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Int'l Theatre Festival Converges on Santa Barbara
Santa Barbara will soon host the first international Shakespeare festival in the nation, thanks in large part to the vision and work of John Blondell, ������Ƶ theater arts professor. The will feature 11 days of events celebrating Shakespeare, Thursday, Oct. 12, through Sunday, Oct. 22.

The festival will use six Santa Barbara venues to showcase the work of seven theater companies representing five countries. Of the 26 different performances, three will be world premiers: “As You Like It,” by the State Puppet Theatre from Bourgas, Bulgaria; “Timon of Athens,” by Theatre Artists Group/Theatre UCSB; and “The Tempest,” by Lit Moon Theatre Company.

Blondell, Lit Moon Theatre Company artistic director, will direct three plays including two ������Ƶ co-productions, “Hamlet” and “King Richard II.” The festival will also feature “Rogue” by Eric Ehn, commissioned by the ������Ƶ theatre arts department.

He says he was inspired to create a festival in Santa Barbara after attending and taking part in the Shakespearean Festival in Gdansk, Poland. There, Blondell says there’s also a strong educational component to the festival.

“It’s important that the festival not just have performances,” he says, “but a whole series of events that create context for the performances and a rich cultural, educational and social experience.”

There are several discussions and addresses throughout the Santa Barbara festival, as well as a design exhibit and musical events. “Participants get to experience the plays of Shakespeare not only through the performances, but through the way that people think about them and talk about them in some of these other events around the festival,” says Blondell.

������Ƶ is sponsoring and hosting the festival’s free keynote address with Dennis Kennedy, Saturday, Oct. 21, at 10 a.m., in Porter Theatre. Kennedy, the Samuel Beckett professor of theater at Trinity College in Dublin, Ireland, is one of the world’s experts on the nature of the visual arts as it relates to Shakespearean production. Kennedy’s address, “Shakespeare and Globalized Performance,” will analyze the implications of Shakespeare’s work as it is disseminated throughout the globe.

Blondell says overseeing such a massive project can at times be exhilarating, terrifying and tremendously moving. He has been corresponding with the director of the Bulgarian puppet theater. All but two of the 40-member company have never been to the United States.

“She just wrote back to say how rich the experience has been for the company and that it’s a real dream come true to visit the U.S.,” Blondell says. “They’re coming here to meet people and be involved with our students and the Santa Barbara community. I hope the festival develops and creates bridges of understanding between people who are sharing in this very rich, intercultural experience.”

The festival arrives in Santa Barbara during a time Blondell describes as a renaissance. He points to the level of commitment to the arts with the recent Off-Axis Contemporary Art Festival, as well as new theaters and directorships in Santa Barbara. He wants the festival to help Santa Barbara become a destination for world theater.

“I hope this can be a part of the great energy and enthusiasm in the city for all of the arts,” he says. “I hope this can be a part of developing and engendering a vitality of cultural life here. I also hope that the social dimension of theater can be championed, promoted and celebrated.

“This really is a great celebration, a celebration of Santa Barbara, of Shakespeare, of the artists’ work who are coming here.”

Blondell says, that with the community’s support, he hopes to make the festival a bi-annual event. He is already working to bring theater groups from Lithuania, Mexico and China to Santa Barbara in 2008.

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