Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival organizers want to focus more attention on stage

SAND HARBOR - At the risk of messing with success, organizers of the Lake Tahoe Shakespeare Festival are trying to focus more attention on the outdoor stage than the azure waters behind it.

The 34th edition of the festival at the natural, sand-dune amphitheater on the lake's east shore will rotate performances July 13 through Aug. 20 of "Othello," "Twelfth Night" and "The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged)."

"It's truly a landmark year for us," said Catherine Atack, the festival's executive director.

"It's the most diverse lineup we've ever done. Patrons can really get a different Shakespeare experience each time they come out," she said.

Until last year the festival under towering pine trees featured only comedies, partly because outdoor sounds and distractions sometimes make it difficult to follow dramatic dialogue and partly because most of the audience was made up of casual Shakespeare fans at best.

"In the past, the venue was key to why anybody was there. The thinking was that people in that beautiful environment didn't want to walk out depressed," Atack said.

"But as the event has grown and the artistic quality has increased, the audience has increased its appreciation for the performance, too. People truly see this as theater," she said.

"Yes, it's scenic. It's one of the most awe-inspiring views in the world. But if you are going to pay $69 to see a play, we need to make sure it's a first-class artistic presentation, as well."

Last year, organizers broke from tradition and offered the tragedy "Macbeth" as one of two plays in the rotation at Sand Harbor State Park. The result: "Macbeth's" nightly crowd averaged 914 while "Comedy of Errors" averaged 735. Overall attendance topped 29,000 - the best in three years.

This year marks the festival's debut of "Othello" - another classic tragedy in which the villain, Iago, causes the noble Moor Othello to mistakenly believe his young wife, Desdemona, is being unfaithful to him.

"It's about how one real cruel, evil person can really screw things up for everyone," said Scott Gilbert, the artistic director for the Foothill Theater, the Nevada City, Calif.-based company that is in its 10th year producing the festival's plays.

"I want this to be a dark, mean Othello - people in shadows plotting things that are too horrible to contemplate," he said.

Othello is played by Reginald Andre' Jackson, who has performed extensively with the Seattle Repertory Theatre and Seattle Shakespeare Company.

"He even scares me. He's an intensely powerful actor," said Gilbert, who is directing "Othello" and plays the sea captain in "Twelfth Night."

This year's most popular performance may prove to be "The Compleat Wrks of Wllm Shkspr (abridged)" - a fast-paced, comedic adaptation of all 37 of the Bard's creations.

Hand bills promoting the show say, "If Cliff Notes got you through English, have we got a play for you."

"It is every one of Shakespeare's plays in two hours performed by three guys in tennis shoes," Gilbert said.

Part of Hamlet is performed backward. Titus Adronicus, a Roman general in Shakespeare's bloodiest play, is performed as if he is master chef Julia Child.

"There's a rapping Othello," Gilbert said. "I think this play is going to be hot, hot, hot."

This year's version of "Twelfth Night" is set in the 20th century "in a world inspired by the whole notion of love and music," Gilbert said.

Director Nancy Carlin, a longtime associate artist of the California Shakespeare Theater and former company member of the American Conservatory Theater, was inspired by 1960s pop art and music by the Beatles, Gilbert said.

"There's a lot of singing dialogue. It's really going to be colorful and beautiful," he said.

Betsy Malloy, a freelance San Francisco travel writer, gives the festival four stars out of five - "five stars for its excellent location and ambiance and three stars for the quality of its productions."

"One of its special charms is the laid-back ambiance as people gather, set up their beach chairs, picnic on the sand and settle down to get ready for the show," she recently wrote on the "California for Visitors" section of the Web site About.com.

Ticket prices range from $22 for adults and $14 for youths younger than 15 for general seating at Sunday-Thursday shows, to $72 for reserved seats on Friday and Saturday nights.

In addition to other changes, festival organizers are stepping up fundraising efforts to pay for a variety of performances at the park after Shakespeare completes its run in August, including productions by the Nevada Opera and Sierra Nevada Ballet.

Montreux Golf and Country Club, home of the PGA Tour's Reno-Tahoe Open, hosted a Tahoe Shakespeare gala last month and is sponsoring the performances of "Othello."

In addition to nightly appearances, Foothill Theater Company will offer 12 free matinee performances for children - six at Sand Harbor and six on the road.

"We truly feel we're doing real outreach work to children who, without transportation, may not otherwise have a chance to see something like this," Atack said.