Scenes from a summer of community education

Community learning is what elevates a season of performances into a Shakespeare festival, and that's what the Shakespeare Center brings to New Swan each summer.

Our cornerstone event is Educators Day, when local teachers gather to discuss Shakespeare and attend a performance under the stars. This year,  Neah Lekan, dramaturg for Romeo and Juliet, shared the Dust Bowl background of this year's production. Andrew Hiscock, a Fulbright scholar from Wales, presented on the many meanings of "tragedy" in the 1590s. 
 
The heart of Educators Day, however, lies with the teachers. James Cooperider (Long Beach Polytechnic HS) and Danilo Caputo (Irvine Valley College) created worksheets that placed Romeo and Juliet in modern writing situations, from social media posts to writing memes and captioning photos.

New Swan director Rachael VanWormer and actors Zach Trent (Romeo) and Lourdes Castillo (Juliet) led a discussion of New Swan's production. “Shakespeare requires so much of your soul,” Castillo shared. 

Teachers regrouped at the theater for an evening performance with a fresh understanding of how both actors and educators bring Shakespeare to life. 

Patrons returned for a thrilling Shakespeare Weekend (August 23-24). On Saturday, Prof. Kyle Grady (UCI English) shared his work at the Folger Shakespeare Library, offering a glimpse into the original research conducted at UCI around Shakespeare and Renaissance texts. 
 
Rachel VanWormer and Lourdes Castillo returned with an interactive workshop on Juliet’s “A rose by any other name” monologue.  Castillo performed the speech in multiple ways, ranging from childlike and wondrous to philosophical and melancholy.

Learning continued apace the next day. Julia Lupton (UCI) and Kenneth Reinhard (UCLA) juxtaposed Eli Simon’s musical adaptation The Merry Wives of Windsor Cove with Verdi’s opera Falstaff.

Eli Simon and actors Wyn Moreno (Falstaff) and Abel Garcia (Frank Ford) pulled back the curtain for New Swan patrons, showing how they keep it funny across multiple performances.

In the words of Lourdes Castillo, "Juliet has her books, her mind, and she trusts herself; that's what grounds her." That's also what audiences experience at New Swan: Shakespeare grounded in education and performance.

--Guadalupe Sanchez, New Swan media intern and soundboard operator