DAILY CAMERA: ‘Hamlet,’ ‘Caesar’ featured in Colorado Shakespeare Festival’s 60th season
Boulder troupe will complete second cycle of playwright’s 38 plays
(Above: A promotional photo from “Julius Caesar,” part of CSF’s inaugural season in 1958.)
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival will return to its roots for its 2017 season, revisiting shows originally featured in its first formal season in 1958.
This week, CSF officials announced the lineup for next summer’s festival, which will run from June to August and feature some of the Bard of Avon’s best-known works. “The Taming of the Shrew,” “Hamlet” and “Julius Caesar” all figure into the program for the CSF’s 60th season, along with a staging of “Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead,” Tom Stoppard’s comedy set in the world of “Hamlet.” What’s more, the festival will feature two “Original Practices” performances of “Henry VI, Part 3,” shows designed to recreate the feel of Elizabethan-era stagings, with very little in the way of sets, lights and rehearsal time for the actors.
While the lineup hearkens back to the first season of the Colorado Shakespeare Festival, the nation’s second-oldest theater festival dedicated to playwright, the troupe is looking forward to another major milestone — with the its production of “Henry VI, Part 3” next summer, the CSF will have completed the complete canon of Shakespeare’s 38 plays for the second time.
According to producing artistic director Timothy Orr, recreating the CSF’s first season was an ideal acknowledgment of its past and a look ahead to its creative future.
“We’ve been avoiding these titles deliberately for the past three years so that…”