SEASON TWELVE ON TOUR: A MIDSUMMER NIGHT'S DREAM
Touring Sep 7-Oct 9 - full schedule now live Stone Soup Shakespeare's A Midsummer Night's Dream centers Bottom as our not-so-humble hero. Eager to take centerstage in a community play he falls asleep while rehearsing, and gets whisked away into dreams of love, fairies, and his own transformations. Our cast of five transform just as Bottom does from Athenian craftsmen to lovestruck teenagers to mischievous fairy folk. With music and opportunities for everyone to join in moments of fun before Bottom awakes from his dream all in time to enjoy madcap mayhem in the final "rude mechanicals" performance. 
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Season 12: A Season to GROW
a note from our artistic director 12 is a great number Last year was a season of eb and flow and I ruminate on those words now because it was just that. As I confessed in a keynote I gave at Purdue, Stone Soup survived the depths of the pandemic and attempted to keep moving and creating in snatches, and there was some fun (I hope), some creativity, some art, some Shakespeare, and also, there were some failures. Excitement waxed and waned. Our ability to tour kept on being taken on and off the table, and in the end we toured. And Hamlet was beautiful. But across our tour region there was hesitation. Moments when we as a company were excited and ready and enthusiastic, and moments when we didn’t know what we were doing. Not as a production - the production was solid, but the momentum that exists with tour - there was hesitation. And perhaps it was appropriate. The Bard’s words of to be or not to be...that pondering - the tour fulfilled that, whether we knew exactly what we were holding and taking with us at the time or not So now we move forward. We move forward because I know no other way. We move forward because we cannot sit and do nothing. To quote - Survival is insufficient. And we are still in a moment. Several. Moments of question about public health. Moments where we know action is needed in communities, to address systemic racism, to address questions of colonialism, to address economic inequalities. And...and I have my thoughts. And everyone in the company has their thoughts. And our performers have thoughts. And our audience has thoughts. And somewhere, someone is well-equipped to figure out what all of it means. What the answers should be. But I am simply a reader of poetry, dear audience. I am no more a political leader than Shakespeare himself was. And while art does not ever exist without politics, our path forward is one that pulls on the very reason we began - to spur conversations about stories. Hopefully they lead to deeper understandings and pathos of our neighbors, but we must plant the conversations about the story, before we attempt unpacking all the rest. As Viola says, “time you must untangle this, not I/it is too hard a knot for me to untie.” And so we breath time into the big questions. We read and we study and we listen. And all the while we share stories. We plant seeds of ideas, and watch them grow. And we feel that this coming year is a year for growing. So Season 12 is exactly that a season to sprout, a season of Spring, a season for SEEDS What does that mean for you audience. It means we will be planting bits of art in your community throughout 2022. We start with a few lost projects from the depths of the pandemic. We continue with a radio/podcast esque winter journey, we follow that with workshops - virtual and some in-person. And then when the sun is in the opposite space in the sky as it is at the moment - yes I’m speaking of the summer solstice as opposed to the winter - we take all of the seeds we have planted and we create a forest - a magical forest. We return to a play we have produced once, but one that offers many seeds of stories, one that allows for merriment and reflection, one that begins itself in a midsummer’s night. The tour will again happen in the late days of summer and early days of fall. We will be leaking tour dates just as soon as the paint dries on this announcement of our season. But until then, we encourage you to use these long nights we are in the midst of to contemplate your own stories. Your ebs and your flows from this past season. The stories you want to tell and the stories you would rather embellish away. We ask you to grow with us. Not just as our wee little company learns lessons, expands, changes faces, and reimagines itself, but also as you examine your everyday, and the everydays that those around you face. Face with pride and dignity, with humor and humility, with happiness and gravity, with enthusiasm and trepidation, with their own stories from their own histories all arriving together to grow into something new - whatever we can decide on together that that should be. Thank you dear audience for growing with us to this moment and thank you for taking this year to continue to grow together to the potential that we all can be! -Julia Check back for more information soon! |
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A LOOK BACK AT:
Season 11: Ebb and FLOW Stone Soup Shakespeare headed HOME in theme in Season 10. Our anniversary season however was altered as the world shifted in unexpected ways. As we navigate with our neighbors near and far to continue telling stories and keeping community we acknowledge that there are ups and downs, ins and outs, an ebb and flow to each moment. And so we are honoring that by creating content for the continued time we have to spend at a distance, in anticipation of moments when we will again be able to travel to your "backyard."
a note from the Artistic Director |
Tour 2021: Hamlet
In Stone Soup Shakespeare's early 2021 Fall tour of Hamlet, a decadent party swirls around the prince as he encounters ghosts, wrestles with his inner demons, and seeks revenge for the mistakes of the past generation. Featuring new music by Chicago musicians, Hamlet explores a young person finding his way in a dangerous world.
Counter Expedition
This PLAY-BY-MAIL adventure was part scavenger hunt, part choose your own adventure, and part pen pal fun. Every choice made (or not made) in response to mailings leads to a different play, a different character, and a different exploration of Shakespeare's world. Missed it? We had so much fun being pen pals this past year, we might just have to do it again!
Community Rehearsal
In December we held daily "rehearsals" online. We provided ways to stretch, move, speak, and discover Shakespeare with ensemble members and friends via video clips. If you missed this, don't worry - we're working on a library of all of our virtual offerings and these learning videos will be part of that fun!
REVERSE TOUR | RUOT ESREVER
Part telephone, part exquisite corpse this video project begins with footage from a walk in the shoes of artists and friends within our normal tour region which offered inspiration for writers, directors, actors and other film artists across the globe.
In Stone Soup Shakespeare's early 2021 Fall tour of Hamlet, a decadent party swirls around the prince as he encounters ghosts, wrestles with his inner demons, and seeks revenge for the mistakes of the past generation. Featuring new music by Chicago musicians, Hamlet explores a young person finding his way in a dangerous world.
Counter Expedition
This PLAY-BY-MAIL adventure was part scavenger hunt, part choose your own adventure, and part pen pal fun. Every choice made (or not made) in response to mailings leads to a different play, a different character, and a different exploration of Shakespeare's world. Missed it? We had so much fun being pen pals this past year, we might just have to do it again!
Community Rehearsal
In December we held daily "rehearsals" online. We provided ways to stretch, move, speak, and discover Shakespeare with ensemble members and friends via video clips. If you missed this, don't worry - we're working on a library of all of our virtual offerings and these learning videos will be part of that fun!
REVERSE TOUR | RUOT ESREVER
Part telephone, part exquisite corpse this video project begins with footage from a walk in the shoes of artists and friends within our normal tour region which offered inspiration for writers, directors, actors and other film artists across the globe.
How We Bring Shakespeare to Life
Stone Soup Shakespeare presents the plays of Shakespeare as if they are brand new stories because to many people they are. We hope that our audiences' first experience with Shakespeare will be lively and entertaining. For those already acquainted with Shakespeare, we hope they can come and see these plays as new stories told again for the first time.
Shakespeare's plays were meant to be seen and heard— not read in a classroom. We strive to mimic the energy and inventiveness of the troupes of players popular in Shakespeare’s day making them accessible to a modern audience.
Our performances are free to the public to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to experience these plays as they come to life.
Shakespeare's plays were meant to be seen and heard— not read in a classroom. We strive to mimic the energy and inventiveness of the troupes of players popular in Shakespeare’s day making them accessible to a modern audience.
Our performances are free to the public to ensure that everyone has the opportunity to experience these plays as they come to life.