Romeo and Juliet, July 11-15; The Crucible, July 18-22; Taming of the Shrew, July 25-29. Gates open at 7 p.m.
, pre-show entertainment at 8 p.m., curtain at 8:45 p.
m. The Arboretum on Alumni Drive, across from Commonwealth Stadium. General admission $8 adults, $5 children; $12 reserved chair; $48 reserved blanket area for four.
Go to the Singletary Center ticket office, call (859) 257-4929, or visit www.kctc summerfest.com.
As Friar Laurence, Joe Gatton is trying to talk some sense into Romeo. "Is Rosaline, that thou didst love so dear, so soon forsaken?" he asks.
"Young men's love then lies not truly in their hearts, but in their eyes." The young man, however, is not some brooding Hamlet-in-waiting. At 17, Jesse Hungerford would still technically be a boy.
He also would be just one year older than the age William Shakespeare prescribed for Romeo, one-half of the star-crossed lovers of Romeo and Juliet. Over the years, nay centuries, audiences have gotten used to seeing full-fledged adults playing the title characters of Shakespeare's tragedy. In the current production of Romeo and Juliet at the Delacorte Theater in Central Park in New York, lead actors Lauren Ambrose and Oscar Isaac are 29 and 27, respectively.
Leslie Howard and Norma Shearer were in their early 30s when they played the teen lovers in George Cukor's 1936 film. Leonardo DiCaprio was 22 when he played Romeo in in 1996 (Claire Danes, however, playing Juliet, was 16), and many actors who play the couple on stage and screen are in their 20s. The 1968 Franco Zeffirelli film was noteworthy because actors Olivia Hussey and Leonard Whiting were in their late teens.
That also makes the debut production of SummerFest noteworthy. Hungerford and his leading lady, Lucy Sharp, are both 17. "There's a real youthful energy to the cast," Hungerford says before a rehearsal.
"You see it mainly in the relationships and the friendships. Mercutio and Romeo have fun together." Sharp adds, "There are so many obstacles for them to overcome, and you have this sense of wanting something with all your heart and going for it at all costs.
" All of this youthful energy is no accident. SummerFest is the performance arm of the Kentucky Classical Theatre Conservatory, both of which were formed after the dissolution of the Lexington Shakespeare Festival last fall. The conservatory is a renamed version of the Lexington Shakespeare Institute, which opened in 2004.
"SummerFest wouldn't be happening if the conservatory did not already exist," says Margo Buchanan, director of another student-heavy SummerFest production, Arthur Miller's "We're able to do a lot because of the conservatory." And because of the conservatory, SummerFest was designed with teens in mind for acting, not just holding up scenery. For two of the three plays, teens are center stage.
The Taming of the Shrew "It has been a really good learning experience," says Melissa Moon, 19, who plays Mary Warren in She recently was in a production of the show at West Jessamine High School, where "I was playing a 40-year-old woman." A production with age-appropriate casting adds new dimensions to these plays, the directors say. In the case of which is about the Salem witch trials, Buchanan says, how seriously the accusations of teenage girls were taken by older and presumably wiser magistrates is striking.
"Since my play is basically fairly historically accurate," Buchanan says, "it raises a big question of, how could this happen?" The student actors also are sharing the stage with some of Lexington's most experienced stage actors, many of whom had leading roles in Lexington Shakespeare Festival productions. "They are kicking the adults' butts," says Buchanan, who notes achievements such as students having all of their lines memorized well before adults in the cast and voluntarily putting in extra work on fight choreography.
"It makes you perform at a higher level," Hungerford says of working with the adults. That's important to conservatory director Trish Clark. She wants to give the students an opportunity to perform, but she knows that there might be a perception that SummerFest is high school theater.
"My hope is people will not see this as a kids' show," Clark says. "We are trying to tell the story as truthfully as it can be told." Continuing to present shows with teens at the center could be a challenge for SummerFest.
Buchanan and director Ferrell go blank when asked what other shows they could present with teens in the leads, and Clark acknowledges that that continued focus could mean the festival moves away from Shakespeare and maybe to some offbeat and experimental works. "We hope the audience will trust us and know that whatever they come to see, it will be a good show," Clark says. This has been a sort of stepping-out year for local high school actors, with Henry Clay High School's and the grass-roots production of in April.
That play was produced, directed and acted by students. "There's a desire to be proactive and self-motivating," Ferrell says of the teen actors. "It's amazing the kinds of things they want to do.
" Reach Rich Copley at (859) 231-3217 or 1-800-950-6397, Ext. Romeo and Juliet, July 11-15; The Crucible, July 18-22; Taming of the Shrew, July 25-29.
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