From Artistic Director Dan McCleary:

As a life-giving contributor and ticket-buyer during TSC's inaugural season, you should be the first to know of our plans for the 2009-10 performance season.

In our programming, we do not start with titles; rather, with questions: yours and ours. Two plays have emerged from these, and they are part of our answer to "What's Next?":

A Midsummer Night's Dream will play in October. It is a play about opposition necessarily finding its peaceful center, or Self, or God, or offspring, or harmony. Shakespeare's characters experience this within and without themselves, in both their conscious/daytime lives and in their subconscious/midnight selves. The influences on our production are the works of Carl Jung, Marc Chagall, Joseph Campbell, and the symbolic language of astrology. Start your exploring!

We will once again play outdoors, this time with an even broader panoramic experience.

We have much to accomplish before we can produce this play. It will employ more actors than last season, many local children, an increased production staff, and contractors from around the county.

We are working closely with the City of Germantown to create the year-round, community-use Morgan Woods Civic Park Complex. Last year's conceptual plan for the area is now going through a bidding process to make the park pedestrian-friendly, while keeping it green, and create an al fresco 200' x 200' playing space within its placid center. It is a wildly exciting project, our initial plan, made possible by both the city of Germantown and your support of our successful inaugural season.

What happens once we create the amphitheatre and then are able to fundraise for a well-attended Midsummer Night's Dream?

Julius Caesar would play in the spring of 2010 inside a site-specific location. We would use a minimal text, run it in two hours, and create a taut, touring production for the future. And it would be a professional, eight-actor, all-female production.

The number of women running for elected office and serving at every government level continues to increase in the U.S. Would women handle the play's domestic and state disputes differently than the male Brutus, Cassius, and Marc Antony? Would the authoritarian ruminations on murder and war give us new perspective coming from a majority of women in political and military power?

Many of the area schools we have spoken with are eager to shift their study plans next year to accommodate the plays, and this is very encouraging to me. We will launch the pilot season of our Education Program and Revels Humanities Series in the next year in an effort to help integrate the arts and Shakespeare into curriculums in ways we hope are playful, engaging, personal, and collaborative.

These are our plans, once we are able to raise the funds. And when we do, we will put tickets up for sale, be able to announce dates, start working with the schools, and begin casting.

We're ready to play the plays. Are you?

Much love,
Dan

Thank you to all who made our second Much Ado Monday Dinner a sold-out success! Nearly 100 of you helped us fill The Blue Fish in mid-town Memphis with music, laughter, and lots of Shakespeare.

Jason Hansen delighted diners with a speech from Love's Labor's Lost, our musicians (Barry Gilmore, Jannell Canerday, and Robert Johnson) led the audience in song, and Richard and Evalee at The Blue Fish provided great service and dinner.

Out of the 15 diners who jumped up to perform, our three finalists were John Stokes, Thayne Muller, and Leila Boyd. Many thanks to our playful Judges for the night: TSC Board members Ruth Dunning and Blanche Deaderick, joined by Judy Peiser, the Director of The Center for Southern Folklore. The night's winner was Leila Boyd (pictured above) with Portia's emotional plea for mercy over justice from The Merchant of Venice.

Leila won two tickets to TSC's fall production and a dinner for two at The Blue Fish. She will also join past and future Dinner winners at our Gala in September to compete one more time for a coveted walk-on role in TSC's fall production of A Midsummer Night's Dream.

Log on and see photos of the players: www.tnshakespeare.org.

We hope you'll join us next month for another night of good food, great friends, and Shakespeare!

Our next Much Ado Monday Dinner will be hosted by Pearl's Oyster House on Monday, March 30 at 6:30 pm.

Tickets are available now by clicking here, or calling our Box Office at 901-795-0604.