The Bard returns to Bell Buckle later this month for 'A Midsummer Night's Dream' and 'Romeo & Juliet.'
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The Bard will hold forth for 13 summer nights in the bucolic serenity of charming Bell Buckle later this month.
The Tennessee Shakespeare Festival opens its second season June 25 on the Webb School campus, presenting adaptations of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet” during a four-week run.
An MTSU graduate from some 30 years ago, Lane Davies, opened the Shakespeare Festival in Bell Buckle last summer with five shows that drew 1,200 patrons under a huge, custom tent.
Professional Shakespeare productions in a marvelous setting at a great price await visitors this season, Davies, a veteran actor of television and stage who studied under the iconic Dorothe Tucker, Lane Boutwell and Clay Hawes while earning his degree at MTSU.
For the Tennessee festival, Davies changes the setting for Midsummer Night from Athens, Greece to Athens, Ga., and for Romeo and Juliet to 18th Century America.
The event is truly a festival. With performances at 8 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m. with many food vendors. Ryan’s Smoking Rotisserie is primary food vendor, but others, such as Blue Bird ice cream will be offering festival taste treats, including funnel cakes.
Or a family can bring a picnic and eat on the grounds, Davies said.
Festival seating, where those attending bring their own chair or blanket and sit on the grounds, goes for just $5 a seat with children under 12 free.
Premium seating under the big tent is only $10 online and $15 at the site. Ticket and other information are available at tennesseeshakespearefestival.com.
“Bell Buckle is a truly charming setting for the Tennessee Shakespeare festival,” Davies said, noting “95 percent of last year’s cast is coming back because the experience is so pleasant for the actors.”
In addition to professional actors from the Actors Equity Association, the cast features some of the more talented local people across MT and some from MTSU.
Midsummer Night productions are June 25, 26 and 28 and July 2, 3 and 5. Romeo and Juliet performances are July 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18 and 19. All performances start at 8 p.m.
The genesis for the festival began some nine years ago when Ralph Jones, a history professor involved in MTSU theater, visited with Davies after seeing him in “The Taming of the Shrew” at another festival.
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Lane Davies’ director’s notes
A Midsummer Night's Dream
I have directed A Midsummer Night’s Dream more than 10 times, clearly one of my favorite plays in the Shakespeare canon. Though I am a traditionalist at heart, I felt a need to try something new. I could spend pages justifying why I set the play in the Deep South of the 1930’s, but to be perfectly honest—it just seemed like fun. The simple fact is, the play is so universal in its themes and its characters are so timeless, that it doesn’t really matter where or when it’s set, as long as the director respects Shakespeare’s intent—a light-hearted look at love and conflict on several different levels.
So, y'all join us as we visit ‘Duke’ Theseus and his strong-willed fiancé Hippolyta, along with the four hot-blooded young lovers who manifest Love’s more confusing aspects; Oberon and Titania, spirits (from the War of Northern Aggression) haunting the ruins of the old Duke’s Oak plantation , and, of course, the well-meaning but inept ‘rude mechanicals,’ 1930 equivalents of ‘Larry the Cable Guy’.
Romeo & Juliet
After almost 40 years of acting, directing and producing Shakespeare, I look for ways to freshen the more familiar plays without compromising the story or the author's intent. I especially wanted a period that would preserve the romanticism of this season's Romeo and Juliet, as well as exploit the opportunities for the more visceral and violent aspects of the play. I confess to being inspired by Michael Mann's wonderful 1992 film adaptation of The Last of the Mohicans. The French/English hostilities which exploded into the French and Indian War would certainly have lingered on the frontier of 18th Century America, and the early melding of cultures in the young America would have made social conflict inevitable. But first love is and always will be first love, and will always seek for ways to overcome adversity. And therein lies our "two hours traffic of our stage.”
Shakes Theatre camp
The Tennessee Shakespeare Festival in association with The Webb School is offering an exciting summer program for high school students in the heart of beautiful and historic Bell Buckle. Camp Tenn Shakes Theatre Camp is offering two sessions, two weeks each, beginning on June 22 and to July 18. In addition to the regular day class schedule the camp offers evening workshops and carefully supervised boarding facilities on the Webb School campus for campers enrolled in boarding camp. |
“We began a conversation about the Bard in Bell Buckle, Davis said that eventually resulted in Webb Headmaster Albert Cauz in 2007 offering the school campus as site for the festival.
After a successful two-week run last season, the festival offers broader horizons this summer.
The Bard will hold forth for 13 summer nights in the bucolic serenity of charming Bell Buckle later this month.
The Tennessee Shakespeare Festival opens its second season June 25 on the Webb School campus, presenting adaptations of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” and “Romeo and Juliet” during a four-week run.
An MTSU graduate from some 30 years ago, Lane Davies, opened the Shakespeare Festival in Bell Buckle last summer with five shows that drew 1,200 patrons under a huge, custom tent.
Professional Shakespeare productions in a marvelous setting at a great price await visitors this season, Davies, a veteran actor of television and stage who studied under the iconic Dorothe Tucker, Lane Boutwell and Clay Hawes while earning his degree at MTSU.
For the Tennessee festival, Davies changes the setting for Midsummer Night from Athens, Greece to Athens, Ga., and for Romeo and Juliet to 18th Century America.
The event is truly a festival. With performances at 8 p.m., doors open at 6 p.m. with many food vendors. Ryan’s Smoking Rotisserie is primary food vendor, but others, such as Blue Bird ice cream will be offering festival taste treats, including funnel cakes.
Or a family can bring a picnic and eat on the grounds, Davies said.
Festival seating, where those attending bring their own chair or blanket and sit on the grounds, goes for just $5 a seat with children under 12 free.
Premium seating under the big tent is only $10 online and $15 at the site. Ticket and other information are available at tennesseeshakespearefestival.com.
“Bell Buckle is a truly charming setting for the Tennessee Shakespeare festival,” Davies said, noting “95 percent of last year’s cast is coming back because the experience is so pleasant for the actors.”
In addition to professional actors from the Actors Equity Association, the cast features some of the more talented local people across MT and some from MTSU.
Midsummer Night productions are June 25, 26 and 28 and July 2, 3 and 5. Romeo and Juliet performances are July 10, 11, 12, 16, 17, 18 and 19. All performances start at 8 p.m.
The genesis for the festival began some nine years ago when Ralph Jones, a history professor involved in MTSU theater, visited with Davies after seeing him in “The Taming of the Shrew” at another festival.
“We began a conversation about the Bard in Bell Buckle, Davis said that eventually resulted in Webb Headmaster Albert Cauz in 2007 offering the school campus as site for the festival.
After a successful two-week run last season, the festival offers broader horizons this summer.
About the director
Lane Davies was the original "Mason Capwell" on NBC’s Santa Barbara, an international hit which has now played in over 53 countries worldwide, and recently completed work on the film Steam, and the comedy pilot, Dixie Melodie.
Other credits include starring roles in four prime-time series, Good & Evil, The Mommies, Woops! and The Crew. He appeared regularly as the psychopathic time-traveler "Tempus" on Lois & Clark - The New Adventures of Superman, recurred on 3rd Rock from the Sun as "Chancellor Duncan," on The Practice as "Kyle Barrett" and most recently on Scrubs as Elliot’s dad, "Dr. Simon Reid."
Television credits also include seven pilots and some 50 guest-star appearances, including such shows as Seinfeld, Working, The Nanny, Ellen, Jesse, Coach, Major Dad, Clueless, Married With Children, and Just Shoot Me. During 30 years as a stage actor, Lane performed such roles as Hamlet, Macbeth, Petruchio, Henry V, King Lear, Shylock, Richard III, Cyrano de Bergerac, and the King of the 2008 R.C.Cola and Moon Pie Festival, in companies from San Diego to Providence, Rhode Island.
He recently directed Tennessee Repertory Theatre’s production of The Underpants, and appeared there last year as John Barrymore in I Hate Hamlet. He has worked as a consultant, writer and producer for Walt Disney Attractions on projects for Tokyo Disney Sea and EuroDisney. As Artistic Director for the Santa Susana Repertory Company, a professional resident theater company in Ventura County, Lane has produced and/or directed over 30 productions and guided the company from its inception.
He also founded the Kingsmen Shakespeare Festival in Thousand Oaks, now in its 12th season and was its Co-Artistic Director until 2006. He holds a degree in Speech and Theatre from MTSU, where he studied under Dorothe Tucker, Lane Boutwell and Clay Hawes.
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