Letter from the Producing Artistic Director

Welcome to the Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s 2022 season!

This marks the 65th season of the second oldest Shakespeare festival in the United States, and my 10th season as producing artistic director. How in the world did that happen? We are so happy to be hosting you tonight and thrilled to be back together at full capacity with a full season. And staying with that theme, full speed ahead!

The Two Gentlemen of Verona opens our season with its inspired comedy, beautiful language, love triangles, bad choices, renewed friendships and a dog. Well, I’m excited!

As we were reading newer plays for 2022 consideration, The Book of Will struck us all with a jolt of inspiration. It seemed to capture exactly how we were feeling about the importance of family and the resilience of a Shakespearean theatre company. (Ahem, 65 seasons and counting.)

The programming of the indoor season has traveled an arc reaching back to 2018 when conversations began around All’s Well That Ends Well and Coriolanus. These plays, being part of our mission to explore the more remote corners of Shakespeare’s canon, were originally slated for production in our 2020 season. They were fully produced and ready to begin rehearsals when our lives were upended by COVID-19. Like us, our patrons were excited for these titles, and we are bringing them to you this summer. A joyous production of All’s Well That Ends Well set in a swanky 1950s France; and a white-hot political thriller about a Roman super soldier named Coriolanus awaits you in the University Theatre. By the way, when you’re seeing these plays (because I hope you see them both) say goodbye to the University Theatre as we know it. The day after we close this season, the University Theatre begins its massive acoustic renovation and will re-open next summer as the Roe Green Theatre.

For me, this is the season of “re” words. Return, renewal, resilience, rejoice. At CSF, we are often working two to three years out in planning a season. When planning 2022, my notebooks from that time are full of words like this. We can never return to the way things were, good or bad, but we can return to a place. And that place is the theatre. I hope you take joy in celebrating, once again, stories about our shared experience of going through this world together.

Thank you for being here and enjoy the show!

Tim Orr Producing Artistic Director Colorado Shakespeare Festival