Shakespeare Under the Stars

By Guest Blogger, James Kassees

James Kassees is a copy editor and proofreader for local marketing communications firm Aloysius Butler & Clark and has been involved in area theater for more than 30 years. A native Wilmingtonian, James lives in the city with his beautiful wife Barb.

Shakespeare’s As You Like It has everything you could want in a play — banishment, wrestling, romance and, of course, cross-dressing. I n the story, a mean brother wants to kill his uppity younger brother, who stood up to him. So the younger brother, Orlando, flees to the forest of Arden, where he runs into a young shepherd named Ganymede. Only Ganymede is really Rosalind in disguise; she was banished by the mean Duke Frederick, who also banished his older brother, the imaginatively named Duke Senior. Still with me? Also living in the forest are the court jester Touchstone, the melancholy Jaques, and various attendants, wenches and faithful old servants. All good fun to watch — and great fun to perform.

The Arden Shakespeare Gild is presenting As You Like It this summer. Arden, an artsy little hamlet north of Wilmington, was founded in 1900 by Philadelphia sculptor Frank Stephens and his architect friend Will Price. Stephens named the utopian village “Arden” after the forest that everyone flees to in As You Like It, and laid out the outdoor theater before he built his house. He even played Touchstone in an early production. So Arden’s tradition of performing Shakespeare’s works was established right from the start.

In 2000, to celebrate the village’s centennial, the Gild selected As You Like It and set the action in 1900. Now the Gild has decided to do the show every ten years. So here we are — a bunch of engineers and psychologists and realtors who enjoy the challenge and the fun of making Shakespeare’s words come to life. By bringing our different experiences to our characters and to the story, we try to make sure that each production — in fact, each performance — is unique.

Character and story are the main concerns of our director, Mary Catherine Kelley (aka MC). She makes us ask ourselves: What do I mean when I say my lines? What do I want? How do other characters react? And how does what I say and do fit into the overall story? MC’s job is to make sure every line and every scene add up to a cohesive story that draws the audience in and pulls them along to the end.

Come see As You Like It and find out how much fun Shakespeare can be in an intimate little theater nestled in the forest of Arden. Show dates are June 18, 19, 20, 23, 24, 25 and 26.

See www.ardenshakespearegild.org.

Renaissance: Support for Art and Knowledge

Drama, beauty, youth, wisdom, innovation and tradition: The Delaware College of Art and Design (DCAD) has all of this, and more. At the school’s fourth annual gala –the Renaissance – to benefit the scholarship program, DCAD created a lively evening of music, art, entertainment and delicious food. Donors, students, faculty, administrators and art aficionados of all kinds had the chance to mingle and listen to music provided by a lovely quartet.

DCAD is Delaware’s only professional art and design school. As an integral part of the newly revitalized community on lower Market Street, the college is committed to providing scholarships to its students. In order to award more than $800,000 in financial aid next year, the school relies heavily on its patrons and donors. Mr. and Mrs. Iréneé duP. May honorary chairs for the gala evening, have been integral in promoting and supporting the school and all the Arts in the Brandywine Valley.

I enjoyed chatting with the college president, Stuart Baron, about the school and its programs. A painter himself, Baron has overseen the DCAD since July, most recently having been in Baton Rouge, where he spearheaded an effort to get art supplies to students, children and displaced artists who were affected by Katrina’s devastation. His passion – for art itself and for making it available to everyone who wishes to enjoy and create – mirrors and furthers the school’s mission.

DCAD used the Italian Renaissance as a theme for its gala, since it was an era when artists were heavily supported and encouraged by their patrons. Some students wandered about the first floor in togas, preparing to bring to the life the “Last Supper” tableau staged on the back wall of the gallery. Overflowing were banquet-style tables of beautifully arranged loaves of bread, cheese and fruit. Both student and teacher works were for sale during the silent auction. Guests were greeted at the doorway by costumes from OperaDelaware’s Tosca, reminding us of the close relationship design, music and historical studies have with each other, as well as the vital Arts community that has been forged along Market Street in Wilmington.

The Creation: Music Born of the Bible

The more than 50 voices of the Delaware Valley Chorale joined together to sing Franz Joseph Haydn’s masterpiece The Creation. Accompanied by a fine orchestra, under the nimble baton of Conductor and Artistic Director, David Christopher, this all-volunteer chorus (selected by audition) graced the audience with a fabulous performance of this lively setting of one of the Bible’s most beloved and well-known passages.

Christopher’s comments about the work being a hybrid of classical and baroque styles gave me a framework for listening and digesting the work. He described the work as an amalgam of Handelian choral singing and late classical music. The architecture of the piece could be heard clearly: the orchestral part, with its resounding timpani and warm strings provided the foundation, the choral writing, layered, imitative and sometimes canonic gave the work depth. The recitatives and arias were the decoration on this structure revealing the composer’s artistically musical interpretation of the text. The duets and trios brought the structure closer to the heavens with their soaring, virtuosic joy.

Bass Alex Helsabeck sang Raphael with clarity and warm, focused sound. Each phrase was planned and executed with gentle phrasing where the text required it. Helsabeck’s voice rich and full and he handles ornamented passages with grace, singing each note perfectly in pitch. In spite of the soloist’s unfortunate placement behind the orchestra, his voice was easily heard.

Joyous was tenor Dana Wilson (as Uriel) in his singing and presentation. Like Helsabeck, he projected out over the orchestra from the back with his sweet ringing tenor. Wilson brings the athleticism of his career as baseball umpire to his performance.

Melanie Sarakatsannis, soprano, provided the “icing on the cake” in the performance as Gabriel. She sang some wonderfully ornate passages with panache and a clear bright tone, projecting confidently. Her voice was well balanced with the other soloists in the duets and trios.

The real stars were the choristers. Haydn’s multi-layered piece provides many challenges in its imitative and canonic sections. Christopher has helped them grow into a group with a lush, unified quality. Each one of the singers is dedicated, and sings from a place of joy. That is exactly what they brought to the audience, too.