UPDATE: Michael Lee's 2-minute feature at KUT-FM, July 19
Shakespeare in Winedale 2013
comes to Austin
The Tempest, August 19 and Henry IV, Part I, August 20
7:30 p.m.
Shakespeare at Winedale 43rd Summer Season
performing at the ballroom of the Texas Union, 2247 Guadalupe - click for map
Shakespeare at Winedale’s 2013 Summer Class will showcase their productions of Shakespeare’s The Tempest and King Henry IV, Part One as part of their summer tour. There will be only one performance in Austin of each play: The Tempest on Monday, August 19 and Henry IV, Part I, onTuesday, August 20 at 7:30pm.
Tickets are $15 for general admission or $10 for student ID holders, UT staff, and faculty and may be ordered online through the Shakespeare at Winedale website or by calling (512) 471-4726.
The Tempest tells the tale of Prospero, the supplanted Duke of Milan, and his young daughter Miranda, both of whom have been stranded together on an island for twelve years. With the magic he has learned, Prospero conjures a tempest that strands his wrong-doers on the same island. The Tempest follows the shipwrecked passengers as they fight to survive amidst the magic and monsters that inhabit the island. Elissa Russell, who plays Miranda in The Tempest, finds that the unique environment of Winedale enhances the beauty of the play. “Performing in the barn is entirely different than performing on a normal stage. You’re surrounded by nature and removed from society, which adds an aspect to the plays that you can’t get everywhere else.” Assistant Director (and former Winedale Prospero) Bob Jones says “The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most beautiful plays, both in terms of the richness of its poetic language, and in its themes of grace, reconciliation, and forgiveness.”
King Henry IV, Part One tells the tale of Prince Hal and his journey from street rat to a young King Henry V. As the play begins he associates with the fat, drunk knight Falstaff, and commits theft with the scum of England. As his father’s war with the fiery Hotspur wages on, he becomes what his father had hoped: “A son who is the theme of honour's tongue.” Cody Chua, playing the lovable Falstaff, says Henry IV is a play “that reflects well the wonder of Shakespeare’s versatility and wit. As one of his best history plays, if not the best, it has so much not only of pleasure but of pathos, and passion. We can meditate on the fragility and innocence of an old, fat man, and at the same time we can laugh at his wit, and his blunders.”
Shakespeare at Winedale is a University of Texas program in which students study and perform Shakespeare at the Winedale Historical Complex near Round Top. Since its founding by English professor James Ayres in 1970, the program’s unique, hands-on approach has brought Shakespeare’s words to life for hundreds of students and thousands of audience members. University students from many disciplines and backgrounds work together for six weeks at Winedale, ending their summer with four weekends of performances in a converted nineteenth-century hay barn.
When the students complete their work in residence, they will also tour to Dallas, as well as the American Shakespeare Center in Staunton, VA, home to the world’s only historical recreation of Shakespeare’s Blackfriars stage.
(Click to go to the AustinLiveTheatre front page)
Ambition. Desire. Witchcraft. Blood. Murder. It is Shakespeare's darkest and most powerful tragedies dramatizing the psychological and political effects produced when its protagonist chooses evil as the way to fulfill his ambition for power. Tempted by witches, apparitions and even his own wife, Macbeth is a man willing to sacrifice everything for his own gain, and his decisions push the sanity and humanity of all those living in his world.
Auditions Sunday, August 4 and Monday, August 5 at City. Callbacks, if necessary (and I expect they will be) will be Thursday, August 8. 
The EmilyAnn Theatre & Gardens will be holding auditions for this rarely done, but much loved play. Cymbeline, one of Shakespeare's last plays, features almost all of the Bard's usual tropes: cross dressing, a complicated love story, dismemberment, royalty, long-lost relatives, and even a potion that makes the living appear dead.
