Santa Cruz Shakespeare 2024 season

Yesterday, in More busy theater weeks, I mentioned that I would be going to the Grove again tonight to find out what next year’s season will be.  This is very early for the season announcement, which usually is announced in December.

Next year’s season is fiscally ambitious, but artistically very cautious (the opposite of what I’d like to see). They will be doing 3 plays in repertory (two Shakespeare and one non-Shakespeare, as usual), followed by a September play in the Grove, and a Christmas play (probably at the Vets Hall).  The three repertory shows are As You Like It, Hamlet,  and The Importance of Being Earnest. The early fall show will be The Glass Menagerie, and the Christmas show will be some version of A Christmas Carol.

Santa Cruz Shakespeare is greatly increasing their educational program next year—they plan to have something like 20 performances for students, instead of just 4, and they are planning to have a Shakespeare summer camp.  They claim that is a first for them, but Shakespeare Santa Cruz paired with West Performing Arts starting in 2010 to do a one- or two-week Shakespeare conservatory, and John Pasha continued that collaboration at least through 2015, though not every year with Santa Cruz Shakespeare. I do hope that they talk with Terri Steinmann of West Performing Arts and maybe John Pasha as well, as the Shakespeare conservatories were very good (my son did them every summer from 2010 to 2015). Reviving that partnership would be a good thing.

The non-Shakespeare plays for 2024 are all frequently done (though neither Santa Cruz Shakespeare nor its predecessor Shakespeare Santa Cruz have done them before), and both the Shakespeare plays have been fairly recently done (Hamlet in 2016 and As You Like It in 2014). I would rather have seen something a little less frequently produced. And yet another Christmas Carol?? Spare the saccharine! It would have been far better to revive one of Kate Hawley’s pantos (though without Joseph Ribeiro as the dame, they might not be as good). If they had to do a Carol, they could at least have chosen something silly and fun, like Inspecting Carol by Daniel J. Sullivan, which my son performed in back in 2013 (when he was in high school).

I was hoping that after their successful 2023 season (over 18,500 tickets sold—their most ever, and every play an artistic success also), they would have at least one show in the 2024 season that was not just a guaranteed seat-filler. Some of the most interesting performances were plays that are not often performed (like Doctor Faustus by Marlowe in 1993 or The Liar in 2015). Perhaps they should institute a policy of not repeating any play more often than once every 15 years and making sure that they have one “stretch” play each season that is chosen more for artistic merit than for box office. If they are going to do Hamlet again, the least they could do is to pair it with Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead by Tom Stoppard, which they haven’t done since 1985 (or Fortinbras by Lee Blessing, though R&G are Dead is a much better play).

Charles Pasternak is planning to play the role of Hamlet himself—I hope he doesn’t make the mistake that so many artistic directors make of giving themselves a plum part each year.  We don’t need another Julie James in town (though the Jewel Theatre is closing after their 2024 season, so maybe Charles is planning to take over her role in the theater community).  Both Charles and Julie are good actors, but it always grates a little to see people casting themselves in lead roles (supporting roles are fine).

I realize that SCS is trying to grow to be one of the most successful summer Shakespeare festivals.  They are gaining on Oregon Shakespeare Festival, but OSF is still 10 times the size, even if SCS has had more artistically successful seasons than OSF for the past couple of years. I’d rather they concentrated on quality rather than quantity, though I recognize the need to have most of the plays be crowd-pleasers, in order to sell enough tickets to continue the company.

More busy theater weeks

In Busy weeks for theater, I posted about theater for 2013 July 13 through 23, which included a trip to Oregon Shakespeare Festival.  This post is mostly about August 1 through 19, which included all 3–6 plays of Santa Cruz Shakespeare (3 in the main season, 2 staged readings, and 1 intern play).

• July 26. I went to see a tech rehearsal of King Lear at the Audrey Stanley Grove. It was interesting to watch the practice of the entrances and exits, the sound cues, and the lighting cues. The actors did not have much prior practice of the exits, as their rehearsal spaces are substantially smaller than the Grove stage. Unfortunately, I had forgotten to bring my hearing aids, so I had trouble hearing the notes that the director (Paul Mullins) gave the cast.
• August 1.  Went alone to see Witch by Jen Silverman, the first of the staged readings.  It is a good play, but feels more intended for an intimate theater than the large stage of the Audrey Stanley Grove. The play could perhaps be presented on a big stage if the three sets (tavern, banquet hall, and cottage) were placed and lighted separately so that you had in effect, three small stages. In the play the devil attempts to gain the souls of three people, with somewhat mixed success. The professionalism of the actors was apparent in the grace with which they performed this piece after only one rehearsal.  The play would be a good companion piece if Santa Cruz Shakespeare were ever to do Marlowe’s Doctor Faustus, which I remember Santa Cruz Shakespeare doing an excellent job with in 1993, though I don’t remember the details—that was also the year they tried adding a musical to their season (Damn Yankees)—if they never do another musical, it will be too soon.
  If Santa Cruz Shakespeare ever gets an indoor space (the Colligan Theater will be empty after Jewel Theatre’s last season in 2024), the Witch would make a good Halloween play.  But I suspect that Actors’ Theatre may produce the play sooner, as they are starting to do Halloween plays this year (with The Thin Place by Lucas Hnath—I auditioned for the sole male part in it, though I knew I had almost no chance of getting the part and I did not really care much for the script).
  I was not the only bicyclist at the Grove on August 1, as two people who I’ve known for decades at UCSC also rode their bikes.  It turns out that SSC staff had reserved a parking space for me close to the entrance (a perk of being a big donor), even though I had no car.
• August 2. Went to another stage-combat class led by Josephine Czarnecki.  It turned out that this was the last of the summer for me, as the August 9 class got cancelled, and I had a prior commitment on Aug 16. I hope that Josephine comes back to Santa Cruz next summer and offers a similar course, as I ended up missing more sessions than I attended, because of prior schedule conflicts.
• August 4. I attended Santa Cruz Shakespeare’s “weekend with Shakespeare” session about Taming of the Shrew, at the UCSC Arboretum. The talkback with the actors was interesting, as was the final lecture titled “10 things I hate about Shrew” (a reference to the 1999 film Ten Things I Hate about You, which is loosely based on Taming of the Shrew).
  I have to admit that I particularly liked the middle part of the day, when the education director and the dramaturge talked about what they were doing in the educational program this year. The dramaturge, Katie O’Hare, is a UCSC PhD student doing a thesis on Shakespeare (though not on Taming) and had been a middle-school teacher, so helped prepare the lesson plans and materials for the education program, as part of UCSC Humanities Public Fellows program. Unfortunately the web page for that program has not been updated yet for the 2023 fellows.
  As part of their presentation, they demonstrated one of the teaching exercises, which involved two students reading lines from Katherine’s and Petruchio’s first meeting (though they ended the reading before “my tongue in your tail”). I volunteered to read and read Petruchio’s lines—then the other volunteer and I swapped roles and I read Katherine’s lines. Several people complimented me on the reading, some asking me if I were an actor, which was heart-warming, even if it was just polite noises.
• August 5. I went to the weekend with Shakepeare session on King Lear. The discussion with Paul Whitworth (who plays Lear) was interesting, even it consisted more of reminiscences about his early career than about the current work. The panel of scholars (including the dramaturge and including Michael Warren, who worked with Whitworth and Paul Mullins to make the cuts to King Lear to fit within 3 hours) was interesting, as was Sean Keilen’s illustrated lecture that ended the program.
• August 8. Went alone to the second staged reading, “Master Harold” …and the Boys by Athol Fugard. This play was about race relations in 1950 apartheid South Africa—a semi-autobiographical piece by the author. Again the play seemed design for a more intimate theater setting or a TV studio—the whole play takes place in a small tea house. The play is a good one, but not a comfortable one, and so probably would not be a commercial success in Santa Cruz, where the audience is predominantly white people who don’t want to think too much about race.  The acting was once again quite good. This play might make a good one for Aurora Theatre in Berkeley (which has an audience more interested in such plays, as well as an intimate theater space that would work well for the play).
• August 11. I had a coaching session with Bill Peters on reciting Shakespeare’s Sonnet 130 (My mistress’ eyes are nothing like the sun).  I have put a recording of it up on YouTube channel:
• August 12. I went to see production of Macbeth by Midsummer Ensemble, an “almost entirely LGBTQ+ ensemble”, at Broadway Playhouse.  Many of the cast had been in the stage-fighting course, and Josephine had done their fight choreography (in addition to lending them swords and daggers). They made a few changes to the play to make “a queer interpretation” of the play—like making both Macbeth’s be women (and Banquo also).  Although Macduff remained male, the witches’ prophesy was made good by having him “born of man in the form of woman” instead of “from his mother’s womb untimely ripped”. It was a pretty good production for such young actors (mostly in college, though some younger).  The fight choreography was good, though done at half speed for safety, as they had not had much time to rehearse.
• August 14. I went to a staged reading of a work in progress as part of the series for the 36 North playwrights’ collective being presented at Center Stage.  The play was Ink Leaving the Brush, by Steve “Spike” Wong.  It is a reflection on grief, but it has a lot of funny bits as well (particularly the banter between the two men), so it is not an overwhelmingly heavy play.  I think this may be the best of the 36 North series this summer (though there are three short plays still to come). One of the actors (Sarah Kaufman Michael) had been in the Shakespeare course earlier this summer, and it was interesting to see her perform with more modern lines.
• August 16. My family and I walked the 3.7 miles to the Audrey Stanley Grove (though we took an Uber home) to see the interns’ play. My son and I made the picnic supper—we baked naan, cut up vegetables, and made raita. Dessert was just fruit. This year the interns did Lauren Gunderson’s Exit Pursued by a Bear, which turned out to be an excellent choice—not only because it is an excellent counterpoint to Taming of the Shrew, but because one of the other plays in the season was also by Lauren Gunderson. The interns did a fine job of the play.
• August 17. We walked to the Grove again (and Uber home) to see Taming of the Shrew. Although they did an excellent production of the play and made a very serious effort to make it less sexist and Petruchio not quite such a vile bastard, the play remains what it is and so is still problematic.
• August 18. We walked to the Grove again (and Uber home) to see King Lear. This was the best production I saw this summer and may be the best King Lear I’ve seen, though they cut it a little more than I would have wanted. I particularly noticed the cuts from the scene that I had worked on this summer with Shakespeare course with Bill Peters (Edgar pretending to Gloucester that he is on the edge of the cliffs at Dover), but there were several others.
  An unusual choice that worked well was to cast Edgar, Edmund, and Gloucester all as black men (though they did not look much like one another).  M.L. Roberts played Edmund (the bastard son) as well as Petruchio in Taming, Junior Nyong’o played Edgar (the legitimate son who ends up ruling Britain) as well as Lucentio in Taming, and Derrick Lee Weeden played the Duke of Gloucester as well a Baptista in Taming (another father role).
  Another unusual choice was making Kent be a woman, so that the disguise as Caius was cross-dressing as a man. Patty Gallagher did an excellent job of the part.
  The blinding of Gloucester was very dramatically done, with the Duke of Cornwall throwing the eyeballs (semifrozen lychee) off stage from the point of his dagger.
• August 19. We walked to the Grove for a 4th night in a row (though we took Lyft rather than Uber home, as Uber could not get a driver to commit to picking us up) to see The Book of Will by Lauren Gunderson.  This was perhaps the weakest play of the four—too much explanation and too many quotes from Shakespeare, but the cast did an excellent job given the limitations of the script.
• August 21 (tomorrow!) I’ll bicycle to the Grove once more to find out what Santa Cruz Shakespeare is doing next year.

Overall, I think that Santa Cruz Shakespeare had a much more successful season than Oregon Shakespeare Festival this year, both artistically and financially. The weakest of the productions at SCS was as good or better than the best of OSF this year, and SSC made 120% of their ticket sales goals for the season, so they reduced the prices of the few remaining seats for the last week (or two) of the run, while OSF had to make two special appeals to donors just to keep the season running. Because SCS uses a forward-funding model (with this year’s income funding next year’s season), they were not crushed by debt or uncertainty of ticket sales.

It probably has not helped OSF that they had to cancel some shows due to wildfire smoke and others due to COVID in the cast—I’m very glad we went early in the season and so were able to see all four OSF shows with the only problem being that it was too hot. (SCS also has the advantage of lovely weather, if you remember to bring a jacket and throws to cover up after sunset.)

Got into ceramics class

I got into the beginning ceramics class for Watsonville/Aptos/Santa Cruz Adult Education (at Santa Cruz High) for this fall! The online registration for the first session opened at 9 a.m. on August 11, and for the second session at about 9:01 a.m.—by 9:03 a.m., both sessions were full.  The classes themselves start in a couple of weeks (August 29).

I’ve been thinking a little about what projects I want to make this time:

• I have a mold (resin printed at UCSC through BELS) for the little sauce dishes that I discussed in 3-D printed test pot.  I’ll want to test making sauce dishes with that mold and playing with the glazing.
• I plan to design an extruder die for mug handles—probably a two-part die with a rotating upper part to select between different handle cross sections in the lower part.  I’ll probably try to match the handles of some of my favorite mugs, which vary from 18mm to 23mm wide, with different cross sections. I should be able to fit 4–6 different shapes on one die.  I’ll have to print the outer part at UCSC, as my 3D printer is too small for the flange, but I might be able to print the funnel/selector upper part at home, as it would only be about 101 mm in diameter.
• I’ll want to make some mugs to go with the handles—some thrown and some hand-built.
• I might want to 3D print a roller for patterning a slab for hand-built mugs.  I’ve not yet figured out the best way to convert a flat pattern to a cylinder.  I can write a program easily enough to map points, but I’m not sure how best to communicate the pattern to OpenSCAD (or other 3D modeling software that can produce the STL file).  Should I do the 2D-to-3D conversion in OpenSCAD itself?
• I want to try hand throwing a suribachi (a Japanese ceramic mortar with a textured interior). Last Spring I did not succeed at throwing any large bowls, and all my little bowls had very thick clunky walls, so this will be a considerable challenge for me.
• I want to try making some more of the tiny trilobe planters, to see if I can make the feet a bit shorter and put the planters together in a single class period, rather than having to take the extrusions home.  I want to play with some of the other glazes on them also. Some of the planters were a bit wobbly, so I want to work on a way to make them more level (probably more care in cutting the extrusions).
• I may want to 3D-print a soap-dish die for the 4″ square extruder, so I can make soap dishes big enough to be useful.
• I’d like to make some cereal bowls, about 140mm in diameter and 60mm high, with flat bottoms and walls about 4mm thick.

Amazon site actual launch!

The Amazon link for my Applied Analog Electronics textbook (https://www.amazon.com/Applied-Analog-Electronics-First-Course/dp/9811254966) just went from pre-release sales to fully live (2023 August 8).  They are selling the hardback (978-981-125-441-3) for $176.30 and paperback (978-981-125-496-3) for $85.03, which is 11–13% less than the list price from World Scientific Publishing.

If you liked my book or course, go ahead and leave reviews there (though you should mention that you used a pre-publication draft of the book)!  Reviews are important to book sales, but there aren’t any yet.

The PDF of the book (with the same content, but different pagination and different cover) is still available through LeanPub for $7.99 at https://leanpub.com/applied_analog_electronics.  I get a little bit smaller royalties per copy from these sales (unless you pay the “recommended price” of $14.99, instead of the “minimum price” of $7.99), but I really wanted to make sure that a non-pirated, low-cost option remained available for students, so I got the publisher to agree to a contract that allowed me to sell electronic versions on LeanPub or on my own website (should I ever have one that enables sales).  Also anyone who bought the LeanPub edition (even with the free coupons I distributed to the class) can get the latest version of the PDF for free by logging into the LeanPub site.

Note: this post updates the earlier Amazon site live! post.