By Sarah Lombardo
Hamlet may have told Ophelia to "get thee to a nunnery," but the city of Saratoga will be telling residents to get themselves to Wildwood Park in August for the Shakespeare in the Park festival, sponsored by the Recreation Department.
Although details have yet to be worked out, dates and the plays to be featured at the festival were announced last week. The festival has been scheduled for three weekends--Aug. 9-10, 16-17 and 23-24--and will feature matinee performances of William Shakespeare's Merry Wives of Windsor and an adaptation of Robert Louis Stevenson's Treasure Island by the Festival Theater Ensemble of West Valley College. Producer and artistic director Bruce W. DeLesDernier said Treasure Island will be a children's version of the pirate tale he wrote and took on tour with his ensemble last year, but that was not performed locally.
DeLesDernier said it has not yet been decided which play will be performed on which days, but he expects performances to begin at about 4 p.m.
"What we're thinking is there's little power [at Wildwood Park], only enough for a sound system. That locks us into matinees only, and it's very pleasant around that time," he said.
DeLesDernier said the plays will run about 2 1/2 hours. "Which means that when the plays end at about 6:30, it will be a perfect time for dinner," DeLesDernier said, adding that residents might venture into the village for a meal after the show.
Shakespeare in the Park will represent the Bard's first visit to Wildwood Park, said recreation supervisor Kim Saxton-Heinrichs. "This is brand new to the recreation department."
Shakespeare festivals used to have a home in Saratoga, Saxton-Heinrichs said, through the Valley Institute of Theater Arts (VITA), and used to be housed at Sanborn Park, Saratoga High School and Villa Montalvo.
But when VITA dissolved, DeLesDernier said, Shakespeare had to find another sponsor. DeLesDernier, a theater arts instructor at West Valley College, formed the Festival Theater Ensemble in 1993 and held performances at the college and other Shakespearean festivals, but last year there were no local performances.
DeLesDernier said he hopes the festival in August marks the return of an annual celebration of the iambic pentameter.
"I'm really looking forward to finding a home," he said. "I think there was a big hole in the community when VITA shut down. I'm hoping to fill that hole."
This article appeared in the Saratoga News, February 5, 1997.
©1997 Metro Publishing, Inc. All rights reserved.