Cal Shakes News

The blogs, they are a-changin’ 3.25.08
The Cal Shakes Bullpen Blog—begun last year as a window into the works of Cal Shakes in the off-season—has become the Cal Shakes Blog. This is where you’ll find our popular actors’ blogs during the Main Stage season, but that’s not all: This new, all-company blog is a place where the many voices of California Shakespeare Theater—teaching artists, dramaturgs, New Works/New Communities collaborators, office staff—can e-harmonize.

This week, look for various perspectives on our second Steinbeck Project Workshop, from playwright Octavio Solis, Word for Word company member Amy Kossow, and Cal Shakes marketing staffer Stefanie Kalem.

Cal Shakes named “best of ’07”
in every major local paper 1.08.08
For those of you who were away from your newspapers over the holidays, Cal Shakes production of Man and Superman, directed by Jonathan Moscone, was named as one of the top productions of the year by the Chronicle, Contra Costa Times, East Bay Express, Marin Independent Journal, and Oakland Tribune.

Here's what they had to say:

“The ever-penetrating wit of George Bernard Shaw seemed freshly burnished in Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone's smartly pared (from five hours to three) California Shakespeare Theater production of the unwieldy masterpiece about sexual politics. With Susannah Livingston and Elijah Alexander heading an exceptionally strong cast, Moscone integrated Shaw's vibrant play of ideas with its surrounding comedy into a whole greater than the sum of its parts.”
- SF Chronicle, 12/30/07

“A three-hour production of a century-old work is risky, even if the playwright is George Bernard Shaw. That's particularly so when it is performed outdoors on often-chilly summer nights in the Orinda hills. But the gamble paid off big for Jonathan Moscone and his Shakespeare Theater. The production, which included the often-omitted "Don Juan in Hell" portion, was a flawless masterpiece of theater.” [listed as top production of the year]
- Contra Costa Times, 12/23/07

“Jonathan Moscone's sharp staging of Shaw's antiromantic romance was an absolute delight from the ruthless machinations of well-bred ladies down to an impishly anachronistic "Don Juan in Hell" sequence.”
- East Bay Express, 12/26/07

"Shaw's long-winded masterpiece was given an audience-friendly production that even Orinda's famous chill couldn't dampen.”
- Marin IJ, 12/27/07

“This unbelievably vivid version of George Bernard Shaw’s massive existentialist comedy benefited from superior direction by Jonathan Moscone and an impeccable cast headed by Elijah Alexander and Susannah Livingston.”
Oakland Tribune, 12/27/07

Grant News 11.21.07
The Steinbeck Project, our third New Works/New Communities undertaking, is continuing to attract new funding: The Phyllis C. Wattis Foundation has made a first-time grant of $50,000 over two years, and the National Endowment for the Arts has awarded Cal Shakes a grant of $15,000 over two years.

Ron Campbell receives Fox Actors Fellowship 11.20.07
We recently received word that Cal Shakes Associate Artist Ron Campbell (with the help of our Artistic Administrator Daunielle Rasmussen) was awarded a Fox Foundation Resident Actor Fellowship recognizing Distinguished Achievement. The award—which was given last year to, among others, Academy Award winner F. Murray Abraham—gives the recipient $25,000 to further artistic and professional development, deepen and enrich his/her relationship with a not-for-profit theater, and ensure his/her continued professional commitment to live theater. Mr. Campbell, most recently seen at Cal Shakes as the gardener Dimas in The Triumph of Love (and previously in Restoration Comedy, The Merry Wives of Windsor, The Tempest, The Comedy of Errors, Much Ado About Nothing, and Henry IV) will use his Fox Fellowship to study techniques with theater companies in Greece, Italy, Japan and finally, Sweden in three specific stages: Mask in Greece and Italy, Body in Japan, and Voice in Sweden. He envisions this Fellowship as a "comprehensive exploration into combining mask work, movement and voice and applying these techniques to classical texts.” Mr. Campbell—whose performance accolades include the Los Angeles and Bay Area Critics Circle Awards, the Helen Hayes and Jeff Award nominations, and four Backstage West Garland Awards—then plans to hold workshops for California Shakespeare Theater's associate artists to share his findings with the possibility of developing a performance piece marrying Mr. Campbell's physical work with aspects of Shakespeare.

What a Grand Prize Winner Looks Like 11.14.07
This is Special Events and Marketing Manager Dana Mathes (left) awarding Mary Durbin of Pleasanton our 2007 season raffle's Grand Prize: A Pair of Roundtrip Business Elite Class Tickets to Europe on Delta Air Lines. This year's raffle made a record $25,000 to help support Cal Shakes Artistic Learning programs. Thank you to everyone who purchased a ticket and helped bring Cal Shakes into the classroom. And congratulations to Mary and all the other winners!


Cal Shakes Camp Spotlight 11.7.07
If your child (or you!) attended a Cal Shakes summer camp this year, be on the lookout for the inaugural issue of the Spotlight, arriving in your mailbox later this month. The Spotlight is our brand-new summer camp newsletter, and this first issue is packed full of news about campers, teachers, and more—plus loads of fun pictures from camp and camp productions.


Cal Shakes Annual Gala 11.7.07
Our Annual Gala has become a March tradition in the East Bay—a night of glamour, fun, and excitement that celebrates and supports California Shakespeare Theater’s bold work onstage, and our meaningful programs that benefit communities and schools throughout the Bay Area. Of course, every year we outdo ourselves, and this year is no different! Our 2008 Gala—Passage to India, to be held Saturday, March 8, 2008 at the historic Rotunda Building in downtown Oakland—will be a splendid evening of dining, live music and dance, and our ever-popular silent and live auctions, capturing the mystery, opulence, and allure of old-world India.

Cal Shakes Launches the Steinbeck Project with Inaugural Workshop 11.1.07
From Tuesday, Oct. 23 to Saturday, Oct. 27, Cal Shakes hosted the first workshop for our third New Works/New Communities venture, the Steinbeck Project. For this project, we’re collaborating with playwright Octavio Solis, Word for Word Performing Arts Company to adapt John Steinbeck’s 1932 novel of interconnected short stories, The Pastures of Heaven. Drawing from Word for Word’s practice and inspired by the Royal Shakespeare Company’s development of Nicholas Nickleby, Solis, Cal Shakes Artistic Director Jonathan Moscone, and members of Cal Shakes’s and Word for Word’s acting companies spent five days exploring one of the stories from Pastures through a combination of performance and research to better understand characters like a found child named Turalecito (little frog). Workshop participants included Cal Shakesactors Ron Campbell, Nancy Carlin, Catherine Castellanos, Dan Hiatt, and Joan Mankin, along with Word for Word artists and co-directors, Susan Harloe and JoAnne Winter.

Grant News 11.1.07
Last week, we received our first project grant to support our development of The Pastures of Heaven: The Zellerbach Family Foundation awarded us a grant of $2,000, which is the third grant for one of our New Works/New Communities projects (the first two supported Hamlet: Blood in the Brain). The following week we received word of a first-time, $10,000 grant from the Fleishhacker Foundation, also for the Steinbeck Project.