Southern accents. Carnies. Trailer parks. Cornhole. Line dancing.
Remember discovering those cultural touchstones in your 11th-grade class reading of Hamlet? No, you don't. But you might recall them from a tent show of the Bard's classic tragedy at Cornerstone Park in Henderson last May. That raucous production came to Clark County by way of the Nevada Shakespeare Festival.
Over the last six years, the troupe has taken public spaces such as parks, recreation centers, and urban plazas to stage works from the William Shakespeare canon. That's one comedy and one tragedy per festival, with one staged multiple times for free, and one designated as the "mainstage" production under a tent at Cornerstone for $15 a person.
The bold, modernized retelling of the greatest plays ever written — along with their unconventional venues and affordability — are all part of a plan to bring accessible theater to as many Southern Nevadans as possible. That's how NSF co-founding executive artistic director Matt Morgan describes it.
"We twist the plays to, sort of, in my mind, make them relevant to the time that we're living in, which I believe Shakespeare did in his time with the pieces as well," Morgan said.
This season's offerings certainly meet that criteria. The Free Shakespeare in the Parks production is Henry V, which will be staged six times in six different Clark County open-air locations through April 18. The main-stage tent feature is The Taming of the Shrew, produced April 23-May 2.
"Henry V is about a king who goes to war. Is it justified or not? [That's] for the audience to determine, [but] wow, that seems relevant today. The Taming of the Shrew is about the patriarchy. I guess that seems mildly relevant today," Morgan said, half sarcastically.
"In the end," he added, "I want to make good theater, and then, oh, there's a message. Well, that's convenient."
Beyond the two-play festival programs, Morgan also takes Shakespeare to schools for 40-minute plays that may include Darth Vader and squirt guns. It's Morgan's meet-them-where-they-are, audience-focused, maximum-accessible philosophy for the troupe. And, along with the festival productions, it could help further the influence of the Bard for another generation.
"[The cultural updates are] tricks to engage and excite the student in a way that brings them back to the play so they understand the relationships," Morgan said. "And you get to the end of the play, and you have a room full of seventh graders that are quiet and that are listening and that are participating and laughing at the language of the play. So yeah, I think there's an audience there."
Guest: Matt Morgan, co-founding executive artistic director, Nevada Shakespeare Festival
