The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival wants to be more than a ripple on the water. With all that happens around the big blue lake, that will take some doing.
Still, people do like Shakespeare under the stars, and having a stage placed dramatically on the water's edge with the Sierra as a backdrop can't be a bad thing – as long as it's not the only thing.
Realizing that, the festival in recent years has successfully raised its artistic quotient by adding dramatic productions ("Macbeth" in 2006 and "Othello" in 2007) to a rotation of more familiar comedies. It has cast talented West Coast actors and generally put forth a solid professional product. Some shows, such as 2007's "Twelfth Night," have been spectacular, and the 2006 "Macbeth" boasted numerous outstanding performances.
This season, the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival takes its advancement in another direction by producing the theater itself with an in-house team of artists and staff. Gone is the Foothill Theater Company, which had been responsible for the artistic product – bringing everything from its Nevada City home to Lake Tahoe. Now on the spot is new artistic director Jan Powell.
Powell, formerly of Portland, Ore., was hired by festival executive director Catherine Atack to create a production company from the ground up.
"I was told in the beginning there was nothing here, but I didn't realize how much nothing there was," Powell said on the festival's opening night.
The festival now has a relationship with the University of Nevada, Reno, which built the sets and costumes for this year's three productions: "A Midsummer Night's Dream," "Richard III" and Powell's original "Cambio," which is based on "The Hunchback of Notre Dame."
Powell has had the side walls of the stage removed, allowing unencumbered views of the lake just behind.
"I wanted to break down the barriers between the stage, the audience and the environment," she said.
Powell will continue expanding the repertoire, which she said has been "quite limited until now." To that end, she directed "Richard III" this summer, the first history play the festival has performed.
"The histories are adventuresome, exciting plays with a great deal of wide appeal," Powell said. The Monday-night "Shakespeare alternative" slot this year is the aforementioned "Cambio," written by Powell and Carol Dane with music by Omar Alexander.
Powell spent much of the spring casting actors at audition sessions around the country.
"I was looking for absolute top-flight talent – people with training and experience in Shakespeare who can handle the language," she said. "I wanted people with a little bit of danger in their eyes and a sense of adventure."
"I also needed actors with patience and good humor to survive the ups and downs of a first season."
This year's company of actors totals 35, including 12 Equity-contract players. Though Sacramento-based actors are usually well-represented at the festival, there is only one this year, Floyd Harden.
The festival has made investments in its infrastructure, from props and costumes to a new sound system. Though everyone sounded fine for the opening night production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream," the sound unraveled for the next night's premiere of "Richard III." From the famous opening lines – when lead actor Ian Bedford had to signal the sound booth to cut the music – through numerous missed lighting and sound cues, it was obvious there were problems.
Reports from the Monday night performance of the musical "Cambio" suggest that these technical glitches have been somewhat resolved.
Executive director Atack understands that running her own company will be more than a notion.
"The blessing of having a group like Foothill involved with us for 11 years was we had some back-door insight into what needed to be done," Atack said.
"The challenging thing is pulling all the little pieces together and creating the final product."
Call Bee theater critic Marcus Crowder, (916) 321-1120. Read his blog postings at www.sacbee.com/21q.
