This year, the community-based Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival is offering more performances, more food concessions at intermission and, amazingly, more plays. The company has doubled its offerings from a single show to two.
Capital Classics, which founded the festival in 1991, was able to handle the expansion by making summer outdoor Shakespeare the main thing it does. The company has been doing contemporary dramas and golden age radio theater-style performances in the non-summer months. After an extensive survey of its patrons last year, Capital Classics decided to concentrate on the Shakespeare and no longer plan a year-round schedule.
Since crowds have grown recently along with everything else, averaging 300-400 people at each performance last year, there’s another innovation: microphones for the actors. Capital Classics has long done preshow speeches arguing for natural voice projection, but co-founder Geoff Sheehan (who is directing “Hamlet” this summer) makes clear that “there was always the unsaid thing — that when audiences got louder than our voices, we would take the step. Now we have. This is not an arena. It’s a boost. It will nicely fill the area.”
The microphones are standard body mics since “floor mics or hanging mics won’t work in our space outside,” Sheehan said.
The plays will alternate for a full month rather than the accustomed one show/three week setup of previous festivals. Performances happen Wednesdays through Sundays.
Special preshow events happening during the Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival include the University of Saint Joseph Dance Ensemble on July 10, 14 and 17; talks by Shakespeare scholars on July 21, 24, 31 and Aug. 4; the South American musicians Elqui Duo on July 11, 18, 25 and Aug. 1; the Elizabethan Consort playing on July 12, 13, 19, 20, 26 and 27 and Aug. 2 and 3; and postshow talkbacks with the cast and crew of the plays on July 14, 21 and 28.
The new two-play summer season allows the troupe to do both a tragedy and a comedy in a single summer. The marital romp “The Taming of the Shrew” will rotate performances with the death-heavy “Hamlet” July 10 through Aug. 4. The plays feature the same actors, balanced so that those who have a leading role in one play have a smaller role in the other. Sheehan says there are 13 performers overall, 12 of whom appear in both shows.
One of those actors is Capital Classics veteran Heri Cruz Jr., who stars at the macho sexist wife-seeker Petruchio in “The Taming of the Shrew” and also plays Ophelia’s brother Laertes in “Hamlet.”
“The breakdown was about not wanting to get overwhelmed,” the actor said. “With Laertes, I get in a couple of good monologues in the beginning and that big scene at the end.”
Petruchio comes with somewhat more baggage. “The Taming of the Shrew” has not aged well over the centuries, and Petruchio’s sexist banter and swagger is the big reason. The role is often carefully calibrated these days so it can still be funny and not flat-out offensive. Cruz said that the supporting cast helps, with horrified reactions to some of his insensitive remarks about Kate, the empowered “shrew” whom he must “tame.”
“The actors and the audience share those moments. The comedy invites them into the story,” Cruz said.
“Honestly, in the last few years I really came into my own as a Shakespeare actor,” Cruz said. “When they announced these shows, I reached out.” He happened to have just done a reading with “Shrew” director Jan Mason.
Cruz grew up in Newington and attended the Hartt School at the University of Hartford, which gave him an opportunity to go to London and see Shakespeare done there. Cruz was the face of Connecticut tourism for a statewide series of “State I’m In” TV ads in 2022. His previous Capital Classics shows include “As You Like It” (as the clownish Touchstone) and two of the modern productions, “Steam” and “Water by the Spoonful.”
Cruz’s experience with Capital Classics and the Connecticut theater scene in general has helped him to make the next big step in his acting career: a move to California for more theater training and hopefully for acting work. “Nearly everything I’ve done has been in Connecticut, Cape Cod or New York. I don’t know if I’d have had the confidence to make a move to California if not for my friends and mentors here.”
Sheehan calls the new two-play repertory situation “an inspirational challenge” for the company.
The “Hamlet” Sheehan is directing stars Mauricio Miranda, who was the new “Mr. Marvel” in “A Christmas Carol” at Hartford Stage this past winter and did some excellent work as a UConn student in such a wide range of shows as “The Grapes of Wrath” (as Tom Joad), “Drood” and “Shakespeare in Love.” Sheehan said this “Hamlet” is about “the youth of it all.” He described the play’s princely protagonist as “a privileged and protected young man unprepared for what he is trying to face in the world.” He asked of the plays’ numerous younger characters in general: “How do they need to be adults? What stances do they want to take?” He also highlights mental health themes in the play.
“The Taming of the Shrew” and “Hamlet” include some modern sensibilities but their costumes, as with most Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival shows, evoke the Elizabethan era in which Shakespeare wrote. “There are definitely some ruffles and some riding boots” for his Petruchio, Cruz said. “I like that full 1600s-type presentation.”
“We trust our audiences to see through time,” Sheehan added.
Now, with the enhanced sound systems, they’ll be hearing better as well.
The 2024 Greater Hartford Shakespeare Festival runs July 10 through Aug. 4 with performances on the lawn outside the University of Saint Joseph, 1678 Asylum Ave., West Hartford. Performances of “The Taming of the Shrew” are July 10, 13, 18, 19, 21, 24 and 27 and Aug. 1, 2 and 4. Performances are “Hamlet” are July 11, 12, 14, 17, 20, 25, 26, 28 and 31 and Aug. 3. In case of rain, performances move inside to the USJ’s Autorino Center. Tickets are $25 or free for youth under 11 years, with discounts for seniors, students, military, groups and those who tickets to both plays. capitalclassics.org.
