Todd Patterson played Mercutio in a previous production of “Romeo and Juliet” at the Richmond Shakespeare Festival, which returns this month. Tickets are $20 to $33. (Photo courtesy Quill Theatre)
As an actor and director working with Shakespeare’s text, you can let your imagination go wild at Agecroft,” says James Ricks, the artistic director of Quill Theatre, which will present its 22nd annual Richmond Shakespeare Festival on the grounds of the historic home this summer, after last year’s staging was canceled due to restrictions brought on by the pandemic.
The festival has been held in this bucolic setting along the James River since 1999 — the perfect backdrop for Elizabethan-era dramedy. “Agecroft is an actual 16th-century Tudor manor brought over in 1926 and rebuilt in Windsor Farms,” Ricks says, “so you get an interesting glimpse into the architecture of 15th- and 16th-century England. For our artists, it’s kind of a magical experience to perform in this space. It’s not hard to get into character.”
This year’s fest, running from July 8 to Aug. 15, will feature the same 10-member cast performing two works in rotation, the crowd-pleasing “Twelfth Night” and “The Bottom Show,” a breezy, rarely performed Shakespeare adaptation known as “The Merry Conceited Humors of Bottom the Weaver.”
“It was written in 1646, when the British monarchy was abolished and so was the theater,” Ricks says, “so amateur performers would do these shorter plays and put them on in taverns, ale houses and backrooms. They were made to be over and done before the authorities showed up.” At 90 minutes in length and incorporating what Ricks calls “extra bits of fun,” “The Bottom Show” is a greatest-hits version of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”
This year’s return will see a location change from Agecroft’s garden area to its back lawn, to accommodate social distancing. This means that, for the first time — cue the shocked theater purists — there will be a voice amplification system at the festival.
“It is going to have a completely different feel and environment,” says Jan Powell, the former Quill artistic director who will helm “Twelfth Night.” “It’s going to be performed in a more vast space, overlooking the river, surrounded with all that greenery. I think it will feel less formal and more relaxed.”
Actor and director Foster Solomon, who performs in both shows, directed the first Richmond Shakespeare Festival play staged at Agecroft, a fondly remembered production of a Shakespeare classic cheekily renamed “The Merry Wives of Windsor (Farms).”
“Performing for a live audience outdoors in this space gives you such a wonderful connection to the text and to the man [himself],” says Solomon, who has acted in and/or directed 13 festival plays over the years. “Whether we are performing in the courtyard or the back lawn, as long as the backdrop is that building, it’s timeless for us.”
While he says that he’s never been heckled at a festival performance, Solomon and other actors have endured the loud chirping of insects, the wanderings of wayward children and the neighbors’ rowdy summer blowouts.
“I remember trying to perform while some house was having a graduation party and blasting Miley Cyrus’ ‘Party in the U.S.A.,’ ” he recalls. “My co-star just started singing the song to me. We laughed, and the audience laughed. There was nothing we could do about it.”
Although the feel is more polite and subdued, that same community spirit lives on with Richmond’s Bard-fest, Ricks says. “I think people come out as much for the social side, to have a picnic and enjoy the scenery at Agecroft, as they do for seeing the show. It’s an experience.”
Powell calls the festival one of Richmond’s great social traditions. “It broke our hearts not to be there last year. I think this year will be a joyous, boisterous celebration of being out and being together in this special place.”
