and Sharon Simpson, Ellen Dale, Edward F. Del Beccaro, Susie Falk, David Goldsmith, Anne Grodin, Jonathan Moscone, and John Sears. A list of donors is available upon request.st.

For more information about Cal Shakes newly-renovated Bruns Amphitheater, check outthe Building for the Future website.

Julie Eccles plays the title role in CANDIDA

We continue our 2011 season with George Bernard Shaw’s Candida, playing at the Bruns Amphitheater August 10 through September 4. Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, in a return to the works of Shaw following his critically-acclaimed production of Man and Superman in 2007, will direct.

Candida is Shaw’s brilliant, witty, and trenchant comedy about a morally superior clergyman in turn-of-the-20^th-century London, his enigmatically charismatic wife, and the wildly romantic young poet who puts the very foundation of their marriage to the ultimate test.

”Candida is endlessly fascinating to me as I continue to discover the complex nuances of each character, and of the play’s highly charged circumstances,” says Jonathan Moscone. “Underneath the veneer of Shavian humor and wit is a piercingly painted portrait of the sometimes savage undercurrents running through the veins of the seeming complacency of married life.”

The cast of Candida includes Cal Shakes Associate Artist Julie Eccles (The Pastures of Heaven, An Ideal Husband) in the title role and A.C.T. core acting company member Anthony Fusco (Clybourne Park, Prospero in Cal Shakes’ The Tempest [2006]) as Reverend James Morrell. Others in the cast include Nick Gabriel (A.C.T. core company member; Michael Tolliver in the workshop production of Tales of the City) as Eugene Marchbanks; Alexandra Henrikson (Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson at Williamstown Theatre Festival, Hell House at St. Ann’s Warehouse) as Miss Proserpine Garnett; Jarion Monroe (Cal Shakes’ The Tempest and Macbeth [1992]; twenty seasons at Berkeley Rep) as Mr. Burgess, and Nicholas Pelczar (Titus Andronicus, Macbeth) as Reverend Lexy Mill.

The design team includes: Annie Smart (set design), who designed Cal Shakes’ productions of The Pastures of Heaven, Man and Superman, and An Ideal Husband, as well as the Berkeley Rep and Broadway productions of In the Next Room, or The Vibrator Play; Anna Oliver (costume design), whose work has been seen throughout the US and abroad, and who designed Nicholas Nickleby and Restoration Comedy at Cal Shakes; York Kennedy (lighting design), who created lighting for Cal Shakes’ The Pastures of Heaven, Mrs. Warren’s Profession, and Uncle Vanya, among others, and whose work has been seen across the country from A.C.T. to Yale Rep; and Will McCandless (sound design) whose soundscapes have appeared in numerous Bay Area productions.

The Eugene, OR-based Register-Guard newspaper published an excellent piece on Ghost Light, the play that Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone will direct at Ashland’s Oregon Shakespeare Festival this summer, and in January 2012 at Berkeley Rep. The original work, written by Berkeley Rep Artistic Director Tony Taccone in collaboration with Moscone, is part of OSF’s American Revolutions cycle, and “tells the story of a young man growing up in the emotional and political shadow of the double murder,” writes the Register-Guard, and the adult man, “a Bay Area theater director, struggling to stage a production of Hamlet—and struggling, particularly, with the character of Hamlet’s dead father’s ghost.”

Read the rest of this excellent piece here.

Ghost Light concept and Illustrations by Owen Jones and Partners, Ltd. Photography by Jenny Graham.

Popular Teen Night pre-show events return to our beautiful outdoor Bruns Amphitheater.

Participants in the Titus Andronicus Teen Night; photo by Jamie Buschbaum.

The pre-show events begin at 6:30pm and include:

• Pizza and soda in the Upper Grove
• Interactive, fun, pre-show engagement with a Cal Shakes teaching artist
• A 7:30pm performance of the current production

Full details are below; please pass this information onto any educators or teens you know!

WHAT: Teen Night

WHEN: The Tempest Wednesday, June 6 and Thursday, June 14; Spunk Friday, July 13; Blithe Spirit Thursday, August 16 and Friday, August 24; Hamlet Friday, September 28 and Thursday, October 4

WHO: Students ages 13-18.

COST: $20 each.

TO PURCHASE: Contact Marilyn Langbehn, Marketing and PR Manager, at 510.809.3290 or groups@calshakes.org

SPECIAL INFO FOR STUDENT GROUPS OF 10 OR MORE:
We require that student groups be accompanied by adult chaperones at a ratio of one chaperone for every 10 students. Chaperones will be admitted at no charge; all other adults attending the event with the group may purchase tickets at a special discount rate of $33 each. To reserve tickets or for more information, contact Marilyn Langbehn, Marketing and PR Manager, at 510.809.3290 or groups@calshakes.org.