Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival 2021-2022 Season

This season, the festival has a limited return. We are featuring our regular Bard to Go tour and Greenshow productions. Instead of a traditional Festival Mainstage Shakespeare production, the Festival features two Mainstage productions that are modern adaptations of Shakespeare's plays. First will be Mac Beth by William Shakespeare adapted by Erica Schmidt that will be performed in November. Additionally, there will be a recording of the performances available to stream on demand in December. Details are forthcoming. The final production is Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead that features characters from Shakespeare's Hamlet. It will be performed in January. Performance details are also forthcoming, but we hope to offer in-person performances including two special matinee performances for secondary schools. 

Festival Greenshow

First up, our Festival Greenshow directed by Grand Valley alum Marcus Chapman will be performing at the Annual Grand Valley Renaissance Faire on October 9 and 10th. Specific performance times are coming soon. Additionally, the Greenshow will perform in front of the Haas Center for Performing Arts on Thursday, October 14 at 4:30. If the weather is poor, the performance will move into the lobby of the Performing Arts Center and will be performed in masks.  This year's production is an adaptation of  The Knight of the Burning Pestle by Francis Beaumont and adapted by Kyle Walker and Marcus Chapman.  

The short 15 minute production performs live in person in full Renaissance Dress and is lively and fun. 

Bard to Go: What Mighty Magic

Bard to Go returns for Fall 2021 with in-person touring performances.  Bard to Go is the Shakespeare festival’s touring production, a 50-minute program of scenes which gives students a lively, accessible introduction to Shakespeare in performance, available for performance at your school. 

Bard to Go: What Mighty Magic takes audiences on a tour of Shakespeare's magical scenes, with fairies, witches, ghosts, sprites, and a statue that comes to life. This production features scenes from A Midsummer Night's Dream, The Tempest, Macbeth, Hamlet, and The Winter's Tale. Bard to Go offers students a lively, fast-paced introduction to Shakespeare's language and stagecraft in a 50-minute program of scenes.

Due to COVID-19, there are special requirements for Bard to Go performances for this fall. Please see the attached letter for details and more information on how to reserve Bard to Go for a school performance.

Bard to Go will also perform a preview performance on Monday October 18 at 5:30  in the Louis Armstrong Theatre and a final public performance on Saturday, November 6 at 2PM in the Grand River Room, Kirkhoff Center, Allendale Campus. All performances will be masked, and audience members are required to wear masks and to complete the daily assessment for faculty, staff, and students, and the Visitor COVID-19 Self Assessment for any visitors.

Online Registration is open!

Mac Beth Canceled

MAC BETH, originally slated for November 5-14, has been canceled. We apologize for any inconvenience this causes, and we hope to see you at our Winter 2022 productions, ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDERSTERN ARE DEAD

ROSENCRANTZ AND GUILDENSTERN ARE DEAD

By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Diane Machin

January 21, 22, 27, 28, 29 at 7:30pm
January 23, 30 at 2:00 PM
Special Student Matinee Performances: January 25 and 26

Linn Maxwell Keller Black Box Theatre, Haas Center for Performing Arts

More details coming soon!

Special 25th Retrospective Video

Festival alum Mike Harthen edited this video for our 25th anniversary with voice work provided by festival alum Erin Courtney Harthen. Thanks for the great work Mike and Erin!

Newsletter Now Available

The Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival annual Newsletter has been printed and distributed. It is available here as a PDF to download and enjoy. 

With heavy hearts, we say goodbye to one of our own, Jake Jager, who passed away on March 3, 2018. Jake has been a pillar of our theatre program since beginning at Grand Valley in fall 2013. He happily stepped onto our stage into a role in Much Ado About Nothing to fill a role in need of an actor. Once on the stage, he was rarely off. As one of our most prolific performers, it is most fitting that Jake helped christen the new Linn Maxwell Keller Black Box Theatre playing the Emcee in Cabaret. Beyond the boards, Jake was also a leader in the classroom and among the students. He was an active part of Alpha Psi Omega, the National Theatre Honor Society, serving in a variety of roles for the Grand Valley Chapter, including as president. At times in fall 2017 it took all he had to take the stage as one of the Ariel's in Tempest and to sing "Willkommen" in Cabaret, but that's what he loved and where he shined as a brilliant shooting star. 

Bio from The Tempest program. 
Jake Jager (Ariel 1) is a senior theatre major with minors in music and advertising and public relations. He is also a Shakespeare Scholarship recipient and Secretary and past President of APO. He has appeared previously at Grand Valley as Launce, Autolycus, Jaques in Bard to Go: Witty fools and Foolish Wits, Dromio of Syracuse in The Comedy of Errors, and Antonio in Much Ado About Nothing, all for the Shakespeare Festival, Tobias in Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street, David in Company, and Dad in Sex and the Supernatural. He has also appeared as Ruben in Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat and Sancho in The Man of La Mancha for Shadblow Theatre. In addition, he served as promotions and sponsorship for Beauty and the Beast, Noises Off, and Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat for Shadblow Theatre where he also serves as an Advisory board member from 2016 season - present.

Visit Theatre at Grand Valley Site to view 2019-2020 Season

Visit the Department of Music, Theatre, and Dance Website

Visit the English Department Site

Member: Shakespeare Theatre Association, Theatre Alliance of Michigan. All shows are associate entries in the Kennedy Center/American College Theatre Festival