Interview with Shakespeare Napa Valley
Interview with Shakespeare Napa Valley
I caught up with the Founder & Artistic Director of the Shakespeare Napa Valley Jennifer King. We discussed the connection with Napa Valley College, their return to live productions with the Shakespeare Summer Stroll, how they integrate students and professional actors into productions, and more. (More interviews here.)
Follow Shakespeare Napa Valley here:
Website: Shakespeare Napa Valley
Facebook.com: @ShakespeareNV
Instagram: #shakespearenapavalley @napavalleycollege
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If you’d rather read the interview, a rough transcript is below.
Interview with Shakespeare Napa Valley
Michael Van Osch: Hey, it’s Michael Van Osch. Welcome to the HARK Journal interview series. We are pleased to be back again. And before I get into that very quickly, if you haven’t checked out our daily Shakespeare meditation - it’s an email we send every weekday morning to help you have a better day get through the day and maybe even the week and a shout out to the recent people this week that have joined from India, Switzerland, Michigan, and New York.
And it just keeps growing. So, check that out if you haven’t already. But like I said, this is our interview series and I want to welcome the Artistic Director of Shakespeare Napa Valley. And that is Jennifer King. Hi Jennifer. How are you?
Jennifer King: Hi, it’s great to see you, Michael.
Michael Van Osch: Good to see you too. Thanks for joining us here.
How are things right now out in Napa?
Jennifer King: Well, Napa Valley is a wonderful place. So, however, as you can imagine, between COVID and now fires, which are far away, but the smoke has descended we’re officially in fire season. So things in the Napa Valley are a mixed bag. Like most of our places were reconciling new strains going into fire season, but we were able to perform this summer.
Outdoors live with people. And that was extremely meaningful, even if it was only for that time. And we may have to go back in and go back to this world.
Michael Van Osch: And we’ll keep you on thoughts and prayers about fire season too. Cause I know it’s been very bad up there this year, too. And you mentioned that you got to perform live that’s, let’s dive right into that before I ask you some other questions because that’s what caught my eye.
You were doing something in July called, and correct me if I’m wrong, Shakespeare Summer Stroll, and tell us what that is because I thought it was really a cool idea.
Jennifer King: Well, I will say that it comes from the inspiration of Prague Shakespeare Company. I typically go there every summer with a group of people, many of whom belong to Hark like Laura Cole who you’ve interviewed.
And Suzanne Dean directs a Stroll of Actors who are in different sites around Prague. And so you walk and you’ll come upon the child’s bridge and there’s a scene from Romeo and Juliet. You’ll walk across another beautiful space. And there’s a scene from Much Ado walking further, another beautiful space.
And of course, Prague if the space isn’t enough, but then having it vitalized with Shakespeare it was truly a magical experience. Nothing else was needed, but those words. Those actors inhabit them. And then this incredible backdrop, which was Prague. So I was like, oh, that’s a really good idea. And that was a really wonderful backdrop, but how do you do that when it really is a valley? And a couple of years ago, we began a partnership with The Di Rosa Center for Contemporary Art. I had long admired them. The founder had one of the largest art collections I believe in California, and it just a mix and it was all in his house, but the grounds itself are all sculpture, interesting contemporary, modern art, and against the most beautiful aspects of nature.
So from gorgeous ponds to a vineyard, to a mountain slope, and then architectural design. So, Ben Crystal had come out there two years ago for us to create to work on sonnets that lived in dialogue with an exposition that they had.
And it was extremely meaningful. And the artistic director and director of engagement at the Di Rosa took notice. And so they said anything you’d like to do. And I was like, Ooh, a stroll would be great. And then we went into lockdown. So typically, we do a production every summer, and at Shakespeare Napa Valley and like many, we haven’t been able to do that.
Some have been doing it this summer, but we just, it just wasn’t the right time, but we could do a stroll. And with Di Rosa permission we created this walk. That was, first of all, it was, live theater production in the Napa Valley, but there was something about the safety of knowing that you could keep social distance, even though everyone was vaccinated.
There was just something really wonderful about you having agency over your own self. And the actors felt that too, the way the material was, and Olivia Cowell directed. And what was so magical is that she was able to create, use the sonnets and scenes that actually lived in dialogue with each of the pieces of art or environments that we were in.
And you laughed, you cried, you were scared sometimes, but at the end, I think it’s one of the most profound experiences I’ve had. Just because for so many of us live Shakespeare it’s I’ll just say it’s spiritual. You have a transformative experience. That’s what I would call it - a transformative experience.
And for that to be gone for such a long time, to meet it again in nature where I know I’ve spent a lot of time that I haven’t been in a theater, I’ve been outdoors. It’s sort of said, oh, here, we’re going to bring the natural world in with Shakespeare. And it was a great experience. We sold out two weeks before we opened and the feedback was nothing but tremendous, very, very special.
Michael Van Osch: Oh, that sounds great. Excellent. Yeah, it sounds like a wonderful thing to do. And, and like you said too - what a great fit for the time we’re in this summer too. So let me back up a little bit. I want to read folks some of your bio here, and then we can kind of get into more about you as well. So you’re a professor of theater at Napa Valley College there and an international theater artist, which you alluded to and you’ve produced, performed, directed, created theater in the US, the UK Germany, Prague, Poland all over the place, which is amazing. And your regional credits, I’ll read some of those too, include California Shakespeare Theater, Dallas Theater Center, Aurora Theater Company, Capital Stage, Berkeley Playhouse, Cinnabar Theater, and Shakespeare in Napa valley.
So, but it says prior to your professorship, you also served as the executive and artistic director for Sonoma County Rep and the Sebastopol Shakespeare festival. And you’ve also been director of education and community programs at the Dallas Theater Center and a director of artistic learning at the California Shakespeare Theater.
So you have quite a varied and amazing career. How did you become tied in with Napa College or professor of theater there? So that’s tied in with Shakespeare Napa Valley, obviously as well. So, tell us that whole connection there.
Jennifer King: Well, you know, you discover along your career… I, first of all, am one of the strange theater people that desperately, or maybe not strange theater people for me, I definitely like structure.
And I like to know that I have a job all the time. And so that meant both practicing as an artist and also having a full-time position in the field. And there came a point where I really wanted to run my own company and a theater that I had interned for back in the nineties was about to go under.
And that was Sonoma County Repertory Theater. And the board came to me and said, Hey, could you come and see this and can you give this a go? And I met at the time I was working for California Shakespeare theater under the leadership, Jonathan Moscone and Debbie Chin. And I left them to run this theater company and it thrived and the Shakespeare festival blossomed.
And I had never directed Shakespeare before running the company. And I thought, no, I’m just gonna let other people do it, who are really good at it. And then one day someone had dropped out and they said, Jennifer, you have to do it. And I directed The Taming of the Shrew at the time. And I absolutely fell in love with how to explore language, how to embody text, and tell a story that could be accessible to our audiences of today.
And it was one of the highest-grossing productions of - I think ever and here I got that both executive and artist’s hat firmly implanted because the fiscally responsible and artistic. Artistic integrity was really important to me. So as 2008 was approaching actually not 2008 and the early in the mid-2000s.
Throughout my career as an arts leader, I was also teaching at UC Davis and I would teach at the small college Napa Valley College, and I loved the student body. And I would walk around going, oh, if I could only work here, it’s just lovely. And not just because of the environment, it’s an incredibly diverse student body.
And none of them had ever really had much theater in their lives. Maybe high school and they were just ripe. And I remember when I first started teaching there, the head of the department said, well, you’re never going to teach full-time here because I’m never going to leave. And they’re only going to allow for one theater professor.
I’m like, great, I’ll go and run company, you know, do whatever. Anyway, he called me and said, I’m going to retire. That’s all I can tell you, but the position will become available. And I applied and I. Got it. And I chose that track and left Sonoma County Repertory Theater. And my longing for Shakespeare was so deep that I thought, you know what, I gotta do it here.
And luckily it was working with the chair of the department who said you can do exactly what you do with Sonoma County Repertory Theater and do it here and make it Shakespeare. Napa Valley. Our first production was downtown Napa. I resurrected The Taming of the Shrew, which was pirate-style which everyone cringes about that.
And the way we told the story absolutely captivated the audience, they saw 300 to 400 people in their parks. Everyone was writing about it. It was downtown before downtown had been completely revitalized. And so really people hadn’t seen at five o’clock, all of a sudden, all these cars were downtown and people were getting out of their chairs and walking to a local park and going into businesses and buying food and doing this.
And it was really exciting. And Napa loved having a pirate ship in the middle of their town. And then after that, we had some subsequent really terrific productions. And then something happened to me, which not many people like, but I decided that I wanted to explore more extensive, more experimental works and approaches to Shakespeare.
And that’s when I went over to the UK and started working with a friend of mine, Jay Skelton, and he was doing work with Viewpoints in Shakespeare. So I started looking at a different approach to the text and it was a game-changer. And so the work was so accessible, I became more interested with how do we allow these plays to really speak to now rather than putting any sort of, I mean, still put worlds on them, but not quite a site-specific world.
I let the text open up and go where it needs to be.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah absolutely. And I guess you started the festival there about 2010. Is that right?
Jennifer King: 2010. Yes.
Michael Van Osch: And what was, what was the mission behind you starting that for the, for the school and for yourself?
Jennifer King: Really what we wanted to do was I, what I had noticed is this is. In my own development, I thrive being around really great actors. I came up as an actor. I have an MFA in acting and I thought, this is what students need. And what you have in a community college system is a balance of students that want to transfer on to universities and students who just want to go to work.
And what I know is the best way to learn how to work is to work by people who know how to work. And work and like Shakespeare Napa valley was created to do was to create a bridge from education into the professional world, by having professionals primarily in lead roles, depending on the play and then young students, our recent graduates in the tertiary roles.
And that’s dependent on just how things shake out. So that was the impetus behind it. It was quite selfish because I just wanted to have Shakespeare in my life. But it turned out to be a win-win for the college to win for the students, a win for, you know, artists not only in the valley but the bay area that would come in.
And so it’s turned out to be a wonderful thing as it evolves and changes. Given the times we’re in.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. And what I got from the website was that obviously you’re at a college, but obviously a real emphasis on nurturing emerging artists and students. It seems to be that’s what you’re about.
Jennifer King: Yeah. I think that if we don’t keep the fire alive, especially in regions and In communities that don’t have access, then the world is changing so much. I don’t think theater will ever be forgotten because I think live storytelling is primal to who we are, but unless individuals have access to it how do you know about that transformation transformative experience?
So this is what I’ve always said. You know, you may common become involved and maybe you don’t go on to be an actor, but you go out and you have it in your, your life for good. And maybe you turn into a donor or maybe you turn to someone that serves on a board or maybe, you know, there are so many incarnations for someone’s trajectory, but we like to think of ourselves is igniting a positive fire, right?
In the hearts and minds of our community. And so that’s where that’s, that’s why it started. And that’s where we sort of lived.
Michael Van Osch: And that answers what I was going to ask you next. I was going to say, you know, what does, what does Shakespeare do for people that have not experienced it before? But that’s exactly it, isn’t it?
I mean I talk to so many people and whether we’re talking about children or adults, it doesn’t matter.
Jennifer King: And it is mindset. It is mindset and it’s crucial to sort of the sinews or the fiber of the company itself. From the beginning, we’ve offered our work for free. I remember I went through a period where I thought, no, one’s going to value it if it’s free.
And we started to charge, and that, that was counter to everything, to who we are. And that was really poor thinking. We really had to get behind the what are we doing here? And that is we are offering opportunities to access the transform transformative power of Shakespeare through performance.
Michael Van Osch: And what a magnet it is to bring all different types of people together. I mean, that’s a big conversation these days, not only in the Shakespeare world but especially in the Shakespeare world, you know, the accessibility for all people.
Jennifer King: Well, and one of the things that we’ve done is we recognize that you know, how do we have other voices in the room?
And we realized when we were working with Ben crystal, just sort of germ came in and, and that was, oh what we could do is we really should allow these stories to perhaps be springboards for having people be able to tell their own story. And we’re combining with a program that was founded a few years ago called the Emergence Festival, which was about new works.
And now Shakespeare Napa Valley is working with the Emergence Festival to use Shakespeare stories as a means of self-expression, however, that is, or to do some live dialogue with those plays, but they serve as a springboard for the imagination. So we can hear more stories, but perhaps it’s Shakespeare is, is the catalyst, whether it’s a good catalyst, bad catalyst, angry catalyst, happy catalyst.
It’s a catalyst.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, for sure. Before I forget, what’s your website URL and I’ll put it in the show notes too.
Jennifer King: ShakespeareNapavalley.org.
Michael Van Osch: Okay, great. And people can check you out there and make donations if they’d like and all those other great things. What’s next for you, for you, and for the county.
Jennifer King: So we are scheduled actually should all go well. And here’s hoping is to do an indoor production of the Tempest. And let me, I’m going to talk about this just for a second, Michael because Tempest is rap. It has had a couple of reboots sort of to it with our funders. It is what we were scheduled to do two years ago.
In the parks throughout NASA and we know what happened. COVID and then you know, we couldn’t do anything. And Suzanne Dean, Laura Cole, and a group from Prague, Shakespeare got together and we decided to tell the Tempest for our time, which was a zoom production of the Tempest using actors.
From our different regions. And so for instance, I got the clowns because in the Napa Valley there’s wine and a lot of people drink. And so I got the drinking close to Fano Kaliban scenes, and I directed a group of Shakespeare, Napa valley actors, Suzanne Dean lives near a port, or her company is near a port.
And so she had. Actors who were representative of the Royals. And then what we did Laura Cole directed all of the parts of Shakespeare Prague Shakespeare company, they have a summer, a Shakespeare intensive, and all of us had worked with amazing people who had been part of that intensive.
And so we have. Actors playing a group of aerials from all over the world. And in fact, our actors were all over the world. And so it was quite a thing to try and figure out how to do it because of the time zones, but it was an extremely meaningful way for us to come together and create community when we couldn’t be together.
So that was one telling of the Tempest. Then I just want to sidetrack really quick as we did Romeo and Juliet with a student company casts last summer, and people can check that out. It’s really interesting. We worked with a company called the streaming theater Kevin Kemp’s company, and everyone, I wanted to say your listeners, one of the greatest people you could ever work for, we work with, he creates a digital platform for us theater artists, and he did it for, at the Tempest for our time.
And he did it for Shakespeare, Napa Valley’s, a student company, production of Romeo and Juliet. And it is because of him that I think that we were able to reach an audience meaningfully because of what we’re able to do digitally. But you asked about the Tempest and we’re doing the Tempest in March.
Hopefully, we’re going to do it indoors because Napa valley college supports the arts and I’m like, you’ve been waiting for this a long time. That gives you some bells and whistles. So we’re going to have a very low. A student company, company, as aerials, we have pretty much a cast in place, but now I need to check on their availability, but we can’t think of a better way to come back after.
I think a lot of us feel this way after all of us being on our own islands, sorting things out, and probably having a lot of epiphanies about how we’re going to relate with the world and each other.
Michael Van Osch: Yeah, absolutely. And what a great place to. Well, this has been great. So everyone, again, this has been Jennifer King artistic director and, and a theater professor Shakespeare, Napa valley.
Thank you so much. I’ve got a final question that I ask everybody that we talk to, and that is this. If Shakespeare was on this zoom call with you and I, and you got to ask him one question, what would you want to ask them?
Jennifer King: I would want to ask him. Well, that’s such a good question. I want to be like, Ooh, I want to have a really good answer for this. I would just want, I would, I just really want to know what is in his, what was in his head? Like, did he know what he was doing? I mean, he did know what he was doing. The fact that he was able to speak to so many people of diverse backgrounds. What was the, was that conscious? Was that conscious? And what were your thoughts around that?
And if you were living now, what can we do to be better with our audiences of today? How can we nurture tomorrow?
Michael Van Osch: Yeah. Great. Great. I like it. Thank you so much, Jennifer. All right, folks. I’ll put, put the website again in the show notes and check out Shakespeare in Napa valley. Jennifer, stay on the line after we say goodbye here, but thanks so much all the best and hope everything clears up there a little bit for you too.
Jennifer King: Thank you.
