Anything Fancy Sounding

Marc Whitmore and Jeff Jenkins are bringing new (old) dramas to the heart of Springfield.

Last September, the Springfield Shakespeare Festival was inaugurated. Not many people knew about it outside the terrarium-like worlds of the theatre and downtowner communities, but those who were in on the event felt enthusiastic. Maybe it was just the idea of staging Shakespeare here in Springfield.

The festival consisted of one production, a performance of As You Like It, a play the Bard wrote around 1599. This love-and-mistaken-identity comedy got a little updating for its run on the stage normally occupied by The Skinny Improv. The Skinny, of course, is a family-oriented comedy troupe founded by Jeff Jenkins. Jenkins is a 35-year-old chubby madcap blond who loves to skewer solemnities of all kinds in his shows, so it was no surprise when the Skinny staging of As You Like It was set neither in the wooded groves outside Shakespeare’s hometown, Stratford-upon-Avon, nor in Belgium’s Forest of Ardennes, nor in a pastoral mythland—the three settings where Shakespeare scholars tend to site the play in their special academic arguments. Instead, Jenkins, director George Cron and their crew set As You Like It in the American Wild West. Lovelorn princesses, angry dukes and bumpkin shepherds breathed their lines through a twang.

It was a hit. People like to say the play sold out. Well, the play was free, but people came out for the show in droves. The Skinny took donations, and it received some. More importantly, the Skinny got feedback. Jenkins had an exit poll taken as people left the theatre, and guests said they came to the show because it was Shakespeare, because it was free, because they were taking a class that required them to come to the show.
But the No. 1 reason people came? Because it was Shakespeare, says Jenkins. That’s what mattered. Could this be repeated somehow? For a bigger public? Would Springfield be interested?

How do you get a British theatre director to come to Springfield?

In October 2007, Marc Whitmore was in London. This in itself is not a super-rare thing. Whitmore is often in London or Los Angeles or New York. He is a Springfield native who lived for many years in Los Angeles working as a film producer. Now he spends half his time here and half in California. When he’s here, he has a goal in addition to pursuing his business: growing southwest Missouri culture.

Seven months ago, he was in London to find a director for the second Springfield Shakespeare Festival. In order to make the festival happen, Whitmore started at a place called the Carlton Club. A man named Mark Markiewicz had invited Whitmore there. The Carlton was founded in 1832. It’s for men only, and the men-only who attend the club must wear ties. Until July 1, when the United Kingdom banned smoking in public places, the men-only puffed on cigars, too.

Whitmore had been talking to Markiewicz (“markovitz”) about a new Shakespeare festival, one that would take place in Springfield in summer 2008. But instead of setting Shakespeare in the Wild West, Whitmore craved authenticity. He wanted to bring a British director to Springfield, along with some British actors. He hoped to infuse local actors with a new regard for how Shakespeare “should” be acted. Jenkins hoped that being exposed to actors of the very highest level would raise the bar for local actors. Says Whitmore: “As we’re sitting in these red leather club chairs, in this 400-year-old room with [Prime Minister] Disraeli’s portrait over the fireplace, talking about theatre in Springfield”—Whitmore’s voice puts a little emphasis on the name of our hometown, as though to stress the improbability of this whole scene—“he gave me a list of people he thought would be a good fit, and one was Philip Glassborow.”

Glassborow’s résumé caught Whitmore’s attention. Eight meetings followed, all of them in England, in pubs or theatres. Glassborow and Whitmore exchanged e-mails full of ideas. The level of enthusiasm surprised Whitmore. In his mind, the British might be interested in working in New York and Los Angeles, possibly Chicago. But a small city in the Midwest (or, as the British misname it, “the Midlands”)? Get out of here. In spite of the odds, Whitmore’s dream was happening.

Is happening. A director who has worked with the Royal Shakespeare Company is indeed coming to Springfield to help put on a Shakespeare festival, which you can see May 28 through June 8 at Jordan Valley Park, free to the public. The play?
Fittingly, it’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

What exactly is classical theatre, and why should people care?

Whitmore and Jenkins are not about to stop with a one-off “Shakespeare in the park” event. The Shakespeare festival is intended to be a germinating seed for a larger project, the Swan Repertory Theatre. Its goal: To be a classical theatre company for southwest Missouri.

What a goal. People ask Jenkins and Whitmore what classical theatre is all the time. “We’re defining it as ‘anything fancy-sounding,’” Jenkins quips. They don’t mean a strict use of the term “classical,” which would imply lots of Greek-and-Roman catharsis, Antigone, Oedipus Rex, etcetera. Jenkins says that the exit poll taken after last year’s performance of As You Like It showed a demand for Shakespeare and other high-level dramas. So, for Swan Repertory, “classical” will generally mean “pre–World War II” plays, ones that have stood the test of time because of the universal, empathetic way they present the human condition. Here is how Jenkins and Whitmore explain what they’re up to here in the land of PFI, Bass Pro and megachurches:
Whitmore: “Certainly old classics, ah, Shakespeare, Ben Johnson, but new classics, modern American classics. People who have been studied, they’ve been—studied.”

Jenkins: “There’s a reason they’re still around. People are still writing about them and discovering them and the depth of how brilliant they are. It’s difficult to sit in a classroom and read A Streetcar Named Desire and hear Stanley yelling, ‘Stella! Stella! Stella!’ And hear how animalistic he is, and how that connects to basic human needs—love, emotion. This is an opportunity to do those works.”

Whitmore: “The fact of the matter is that most people will have heard of these plays. Many will have never seen a professional company perform them. And even in a town this size, it’s amazing that you don’t see more Shakespeare—which is crazy—because students are studying it all the time at schools. So we’re going to make it available on a regular basis.”

If there is one thing both men emphasize, it’s the satisfaction of doing this work here rather than elsewhere. “I’ve produced plays in LA,” Whitmore remarks. “Producing there is a job. Here it’s a joy.”

Swan Repertory

Producers Marc Whitmore and Jeff Jenkins plan to bring in directors and actors from Britain and actors and set designers from Los Angeles, among others, to work with local theatre talent to produce well-known plays in Springfield. Venues include Jordan Valley Park, The Skinny Improv and others. A draft three-year schedule for their Swan Repertory Theatre includes:

A Midsummer Night’s Dream
William Shakespeare
May 22–June 8

The Glass Menagerie
Tennessee Williams
September 11–28

An Imaginary Invalid
Molière
October 16–November 2
A Christmas Carol
Charles Dickens
November 27–December 21

Twelfth Night
William Shakespeare
February 19–March 8, 2009

A Trip to Bountiful
Horton Foote
April 2–April 19, 2009

Romeo and Juliet
Educational Tour
William Shakespeare
Dates vary, 2008–2009

Learn more at theskinnyimprov.com