FUN WITH PHOTOS PART I: A quick gallery of Colorado Shakespeare Festival stars, then and now (for many more photos, see the additional slideshow at the bottom of this page): Jimmy Smits packed his "Othello" script - and a newly repaired hernia - for his charmed summer of '84 with the Colorado Shakespeare Festival. Nearly a quarter-century earlier, "Law and Order" actor Michael Moriarty was said to have wept when he learned he would not be playing that same role in Boulder. In 1980, an unknown Annette Bening played a nightly onstage game called "pass the rock" to pass the time with her fellow "Hamlet" ladies in waiting.
It's all part of the lore of the nation's second-oldest Shakespeare festival, which opened its gala 50th season Saturday night under the stars in the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre. Audiences can never know who among any given ensemble will become the next pop-culture star. READ Our profile of new producing artistic director Philip Sneed.
LISTEN to more from Jimmy Smits' interview with John Moore, including an anecdote on how, as Othello, he navigated the dark and circuitous walkways under Hellems Hall. READ Sneed announces next year's titles, including a Woody Guthrie musical -- and "Henry VIII." They didn't know Barry Corbin was ticketed for "Northern Exposure," that Ted Lange would be pouring drinks on "The Love Boat," that Karen Grassle would become iconic mama Ingalls on "Little House on the Prairie," or that local boy John Carroll Lynch would become Drew's cross-dressing brother on "The Drew Carey Show.
" But they did know Val Kilmer, who made the Colorado Shakes a cool place to be in 1988. "Iceman" starred as "Hamlet" less than two years after "Top Gun" launched him to such celebrity heights that every seat was sold before the run even opened, and security had to be hired to snag teen girls who climbed the wall to get to him. Most burgeoning stars were like Smits, whose 1984 program bio innocuously notes that "Jim" can be seen in the upcoming NBC pilot, "Miami Vice.
" He took the job in Boulder while awaiting word on whether "Vice" would be picked up. So his "summer diversion," as he calls it, was to take on one of the great acting challenges - at age 24. And oh yeah: In between, he had hernia surgery.
"I remember the doc saying, 'Be careful doing any heavy lifting,"' Smits said on a break from filming his upcoming CBS drama, "Cane." "I was saying to myself, 'Oh, I am going to be heavy lifting in ways you don't even understand, doc - physically, artistically, spiritually."' It was an idyllic summer for Smits.
There was "Othello" (he also played the Sea Captain in "Twelfth Night"). He hiked the Flatirons. Rafted the Arkansas River.
Hit the Pearl Street Mall. Communed with company mates in the Tri-Delt sorority where they were housed. Before you can ask your first question, he's doing the grilling - what plays are they doing, where do actors stay, who are this year's directors?
"Listen to me," he says affably, "here I am interviewing you." Smits is overjoyed to learn his "Othello" director, Gavin-Cameron Webb, is directing "A Midsummer Night's Dream" this year. "I was ecstatic that I got that job, because Gavin took a real chance with me," Smits said.
"But I think the best artistic experiences are the ones where there is trepidation going in." Uncannily, two of Smits' castmates, asked separately what they recall most about that production, both zero in on the same moment in the play. "I remember that when Othello accosted Iago, Jimmy and Tim (Hopper) created this illusion that made Othello seem like a really, really powerful figure," remembers Lynch, a Regis High grad.
"So at the end, after Jimmy puts the pillow over Kate Udall's face (Desdemona), he says, 'I would not have thee linger longer in thy pain.' Then he puts his hands to her throat, and I tell you, that audience gasped every time Jimmy Smits' "Othello," with Kate Udall, made audiences gasp in the summer of 1984. (Special to The Post) - because it had been established how extraordinarily powerful he was.
" "Jimmy broke my heart in that final scene every night," he said. "I even wrote him a fan letter after the summer, and actors don't generally write each other fan letters." "Oh, he was way too young," Cameron-Webb admits, "but he somehow pulled it off.
"He had such majesty and presence on stage. He was passionate and emotional and he would make the most outrageous choices. He found ways to do things completely unconventionally that nevertheless were absolutely true to the emotion and subtext of the scene.
" Smits thinks aspirational festivals like the CSF are vital training grounds. "Believe me, it upped my game," he said. "I went back to New York with a confidence that I didn't have before.
That summer was a really great springboard in terms of what has happened since." His message to the 50th CSF ensemble? "The young actors should know they are doing a very special thing in their lives, and they shouldn't be afraid to take the leap.
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