After 135 productions over 50 years, some things have not changed at Shakespeare Dallas.
“We are still celebrating the works of William Shakespeare by producing them in an outdoor environment, still significantly at a low cost,” said Raphael Parry, Shakespeare Dallas’ Executive and Artistic Director. “We still have an enthusiastic audience coming out to the plays and enjoying those works.”
Bob Glenn started the theater company in 1972 as Shakespeare Festival of Dallas with a one-man production of Hamlet at Fair Park in Dallas. Fifty years later, Shakespeare Dallas is wrapping up its golden anniversary with an all-female cast of Shakespeare’s Danish tragedy, now playing at Dallas’ Samuell-Grand Park through October 15.
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“You could see Hamlet over and over and over, but you still anticipate and get excited about seeing it to see who’s playing Hamlet, what they do with it and the director’s conceit, the hallmark scenes -the ‘to be or not to be’ speech, the grave digger’s scene, the scenes with Ophelia – that you go into it wondering how it’s going to be interpreted and you come away with, ‘Oh, I never thought of that,’” Parry said.
Director Christie Vela initially approached Parry with the idea of casting a female Hamlet and then expanded the concept to an all-woman cast.
“I thought it was pretty exciting, something that will give everybody a chance to reflect and think about the roles in this production and the stories they tell,” Parry said.
None of the pronouns or text of the play has been changed. Jenny Ledel returns to Shakespeare Dallas to play the lead character.
The Scene
“It’s kind of a homecoming,” Parry said. “I think the last time she was on our stage was playing Ophelia in a Hamlet René Moreno directed.”
Shakespeare Dallas calls itself “the people’s theatre” with the ambition of making Shakespeare accessible to everyone.
“What we’re striving to do is use Samuell-Grand as a kind of crossroads or community meeting space,” Parry said.
During the theater’s first few decades, Shakespeare Dallas was known for its summer performances at Samuell-Grand Park. Recently, the theater company expanded its performance schedule to include outdoor fall performances and an indoor winter production at Moody Performance Hall. The company also schedules music performances and movie showings in the park. Shakespeare Dallas estimates 600,000 audience members have attended its shows over five decades.
Shakespeare Dallas’ 2023 winter production will be Tennessee Williams’ A Streetcar Named Desire, an example of how the company has expanded its programming beyond Shakespeare.
“At our 40th anniversary, we did our first non-Shakespeare play. I directed Cyrano de Bergerac. Since that time, we’ve done a number of Restoration plays, some other classic plays, Molière, but slowly opening up the canon so that we’re producing 20th-century classics like Streetcar,” Parry said.
Shakespeare Dallas has benefited from the development of North Texas’ talent pool.
“Our actors in the community have stronger chops in Shakespeare,” Parry said. “They’ve become leaders or mentors to younger actors.”
When Parry began performing with the company, veteran actors helped him navigate the text and the venue.
“Those traditions still live in the company where people help each other out to help them get through and help them understand the nuances of working in a large outdoor amphitheater which is a completely different form of performance than a black box theater or even a proscenium stage indoors,” Parry said.
Shakespeare Dallas shares that depth of knowledge through its educational program. First developed in the 1980s with tours for high school students, the educational program has introduced 500,000 North Texas students to Shakespeare and now includes adult education opportunities, summer camps and a traveling program with curriculum materials for educators and student matinees at Samuell-Grand Park.
“Essentially, it’s the same play minus the lighting we use in the evening,” Parry said. “It’s a little bit more as if the Elizabethan audience would have seen it in the natural daylight.”
As the company enters its golden years, Shakespeare Dallas has dreams for its future: its own indoor, 300-seat venue with a rehearsal hall and administrative offices, a statewide educational tour, and performances in other areas of North Texas. The company is currently looking to hire a managing director to help develop a strategic plan for this continued growth.
“Our fiscal outlook is as strong as it’s been since I’ve been here,” Parry said.
With a growing performance schedule and expanding educational programs, Shakespeare Dallas’ annual operating budget has significantly increased, currently standing at $1.2 million. With the current trajectory of growth, Parry believes the operating budget could increase to $2 million within the next few years.
“We’ve made pretty rapid growth in the last 10 years. For example, we were constantly at $500,000 to $700,000 and then in the last five years, we’ve added $500,000 to our budget,” Parry said. “We’re 50 years old and we’re on a new growth cycle right now, which is pretty exciting.”
Learn more: Shakespeare Dallas
