The Bard has returned to RVA this summer for the city’s “peak theatrical experience” with Quill Theatre’s 19th annual Richmond Shakespeare Festival.
“The history of the festival is so rich,” said Jan Powell, producing artistic director of Quill Theatre. “If you love Shakespeare, you will love this show. If you hate Shakespeare, you will love this show.”
Theatergoers have enjoyed performances of Love’s Labour’s Lost this summer in the star-lit courtyard of Agecroft Hall, Richmond’s classic Tudor home originally built in 15th century England. The theater will host a one-night performance of The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr on July 1st and open Macbeth on July 7th.
Powell first came to Richmond as a guest director for Richmond Shakespeare, which merged with Henley Street Theatre in 2015 to form today’s Quill Theatre. What she thought would be a six-week stint in RVA has now lasted six years.
“I really fell in love with Richmond and the performing arts center,” Powell said. “For me, theater needs to speak to the community and the community needs to speak to theater. The people are very close and very special.”
The directors of the festival have settled into a pattern of putting on one historically set and one untraditional play every year. Though the plays were written hundreds of years ago, Powell noted their relevance to modern politics.
“In Macbeth it’s all about ambition and where your loyalty is,” Powell said. “What kind of destruction is wrought on the individual and the society when what we have traditionally valued, and what we know we can trust, is overturned for personal gain.”
Macbeth’s themes fall on the larger societal effects of stepping away from personal ethics. Love’s Labour’s Lost has a light start, but its characters are forced to ground themselves when something more serious happens.
“The message is that of course we have to have fun, love can be lighthearted,” Powell said, “but to have a love that lasts — anything that lasts — there must be commitment, work, honesty, courage in order to make a relationship or a government that will stand the test of time.”
“It requires authenticity and a certain kind of, dare I say, nobility, in how we approach things. I think that’s a message that hits us pretty hard right now,” she said.
This year’s version of Love’s Labour’s Lost, directed by James Ricks, adopted a modern take on the effervescent comedy.
Following Love’s Labour’s Lost is a return of January’s popular The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr for a one-night show on July 1st. Actors Dixon Cashwell, CJ Bergin and Joseph Bromfield will play through all of The Bard’s comedies, histories, and tragedies in one performance.
The festival will conclude with Macbeth, which opens next weekend on July 7th. Helmed by guest director Jemma Alix Levy, the traditional dark work will be brought “ferociously to life” in ancient Scotland.
“Jemma is quite an up and coming star in the world of Shakespeare directors,” said Powell. “She has a take on Macbeth that’s traditional and also very fresh and really, really gorgeous. The cast is young and charismatic.”
Lord Moxley’s Players, the Festival Young Company, will entertain guests between performances with Shakespearean monologues and songs. Attendees are invited to bring a picnic dinner to the courtyard of Agecroft Hall, where Shakespeare’s own actors are believed to have performed when they toured the countryside.
Tickets to this month’s shows can be purchased through Agecroft Hall, and are priced from $20-$30. Macbeth performances run from July 7th to 30th and are scheduled Thursdays through Sundays at 7:30pm.
*Photos by Aaron Sutten, Quill Theatre
