Amazingly, for some 50 years, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival - thanks to corporate and foundation grants and other fund-raising - has been bringing professional actors to Louisville for the summer to perform Shakespeare plays free of charge at Old Louisville's Central Park amphitheater. For the past 20 years, Curt Tofteland - who I believe is retiring after this year - has directed (and likely fund-raised) for the festival (and started the Shakespeare Behind Bars program) (pictured above). I went back to see the stupendous Japanese-themed version of "Julius Caesar" again (see "Samurai Caesar") - this time with Vincent - Sunday. As might have been obvious from the fine print in "Signs of the Times," it had been brutally hot earlier in the weekend (and was still hot in Tallahassee - see "Fire and brimston (almost)!"). But, by Sunday evening - in Louisville at least - it had cooled down. (I almost invited colleague Joelle to see the play with us. But it turns out that she and Becki had seen it on Friday.) Vincent disappeared twice (and missed one fighting scene). But he caught most of the speeches and much of the fighting. He also argued that this performance was missing a subplot and several characters (it turns out he had not only seen the black-and-white movie version with his Mother, but he had also read the script twice - once in 4th or 5th grade at Tallahassee's Betton Hills Prap School and once in English in 9th grade at Brown). The moral center of the play - in a way - is neither Caesar nor Anthony, but Brutus - whose final stabbing of his friend Caesar does Caesar in (in more ways then one), but who is then haunted by Ceasar's ghost. A graduate of Old Louisville's Youth Performing Arts School (which several of Vincent's church youth group peers (most of whom went to Montreat with him) attend), Dathan Hooper (he has a number of TV shows and ads to his credits) was excellent as Brutus. -- Perry
Amazingly, for some 50 years, the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival - thanks to corporate and foundation grants and other fund-raising - has been bringing professional actors to Louisville for the summer to perform Shakespeare plays free of charge at Old Louisville's Central Park amphitheater. For the past 20 years, Curt Tofteland - who I believe is retiring after this year - has directed (and likely fund-raised) for the festival (and started the Shakespeare Behind Bars program) (pictured above). I went back to see the stupendous Japanese-themed version of "Julius Caesar" again (see "Samurai Caesar") - this time with Vincent - Sunday. As might have been obvious from the fine print in "Signs of the Times," it had been brutally hot earlier in the weekend (and was still hot in Tallahassee - see "Fire and brimston (almost)!"). But, by Sunday evening - in Louisville at least - it had cooled down. (I almost invited colleague Joelle to see the play with us. But it turns out that she and Becki had seen it on Friday.) Vincent disappeared twice (and missed one fighting scene). But he caught most of the speeches and much of the fighting. He also argued that this performance was missing a subplot and several characters (it turns out he had not only seen the black-and-white movie version with his Mother, but he had also read the script twice - once in 4th or 5th grade at Tallahassee's Betton Hills Prap School and once in English in 9th grade at Brown). The moral center of the play - in a way - is neither Caesar nor Anthony, but Brutus - whose final stabbing of his friend Caesar does Caesar in (in more ways then one), but who is then haunted by Ceasar's ghost. A graduate of Old Louisville's Youth Performing Arts School (which several of Vincent's church youth group peers (most of whom went to Montreat with him) attend), Dathan Hooper (he has a number of TV shows and ads to his credits) was excellent as Brutus. -- Perry
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