SAN DIEGO — The Old Globe has announced the creation of an exciting new producing platform, Globe for All. This free-of-charge tour of a professional production of Shakespeare will allow the theatre to serve more communities throughout San Diego by collaborating with a diverse range of local organizations. Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein will direct the first production, Shakespeare’s fascinating romance All’s Well That Ends Well. He plans to cast local professional actors, including recent graduates of the Old Globe/University of San Diego M.F.A. Program in classical acting. The first Globe for All free Shakespeare tour will begin October 28 and will culminate in three low-cost performances in the Globe’s Hattox Hall November 7-9.
The Globe for All tour will present Shakespeare in a variety of community venues including military bases, recreation centers, libraries, centers for the elderly, homeless shelters, and correctional facilities. The emphasis will be on reaching underserved communities and multigenerational audiences. Globe for All employs a model of community outreach designed to make theatre matter to audiences who, for whatever reason, have not enjoyed regular access to the professional performing arts. The tour will play in non-theatrical venues such as gymnasiums, cafeterias, and multipurpose rooms. With production values scaled to those spaces, the tour will give audiences an intimate, up-close, and visceral experience of live performance and will foster a shared sense of community between performer and spectator.
What does a woman do when the only man she wants to marry won’t have her, even when the king commands it? In All’s Well That Ends Well (last seen in the Globe’s 2008 Shakespeare Festival), Shakespeare pits the wise and witty Helena against the hotheaded courtier Bertram in a clash of wills filled with comic surprises and passionate poetry.
In addition to providing the community with free access to professional performances of Shakespeare, Globe for All will enrich the theatre experience by offering workshops and other activities. These are modeled on and include aspects of the Globe’s successful Community Voices program, an innovative playwriting program (supported by a grant from the James Irvine Foundation) that has helped the Globe establish relationships with many San Diego community organizations. During its first two years, Community Voices yielded more than 170, 10-minute plays written by diverse members of the San Diego community who had no prior playwriting experience.
During Barry Edelstein’s tenure at The Public Theater, one of his most exciting accomplishments was helping launch The Public’s Mobile Shakespeare Unit, which brought professional Shakespeare for free to residents of homeless shelters, rehab centers, prisons, and other underserved audiences.
Audiences for the Globe for All Shakespeare tour will be offered a one-hour pre-show workshop, with Globe teaching artists introducing Shakespeare’s language, themes, characters, and stories to familiarize audiences—some of whom will have had little previous experience with the Bard—with what to expect.
“Since my arrival in San Diego I’ve looked for ways to share the wonders of The Old Globe with more and more of our city, and so I’m particularly proud and pleased to launch Globe for All,” said Artistic Director Barry Edelstein. “It’s our core conviction that theatre in general, and Shakespeare in particular, are necessary to living a full and rich life, and yet we recognize that some in our city either don’t know about the work we do or cannot enjoy regular access to it. It is therefore our obligation to help overcome whatever barriers—economic, geographical, and cultural—stand between us and the widest possible cross section of our city. Globe for All is an exciting way to bring the joys and thrills of live, professional Shakespeare to San Diegans who may not have experienced them before. We are grateful to the community-based organizations that are partnering with us and to the civic-minded philanthropies that are supporting this effort. Together, we can make theatre matter to many more of our fellow citizens.”
Southeastern San Diego, home of the Globe’s Technical Center, will be one of the key areas served by Globe for All. When the Globe Technical Center began operations there in 2008, the Globe began extensive outreach into the surrounding neighborhoods and deepened relationships with community organizations including the Jackie Robinson YMCA, Writerz Blok, the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation, Lincoln High School, San Diego School of Creative and Performing Arts, Freese Elementary, and other local schools, St. Stephen’s Church, and other organizations. The James Irvine Foundation, Legler Benbough Foundation, and San Diego Foundation were major supporters of this earlier initiative, The Globe Residency Project. Highlights included productions of Kingdom, an award-winning musical about the cycle of gang violence, and Welcome to Arroyo’s, about the birth of hip hop—performed at both Lincoln High School and The Old Globe; the world premiere ofOdyssey, a musical event that featured over 200 community members performing alongside professional actors; and Emancipated, a one-act play by and about young people who had “aged out” of the foster care system. The Globe for All community Shakespeare tour will reinforce the theatre’s ongoing commitment to serving residents of Southeastern San Diego and reaching other local communities.
Globe for All will be presented in Southeastern San Diego with a free public performance at the Jacobs Center for Neighborhood Innovation Celebration Hall on Sunday, November 2 at 2:00 p.m.
In addition to the free public performances at the Jacobs Center Celebration Hall and at the San Diego Public Library (date tbd), the show will be performed for Veteran’s Village of San Diego, and for sailors at Naval Base San Diego. Additional performance dates and venues for the firstGlobe for All Shakespeare tour will be announced soon.
The tour will culminate with three low-cost performances offered in the Globe’s Hattox Hall on Friday, November 7 at 7:00 p.m., Saturday, November 8 at 7:00 p.m., and Sunday, November 9 at 2:00 p.m. These performances will be open to the public. Tickets will be $10. On-sale date tbd.
