The Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company is Michigan’s only year-round professional touring Shakespeare company. I have been lucky enough to have a long-standing collaboration with them, to the point that I consider Grand Rapids my second home.
Our work together includes Julius Caesar (2009), Romeo and Juliet (2012), The Duchess of Malfi (2016), Much Ado About Nothing (2017), Antony and Cleopatra (2018), and Richard III (2019).
Reflections on my work at Pigeon Creek
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Measure for Measure at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare: Remount!
I’m back in my second-favorite state for a quick remount of Pigeon Creek Shakespeare’s Measure for Measure. We initially did this production last fall, for a short run at the Sauk, in Jonesville, MI, and now we’re getting the band (mostly) back together for a couple performances at Muskegon Community College and in the Harris…
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Twelfth Night at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare
I took a whirlwind trip to west Michigan to see my friends at the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company perform my favorite Shakespearean comedy in one of my favorite venues—the Rose, a Globe-style theater at Blue Lake Fine Arts Camp. Being back at the Rose was just magical. That space has a lively energy, like it…
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Zoom will have Zoom
Tomorrow night, the online production of Measure for Measure that I put together with the Pigeon Creek Shakespeare Company will be available on their YouTube channel. You can check out the event here. I’m excited to have finally had the chance to dig into this text with actors. I think I proposed it a year…
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Antony and Cleopatra at the Rose
In August, we went back to Michigan for ten days to remount Antony and Cleopatra. People often ask me what this means, so here’s the general idea: A remount is when you get the band back together to do a production again. Often, some cast members aren’t available to return, so you sub in other…
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Antony and Cleopatra at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare
Antony and Cleopatra is a play I think I will direct every 15 years (Why this play? I have several reasons). I can’t help but be fascinated by a story of a woman who burns too bright. I directed it for the first time as a 20-year-old at Hiram College Theater. My mentor told me…
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She’s Back!
Get in. We’re going back to Egypt! Performance at the Rose, Blue Lake, Michigan, August 24.
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Awards and Irony
This morning, my social media was buzzing with posts from friends at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare reporting their nominations for the Wilde Awards (Michigan’s professional theater awards, run by Encore Michigan). Kate Bode was nominated for “Best Performance–Bard” for her performance as Margaret in Henry VI (a role she continued in Richard III), Scott Lange for…
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Richard III Pictures
Most images by Seraphina Zorn, taken at the Dog Story Theater in Grand Rapids, March 5, 2019.
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Audience Response
I have been noodling over a mystery for the past couple of weeks, and I’m curious to hear other theater makers weigh in on it. The audience response to Richard III at Pigeon Creek Shakespeare has been incredible. People are hissing and booing at Richard when he’s messing with Queen Elizabeth. High school kids at…
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Be Kind
I’ve been thinking a lot about what it means to do a play about wickedness with such fundamentally kind people. Richard, after all, isn’t the only mean-spirited or ambitious person in this play. A number of people are out for revenge. At least three are willing to take a life in exchange for a few…