Men have died from time to time,
and worms have eaten them,
but not for love...
Thank you so much for watching the Hawai‘i Shakespeare Festival’s first fully virtual season! Along with the rest of the live theatre world, we’re excited to be discovering how to present a live performance online. It’s unprecedented in our lifetimes for so many different theatre artists across the world to be wrestling with the same challenges. All the world’s a stage, indeed.
Zoom theatre (Zeatre?) isn’t quite the same as stage, but also isn’t quite the same as film—it’s its own thing. The fixed camera means we lose much of the classic language of the cinema, but the physical separation of actors from both you and from each other means losing that magic interplay that happens between audience and cast in a theater performance. What we gain is the ability to work with actors all over the world, the ability to watch from anywhere in the world, and easy access to the amenities of home.
I want to thank this wonderful cast for leaping enthusiastically into this new environment. A Zoom actor (Zactor?) needs to be their own light and sound technician, their own cinematographer and their own prop and costume crew. In addition, our actors had to discover how best to act in this environment and figure out how to connect with their fellow actors, often without being able to see them, and to learn the mysteries of which direction is left and which is right on Zoom. I want to thank them sincerely for their patience and willingness to rise to this challenge during this strange season.
Figuring out how to include song, dance and puppet work in the Zoom environment was a challenge that Stephanie Conching, Becky McGarvey and CoCo Wiel all met head on with fearlessness and saintly patience. I’d like to offer special thanks to Peggy Anne Siegmund, whose contributions to the script edit, dialogue coaching and interpretation and collaboration on many elements of the show shaped so much of this production. Last but not least, stage manager Cindy Meiers had to learn and develop a whole new bag of tricks to run this production. Forgive the colloquialism, but Cindy is bad ass.
I believe that As You Like It translates surprisingly well into this new environment—indeed, the play is about a group of people wandering in the new environment of the forest of Arden. We, as a cohort, have tried to use this opportunity to focus on the text, story and characters.
I’m sincerely interested in continuing to explore and improve the creation of live performance in an online environment. To this end (and because we’d like to meet you all) we’ll invite you all to join us after the performance for a brief talk back session. Thank you sincerely for joining us and we hope you enjoy the show.
—R. Kevin Garcia Doyle
In his years teaching, creating, promoting and performing theater in Hawai‘i, Professor Knapp touched thousands of lives. While he tackled a wide variety of theatrical projects, it was Professor Knapp’s boundless joy for teaching and presenting Shakespeare that we hope to honor with this festival. It is our sincere wish that our affection and respect for our beloved teacher finds a voice in these productions. The Hawaii Shakespeare Festival is dedicated to Terence Knapp.
—R. Kevin Garcia Doyle, Tony Pisculli, Harry Wong III
Dame Judi Dench, Companion of Honour by the Queen’s personal gift and Britain’s Most Outstanding Actress (as voted by her peers) has consented to be the Patron of the Hawaii Shakespeare Festival at the invitation of Terence Knapp.