Napa Valley College’s (NVC) Shakespeare Napa Valley (SNV) is partnering with the newly launched Globetrotting Shakespeare to present “The Tempest for our Time,” an international online theater experience of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest,” on Saturday, July 11, 2020.
In this moment of isolation, reflection and transformation, Shakespeare artists and theater makers from across four countries are joining Globetrotting Shakespeare to provide communities around the world with a digital live theater experience.
Napa Valley College theater professor, artistic director and chair of arts and humanities, Jennifer King, is serving as one of the directors for the project. King will direct the clown scenes featuring NVC Theater Arts alumni Benjamin Stowe, an award-winning Bay Area actor, as Caliban; Jessica Romero, a performer of Reduced Shakespeare Company and regular member of Shakespeare Napa Valley acting company, as Trinculo; and Matt Cowell, actor and NVC Performing Arts Center technical director, as Stephano.
Featured participants in Globetrotting Shakespeare represent theater leaders, directors and actors who have all worked for Prague Shakespeare Company, including NVC’s Shakespeare Napa Valley, Shakespeare by the Sea, The Atlanta Shakespeare Tavern, Shakespeare at Notre Dame, The University of Houston and Prague Shakespeare Company.
Each year, King works with Prague Shakespeare Company (PSC) teaching and directing a play for PSC’s Summer Shakespeare Intensive program. “The experience has been incredible for my professional development as a theater practitioner,” said King. “Through PSC I am able to work and develop relationships with some of the best Shakespeare theater artists and scholars from all over the world, allowing me to provide deeper theater education experiences at Napa Valley College as well as heightening my ability to direct not only Shakespeare’s works but plays in general.”
Earlier this year, Napa resident and philanthropist Penny Pawl set up a fund through the Napa Valley College District Auxiliary Services Foundation to provide financial support to send NVC students to PSC’s Summer Shakespeare Intensive.
In April 2020, Prague Shakespeare Company announced that its world-renowned Summer Shakespeare Intensive had to be cancelled due to the devastating Coronavirus pandemic. Artists, scholars and students from all over the world were to gather in Prague for a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity to train and perform Shakespeare’s great plays in Europe’s most historic venues including Prague Castle and the Czech National Theater’s Estates Theatre – where Mozart premiered “Don Giovanni”: in 1787.
The Globetrotting Shakespeare project is working to help support the artists and organizations affected by the cancellation of the Prague Shakespeare Company by presenting “The Tempest for our Time” as a donate-what-you-can performance, to benefit Prague Shakespeare Company.
The one-time performance of “The Tempest for our Time” will launch on Saturday, July 11, 2020 at 11 a.m., live streamed through TheStreamingTheatre.com or on Twitch at twitch.tv/thestreamingtheatre.
