As Forward Wayne County closes out its focus on Arts and Culture this month, we asked Ray Ontko, Richmond Shakespeare Festival board president, why public theater, and specifically free Shakespeare, is important.
Richmond Shakespeare Festival (RSF) provides Free Shakespeare in the Park programming in Wayne County. Since 2017, RSF has presented 9 different Shakespeare plays – Romeo & Juliet, The Merchant of Venice, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Macbeth, Much Ado about Nothing, Julius Caesar, Twelfth Night, Hamlet, and The Comedy of Errors – for a total of 13 performances, over 8 years. These are touring productions by professional regional Shakespeare theatre companies operating in Ohio, Kentucky, and Indiana, including the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company, Kentucky Shakespeare, Notre Dame Shakespeare, and Brown Box Theatre Company.
Most of these have been presented in Jack Elstro Plaza in Richmond, with one show presented in the historic Starr Gennett Building in the Whitewater Gorge Park, and one at Morrisson-Reeves Public Library. Shows present on an evening between May and August, and are typically accompanied by food trucks, creating a festive, casual, and family-oriented event. RSF is eager to expand its programming to other parts of Wayne County.
Why Shakespeare?
The themes and characters in Shakespeare’s plays cover a wide range of human emotion and experience. Shakespeare’s words are a familiar place in everyday speech, and his themes and plots are found everywhere in contemporary media. Shakespeare’s plays offer us an opportunity to come together in a slightly unfamiliar time and place, using our shared language, to explore issues and emotions that are relevant to us today. RSF proudly shares Shakespeare as a cultural touchstone alongside other cultural events in our community.
Why Free and in the Park?
Many plays and musicals are performed indoors, in specialized facilities, with expensive costumes, scenery, lighting, and ticket prices. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Theatre at its best is most effective because it is live; the audience and performers are in the same space, having a shared experience. RSF commits to sharing the artistry and joy of a professional theatre experience with everyone in our community, without cost and in a casual setting.
What else?
RSF also provides educational programming in connection with the study of Shakespeare in area high schools. Local schools served include Richmond HS, Seton Catholic HS, Lincoln HS, Northeastern HS, and Richmond Friends School. This typically includes a live production of Romeo & Juliet or Macbeth, in connection with the study of text of the same play in 9th or 10th grade as part of the curriculum. RSF collaborates with teachers and school administrators to help Shakespeare come alive for area students.
You may also be familiar with other work by RSF in our community. From 2014 to 2023, RSF produced full-cast productions of 13 Shakespeare plays, many of them in presented in the Starr Gennett Piano factory building, converting that space into 158-seat theatre each summer. RSF also produced a delightful production of the holiday classic, A Christmas Carol, by Charles Dickens, at The Reid Center, and two solo-shows: Becoming Othello: A Black Girl’s Journey, and Sonnet Man, an exploration of Shakespeare through the lens of hip-hop culture. While funding for annual, original full-cast productions proved to be fiscally unsustainable, RSF remains committed to providing high-quality, accessible Shakespeare programming in Wayne County.
In summary, Richmond Shakespeare Festival provides free Shakespeare in the park as an essential part of its mission to provide high-quality, accessible Shakespeare plays in our community. Consider joining others in the delight of a festive evening of Shakespeare in a park near you in 2025.
