Plays for the People
Kentucky Shakespeare Festival marks 40 years of free theater

For four decades Kentucky Shakespeare Festival has provided free summer performances of William Shakespeare's plays. In addition to those summer performances, the Festival's Will on Wheels program tours schools throughout Kentucky as part of its educational outreach mission.

However, two unique facts make Kentucky Shakespeare Festival stand out from the pack. "Not only are we the oldest free Shakespeare Festival in North America, but this year we became the first professional arts organization to serve every county within the Commonwealth of Kentucky," says Celeste Santamassino, associate producing director for Kentucky Shakespeare Festival.

Although almost every state in the nation has a Shakespeare Festival, most of these festivals are summer-only productions, while Kentucky's operates year round out of its Louisville home. Will on Wheels visited 190 schools in 70 counties to reach more than 35,000 students last year.

"We are a professional arts organization with a commitment to serve the state at large," she says.
That commitment to bringing Shakespeare to the people of Kentucky is the reason that summer productions are free. "We believe that arts are for everyone, not just those who can afford to pay the cost of a ticket," Santamassino says. "We believe that everyone needs to experience the arts in order to experience his or her own humanity."

Kentucky Shakespeare Festival also has the distinction of being the only arts organization in Kentucky to bring the works of William Shakespeare to the at-risk prison population. The Festival brings its Shakespeare Behind Bars program to the Luther Luckett Correctional Complex in LaGrange.

The summer season features a professional company of more than 50 actors, directors, designers, and technicians. The Festival also offers a professional internship program for actors, directors, designers, and technicians, as well as intern and apprentice programs.

Kentucky Shakespeare Festival is supported in part by the Fund for the Arts, but the majority of its budget comes through private and public donations.

"While we do get occasional funding from government grants," Santamassino says, "they total less than four percent of our total budget."

The Festival started life as a community theater group, the Carriage House Players, founded in 1949 by C. Douglas Ramey. Some notable actors started with Ramey and went on to earn national theater recognition, including Mitch Ryan, Ned Beatty, and Warren Oates.

The Festival is held each year in the C. Douglas Ramey Amphitheater located in inner city Central Park in historic downtown Louisville. On average about 10,000 people attend each summer festival, and more than a half million people have enjoyed the festival's 109 summer productions.

You can learn more about Kentucky Shakespeare Festival at the web site http://kyshakes.org or by calling (502)583-8738.

Deanna Mascle (deannamascle@lanereport.com) is a staff writer for The Lane Report.

Back to Spotlight on the Arts Index

Back to June Issue

Copyright 1996-98, by Kentucky Business Online, LLC.  All rights reserved.

Editorial content is copyright 1998, Lane Communications Group
All editorial materials is fully protected and must not be reproduced in any manner without prior permission. 

Buzzword and the Buzzword balloon are registered trademarks of Buzzword, Inc.  The Lane Report is a trademark of Lane Communications Group.  All other trademarks are the property of their respective owners.