In the middle of the conifer trees and the glistening water of North Lake Tahoe sits an outdoor amphitheater. The only sounds during an April afternoon are the water hitting the driftwood and birds chirping, but come late June, the voices of actors will fill the air.
The outdoor festival returns to Lake Tahoe in full capacity after a brief hiatus.
Joe Atack took over the role of the festival’s executive director in February, but he’s no stranger to what the festival entails. He’s worked with the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival in many different capacities for over 17 years and he’s excited to take on this new role and work with the community.
“I think what it does for the community is it helps people connect with one another; getting in a room together and watching a play in darkness does that thing of everybody’s heartbeats kind of synchronize when you’re all sat together. I think that the reason we come together to watch theater and have always done that is because as a species, as human beings, we need that collective release and catharsis of celebrating and confronting the human condition,” he said.
Atack isn’t the only one looking forward to the festival. Grayson Heyl, an actor for this year’s performance of Merry Wives of Windsor, said she’s excited to return to her roots. One of her first performances as an actor was doing outdoor Shakespeare.
Besides the performance, she’s most excited about the possibility of participating in one of her fellow castmates’ Tahoe Shakespeare traditions.
“There’s someone in the cast who likes to swim in the intermission because our green room is the sand and I am excited to join that tradition if I can because I love swimming. I love being on the lake,” she said.
Performing outdoors brings unexpected twists and even guest actors popping up on stage, Heyl said.
“We’re gaining so many new cast members of the birds and the insects and everything. You’re like ‘Oh, alright. Here’s this animal coming in. Alright, you’re part of the scene,’ ” she said.
Fellow actor, Terri Brown, said performing outdoors can have its challenges — including mosquitoes, bats and rain.
“It’s a challenge,” she laughed. “It’s a whole different muscle to be outdoors and with a very large audience. But it’s outside. You get to be outside, you get to see stars and lakes.”
Another castmate, Josh Houghton, is also familiar with outdoor Shakespeare festivals. He grew up in Ashland, Oregon, which hosts the Oregon Shakespeare Festival.
He attended it regularly as a high school student. The festival had a huge impact on his dream to become an actor and he appreciates what he and the community can get out of the arts.
“I now appreciate it more knowing that it’s not the norm in every community to have a professional theater with kindhearted, openhearted actors as your fellow community members. The arts feed the entire community. Everyone’s better for it, to have access to the arts,” he said.
Atack said that Shakespeare is still relevant to modern audiences. The only fundamental difference is that people from the past didn’t utilize the technology we have today.
“I think why his work endures is that ultimately he was a great understander of people. He truly understood what made people tick and the reasons and motivations for doing and saying the things that they do. Even though the characters talk differently from us, they’re still motivated by a lot of the same drives that for better or worse still motivate us today,” he said. “I think it helps connect us with the idea that humanity in many ways is one long unbroken chain of people.”
The Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival kicks off June 28 and runs through August 25. For more information, visit laketahoeshakespeare.com.
Kathleen Leslie is a student at the Reynolds School of Journalism. The story was produced in partnership with the school’s Lake Tahoe News Project.