Shakespeare Festivals

Shakespeare Festivals. Festivals of Shakespeare's plays by professional companies are given in the two Stratfords—in England at the Royal Shakespeare Theatre, and in Canada at the Stratford (Ontario) Festival theatre. (There was a festival at Stratford, Conn., 1955–81; see AMERICAN SHAKESPEARE THEATRE.) Professional open-air festivals are also held in Central Park, New York City, under the auspices of Joseph Papp, and in Regent's Park, London (see OPEN-AIR THEATRE). A new Globe Theatre near the site of the original is due to open in 1992. (See WANAMAKER.)

The oldest Shakespeare festival in America, founded in 1935, is that held out of doors during the summer at Ashland, Oregon. Plays were first given by students in a roofless structure, which was damaged by fire in 1940. The festival was then suspended until 1947, when a new stage was built and professional actors were engaged. An Elizabethan-type theatre, the Old Globe, was designed for the 1935–6 California Pacific International Exposition, Balboa Park, San Diego, where a summer Shakespeare Festival was inaugurated in 1949. The first actors were local amateurs, but in 1954 student actors and technicians from colleges and drama schools throughout the country were enrolled, and since 1959 the major roles have been played by professionals. The theatre, originally roofless like its predecessor, was later roofed over. After it was destroyed by fire in 1978 plays were performed on the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre stage adjacent to the Old Globe, but a new Old Globe Theatre seating 581 was opened in 1982. The Shakespeare Theater at the Folger (see WASHINGTON) stages an Oct-June season. There are about 30 Shakespeare festivals in the United States.

A Danish festival, devoted entirely to productions of Hamlet, was held in the courtyard of Kronborg Castle at Elsinore. It was inaugurated in 1937 with a performance by Laurence Olivier and the Old Vic company. In 1938 there was a German company headed by Gründgens, and in 1939 another British company under John Gielgud. After the Second World War efforts were made to revive it, and Swedish, Norwegian, Finnish. American, and Irish Hamlets were seen, Michael Redgrave heading a third British company in 1950. After 1954, however, there were no further productions until the Prospect Theatre Company's visit in 1978, with Derek Jacobi in the title-role.

There are a number of amateur festivals in England, of which the most important is probably that held in London in the week nearest to Shakespeare's birthday (23 Apr.), which includes a production in the yard of the George Inn, Southwark, a site which more closely than any other appears to resemble the innyards in which London companies appeared before the erection of the Theatre in 1576.