SSC (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) summer seasons

Buy 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (5th edition, 2003) by David Bevington'

Buy 'The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (6th edition) by David Bevington'

2012 SSC (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) season

SSC plays for the 2012 season (the 31st):

Man in the Iron Mask (by Scott Wentworth) — the most delightfully presented and enthusiastically received in this year's season. Charles Pasternak (the gorgeous Romeo in the 2008 SSC Romeo and Juliet) terrific as both King Louis and his twin brother.
Henry IV, Part Two — excellent Falstaff (Richard Ziman); a good Prince Hal (Charles Pasternak again) showing the transformation from wastrel to a prince worthy of his father and the crown.
Twelfth Night — a relatively weak production of this interesting play; mistakes by some of the principles in the meaning of what they said.
The Mandrake (astonishingly a comedy by Niccolo Machiavelli)

2011 SSC (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) season

Three SSC plays for the 2011 season (the 30th): all very well received:

Comedy of Error — well staged and quick; a relatively light-weight play.
Henry IV, Part One — the best version that I've ever seen; finally a credible Falstaff and a hot-blooded passionate Harry Percy Hotspur held the stage against Prince Hal; brilliant final sword-fight-knife-brawl between Hotspur and Hal.
The Three Musketeers — very swash-buckling and lively though of course the characters lack the depth of those in the historical play.

2010 SSC (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) season

All three SSC plays of the 2010 season (the 29th) got standing ovations at the sessions I went to:

Lion in Winter — Marco Barricelli was fabulously wonderful in the lead role (King Henry).
Othello — Othello, Iago, and Amelia were especially well acted.
Love's Labor's Lost — the first good version of that I've ever seen — totally hilarious.

2008 SSC (Shakespeare Santa Cruz) season

Bold Summer Repertory Theatre: 2008 Shakespeare Santa Cruz

27th season is 16 July - 31 August 2008. Shakespeare Santa Cruz's new Artistic Director Marco Barricelli has four plays in repertory:

Two by Shakespeare; performed outside in the dramatic redwood Festival Glen.

Images courtesy of Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

William Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet .
Opposite:
Caitlin FitzGerald (Juliet) and Charles Pasternak (Romeo)
in SSC's 2008 production of Romeo and Juliet.
Photo: r.r. jones.
Copyright © 2008 by Shakespeare Santa Cruz.
Romeo and Juliet preview talk.
Index of 2008 season of Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

William Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well .
Opposite:
Caitlin FitzGerald (Diana), Rachel Fowler (Helena),
Saundra McClain (Widow) and Danielle Perata (Mariana)
in SSC's 2008 production of All's Well That Ends Well.
Photo: r.r. jones.
Copyright © 2008 by Shakespeare Santa Cruz.
All's Well That Ends Well preview talk.
Index of 2008 season of Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

Two by modern playwrights; performed indoors on a thrust stage:

Images courtesy of Shakespeare Santa Cruz.

Bach at Leipzig by Itamar Moses.
A witty, lithe story of competition, aggression, and calculation.
Hilarious.
Opposite:
Allen Gilmore (Lenck) and Stephen Caffrey (Fasch)
in SSC's 2008 production of Bach at Leipzig.
Photo: r.r. jones.
Copyright © 2008 by Shakespeare Santa Cruz.
Notes from an informal talk by Itamar Moses,
author of Bach at Leipzig .

Burn This by Lanford Wilson.
An urban and edgy love story.
Opposite:
Gene Gillette, stunning as Pale,
the gun-pocketing guy from New Jersey.
Photo: r.r. jones.
Copyright © 2008 by Shakespeare Santa Cruz.
Director Michael Barakiva.

The preview talks

Season preview talk by Artistic Director Marco Barricelli.
Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet preview conversation with its main actors and its director.
Shakespeare's All's Well That Ends Well preview conversation with its director and dramaturge.
Itamar Moses' Bach at Leipzig preview talk.
Lanford Wilson's Burn This preview talk by its New York-based director Michael Barakiva.

The plays

Index of 2008 season of Shakespeare Santa Cruz

Quotes from the scripts

Bach at Leipzig

From Act One, Scene Four and Five:

STEINDORFF Your understanding of politics is as nuanced as your music. KAUFFMAN Why, thank you! STEINDORFF A halfhearted show of diplomacy is the final step toward open war.

Also from Act One, Scene Four and Five:

FASCH Why must everything have a name? SCHOTT So that we know which houses to burn.

From Act One, Scene Six:

LENCK Do they have politics in Zerbst, Herr Fasch? FASCH Periodically, yes. But the tactics you describe are better suited to situations where ordinary principles are suspended. To a state of war.

From Act Two, Scene One:

FASCH Kuhnau's explanation [of the fugue mystified] me. It was not until I wrote a fugue myself that I understood, and when I told him that the structure was now clear to me in retrospect, he remarked, 'Structure is only clear in retrospect'.

From Act Two, Scene Two and Three and Four and Five:

GRAUPNER The odds are not yet ... ideal. SCHOTT What are you suggesting? GRAUPNER You overestimate my subtlety. I have not suggested it yet. It is true, is it not, that Kuhnau never named a preferred successor? SCHOTT No one, I think, was more surprised by Kuhnau's death than Kuhnau.