THE BARD IN BIG D

By Holly Haber Shakespeare Dallas celebrates its 50th year with a stellar season

he past two years have been tough for every theater company, which makes Shakespeare Dallas’s 50-year longevity that much more impressive.

The professional troupe performed free for 31 years and even now charges only $20 a ticket, making fundraising a perpetual challenge. It has always acted outdoors in the summer, coping with heat, rain, and storms that routinely raze sets.

“I’m really proud of the fact that we’ve been able to sustain the theater and offer quality productions for the last 50 years,” says Raphael

Parry, executive and artistic director. “I’m doubly excited because we are hopefully emerging out of Covid, so we hope to have full productions and audiences this year.”

The Covid-19 pandemic cancelled the company’s entire 2020 season and limited last year’s schedule to one full production. This summer, Shakespeare Dallas presents three of the Bard’s most prominent works: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” June 15 to July 23; “The Tempest” June 22 to July 22; and “Hamlet” September 7 through Oct. 9.

In addition, the group is co-producing “As You Like It” with nonprofit youth group Junior Players Aug. 2 to 7.

“We operate leanly as an organization, but we are producing giant classical shows with casts of 15 to 20 and massive sets and oftentimes period costumes that have to be built by hand,” Parry points out.

Some Achieve Greatness

Shakespeare Dallas owes its existence to Dallas actor, director, and producer Robert “Bob” Glenn, who worked in multiple cities and was inspired by New York’s Shakespeare in the Park.

“He wanted to make Shakespeare available to everybody — that’s why it was free,” explains his widow, Sigrid Glenn. “Bob loved words and music, and he just wanted people to have access to it.”

Originally dubbed “Shakespeare Festival of Dallas,” the company’s first performance was “An

Clockwise from above, Sigourney Weaver as Rosalind, founder Bob Glenn (with T-shirt), and a 1970s production at Fair Park.

Clockwise from far left, scenes from “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” in 2013, “Much Ado About Northing” in 1998, "Coriolanus” in 2012, and “Love’s Labor Lost,” 2007.

Evening of Shakespeare” in 1972. The one-night show was a hit, attracting 2,000 people in the dead of summer to the Fair Park Band Shell, where Peter Donat played Hamlet.

Around the same time, Bob Glenn began annually directing the Junior League of Dallas’s follies, which helped secure the charity as a supporter of his Shakespeare project. He recruited friends and associates to serve on the company’s board and used his extensive connections in film and television to attract rising stars. Sigourney Weaver was Rosalind in “As You Like It,” and Morgan Freeman portrayed Othello.

“Bob used to say, ‘Morgan is a great actor, but he’s a really great second baseman,’” Glenn says, explaining that the troupe used to play softball against the Dallas Theater Center.

Bob Glenn left the company in the mid 1980s, and it kept performing at the Band Shell through 1988, when Starplex Amphitheater opened at Fair Park with a summer Rod Stewart concert. “Rock and roll and Shakespeare do not go together, so we definitely had to move,” Sigrid Glenn recalls. The company found a permanent home in 1989 on five acres of lawn at Samuell-Grand Park in East Dallas. Audiences, which max out at 1,200, bring blankets, beach chairs, and picnics.

The amphitheater gradually gained permanent infrastructure, with restrooms in 1993 and a stage and air-conditioned dressing rooms in 1995.

Joy’s Soul Lies in the Doing

Cotton Court, Lubbock Parry, an award-winning actor, director, and co-founder of Undermain Theater in Deep Ellum, joined the Shakespeare festival in 2002 as artistic director and added executive directorship in 2008.

He trimmed its title to Shakespeare Dallas and established a new paradigm, notably by casting exclusively area actors.

“I really believe in using local talent to make sure they have work, and we develop a shorthand with each other,” Parry says.

Performers may age through the canon, starting as romantic leads and maturing into kings, queens, and grey beards, which he considers “a special gift we can give actors.”

Parry added a fall show, student matinees, and a winter play staged at Moody Performance Hall.

He expanded the repertory to include classics like “Cyrano de Bergerac” and foresees adding 20th century masterworks.

The Wind and the Rain

Being outdoors often complements a play’s setting, but Dallas’s fickle weather poses challenges.

“A storm can blow up in the middle of Act II and we have to stop the show, dry it off, and restart,” he says. “At least every other year some major storm destroys our sets and we have to rebuild them.”

The amphitheater sits in a microclimate that is slightly cooler than the city, but scorching summer heat still takes a toll.

Costumers employ breathable fabrics and sew hidden pockets for ice bags, and there’s a lot of talk about hydration. Icing the wrists and neck offstage helps, and dressing rooms are kept chilly.

“Nobody has ever passed out, thank God,” Parry says.

Get tickets at shakespearedallas.org.