Wendy Greenwood, Marty Casey, Michael Shreves, Drew Battles and cast
Photo by Michelle Kenyon
On a Wednesday night at an elementary school in the Grove neighborhood of St. Louis, a group of enthusiastic performers has assembled to rehearse. Tonight, they’re working on incorporating music into their show, provided by members of the Funky Butt Brass Band. The action is a kind of organized chaos, depicting a crucial scene in the upcoming production, in which local teenage muralist Perdita (or “Perdy” as most people refer to her) is preparing to unveil a large mural she has painted on the side of a building in the community. There is much dancing and energy by a cast of all ages, as the group chants “Go Perdy! Go Perdy!” The scene, which also includes a pivotal moment for Leontes, Perdy’s long-lost father, is rehearsed several times this evening, in preparation for this week’s debut of the production as Shakespeare Festival St. Louis’s second annual Shakespeare In the Streets presentation.
The brainchild of SFSTL Executive Director Rick Dildine, Shakespeare In the Streets is an annual project in which the Festival works with residents of a particular St. Louis neighborhood to construct a play based on a work of Shakespeare, adapted to fit the area, and then shuts down a street in that neighborhood for three nights to perform the resulting production. Last year’s show on Cherokee Street was a big success, so this year, the project has been brought to another city neighborhood, the Grove, otherwise known as Forest Park Southeast. This year’s play is called Old Hearts Fresh, a modern take on The Winter’s Tale by playwright Nancy Bell, who also wrote last year’s play. During the rehearsal, I was given the chance to speak to several cast members, including professional performers Wendy Greenwood (Perdita), Jacqueline Thompson (Hermione), Marty Casey (Paulina), Drew Battles (Leontes) and Antonio Rodriguez (Polixenes), as well as professional drag performer and Grove resident Michael Shreves (Time). I also spoke with local residents and ensemble members Karla Boresi and Sara Figueroa, as well as the production’s director, Alec Wild.
The Winter’s Tale as Shakespeare wrote it tells the story of King Leontes, who becomes enraged with jealousy upon suspecting (falsely) that his faithful wife Hermione has been having an affair with his friend Polixenes, who is the king of another country. His jealousy sets in motion a series of events that leads to the abandonment of his infant daughter Perdita, the death (or perceived death, depending on the production) of his wife and other broken relationships and unrest in his kingdom. It’s all eventually resolved in a fantastical, Shakespearean way, but not until after sixteen years have passed and Perdita has grown into a young adult raised by a shepherd in another kingdom. Old Hearts Fresh is an updated version of the story that has elements of other Shakespearean plays (most notably Pericles) and has been set in the Grove, with many elements of the neighborhood such as Grove Fest and local businesses. landmarks and stories incorporated into the tale, with a mixture of Shakespearean and modern language. There’s also the mural, painted at 4226 Manchester by local artist Grace McCammond, which will serve as a lasting community souvenir from the production.
The characters have also been given a Grove-style makeover. Leontes is now a community organizer, Hermione runs a charter school, and Polixenes owns a bar in the Grove. Also, Leontes’ jealousy, which is already irrational in Shakespeare, is made even more ridiculous in this production. According to Rodriguez, “In our production it makes it a little bit more absurd that he’s accusing me, because Polixenes is gay, so obviously that puts a little wrench in [Leontes’s] idea of cheating.” Also, unlike the source material, there is no love interest for Perdita in this production. She is portrayed as an optimistic young muralist who is curious about her background. This version is “not about a [romantic] relationship for Perdita,” says Greenwood. “It’s about reuniting with the family. So that’s a big difference .”
Drew Battles, Antonio Rodriguez, Jacqueline Thompson
Photo by David Levy
At the rehearsal, most of the participants stress the uniqueness of this project. Many of them had never been involved in something like this before, and they were excited about its potential. At the first rehearsal for this year’s production, Dildine gathered the cast members together and told them his vision: upon moving to St. Louis from Chicago, Dildine was struck by the amount of closed-off and barricaded streets in the city, which seemed to communication an air of exclusivity and exclusion. According to Battles, Dildine wanted to put this concept to an inclusionary use. He decided that “he wanted to do that [too]–shut down a street, [but] for the sake of the arts”. Dildine had also pitched the idea to Wild when asking him to direct this year’s show. “He said ‘look, we’ve got this interesting project where we go into a community for four months and meet people and make a story—are you interested?’” says Wild. “I think that was the side of it that really interested me.”
The idea to bring a show into a neighborhood and the neighborhood into the show was an exciting one for the participants, particularly Wild, who, along with playwright Bell and Production Designer Justin Barisonek, spent some time visiting the neighborhood, going to shops and businesses, and interviewing residents. Many of those residents’ stories are used to some degree in the finished play.
Several Grove residents were eager to be involved in the project, and Shreves, who performs as “Michelle McCausland” at Meyer’s Grove in the neighborhood every weekend, was recruited for the production. “The director came to my show” he tells me, “and he said ‘you would be perfect for this part!” The character of Time, which Shreves will perform as the Michelle McCausland character, serves as the show’s narrator. It’s Shreves’s first Shakesepearean performance after many years performing in various musical theatre roles. Boresi, an Adminstrative Law Judge and Zumba instructor, hasn’t performed in a show since high school, but loves theatre and volunteered “for neighborhood reasons, for theatre reasons, and to kind of check something off my bucket list”. Figueroa, who works as a Disaster Response Coodinator for the city, is excited about the show as a potential unifying force for the neighborhood. “There’s a big disconnect in the neighborhood between the strip on Manchester—it’s kind of the bar, nightclub scene, and then there’s the residents who live here”, she says. “There’s a big disconnect and I think this is going to be a really cool way to kind of bring those [together].”
Figueroa knows a lot about the history of the neighborhood, and she likes that some of that history has been incorporated into the show as a result of the various personal stories collected by the project’s creative team. The character of Paulina is the show’s embodiment of a lot of those stories. Paulina is portrayed in this production as a long-time Grove resident who grew up in the neighborhood and witnessed many of its ups and downs. Casey has gained more of a personal connection to the neighborhood through playing this character. “I’ve learned a lot about the Tower Grove area just being in this show and working with everyone, and I just love it!” she says. “And the experience that Paulina goes through just really shows how we’ve evolved as a people. I love the fact that I’m bringing that element to the show.”
All of the players are excited about the mixture of professional actors and community residents in this production. According to Rodriguez, “it has created a nice sense of community within the show. So it’s been really stress-free. This has been one of the easiest [rehearsal] processes I’ve ever had”. Battles describes the experience as “awesome” and adds that he thinks “some of the community people are doing better work than we are—the professionals–because they’re so real. And this neighborhood means so much to them. For them to do a play about their neighborhood, in their neighborhood—it’s really great. “
The production also includes several local children and teens, who play various roles and have been universally praised by their adult co-stars. Both Battles and Rodriguez think the children will “steal the show”, and praise their talent and work ethic. Thompson refers to the children as “phenomenal”. This is a production where people of all ages, and from all walks of life, have come together to celebrate the arts, the city and a city neighborhood.
Overall, this cast and this production is full of energy, optimism and community spirit. This promises to be an entertaining production, and after speaking with the cast, I’m looking forward to seeing it even more than I already was. It’s Shakespeare for the community, in a uniquely St. Louis way.
Antonio Rodriquez, Marty Casey, Nathan Bush (Camillo), Drew Battles
Photo by David Levy
Shakespeare In the Streets, Old Hearts Fresh, will run from Thursday, September 19th through Saturday, September 21st, at 8pm at 4225 Manchester Avenue in the Grove. For more information, see SFSTL’s website (linked in the sidebar of this blog).