Bucket List: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival

Bucket List: Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival: Someday, when you’re playing mahjong in Boca you’ll meet someone you never knew from the ABC towns – a great chance to compare notes and make new friends. Until you get the hairy eyeball when you admit you never made it to the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival. (Won’t be pretty!)

Set on the grounds of Boscobel in Garrison, NY, the 250-acre river front estate of Peter and Elizabeth Dyckman, HVSF is more than a snooty day trip for name-dropping snowbirds. It’s high on What To Do’s bucket list for culture-vultures, sightseers, chill-outs and party people looking for a scenic spot to kick back in some soccer chairs, uncork a cool Sauvignon Blanc and have a picnic. Did we leave anyone out?

Here’s where we drop some names

The New York Times recently named HVSF one of America’s 50 Essential Summer Festivals. The list includes Bonnaroo, Lollapalooza, the Newport Jazz Festival, Lincoln Center’s Mostly Mozart, Charleston’s Spoleto Festival, California’s Ojai Festival, Jacob’s Pillow Dance Festival in Beckett, MA and the Grand Teton Music Festival set at the foot of the Grand Tetons – to name a few.

More accolades came in April, when HVSF’s 2015 production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream was nominated for a Drama League Award for Outstanding Revival of a Broadway or Off-Broadway Play. The production featured a cast of five actors, in tripped out action wear, (pictured above) which never leave the stage because they play all 21 parts. After it’s summer run in repertory, AMND transferred to The Pearl Theater Company on NYC’s 42^nd Street.

“All the world’s a stage” – this one overlooks the Hudson River

As acclaimed as HVSF is, their performances compete with the theatrical setting on which they play. Set against the backdrop of the Hudson Highlands, the hills of Boscobel bleed onto the stage that is just a dirt floor under a tent with theatre seating. And the directors use the grounds to great effect. Grand entrances with actors slowly rising from the hillside below are one of their signature devices.

When we were there, the play began with the out of sight sound of voices. Four feathered headpieces slowly rose above the sloping lawn beyond the stage before the actors, trekking in as if from some distant village, fully emerged. Only when they finally made it to the stage did we realize the play had already begun. “Few directors have been blessed with a stage like that overseen by Terrence O’Brien, …” wrote The New York Times’ Ben Brantley of HVSF’s Founding Artistic Director.

In English Please!

Have you ever felt that you would really like Shakespeare plays if only they weren’t staged in a foreign language? We have. In fact, we even fell asleep watching Dustin Hoffman in The Merchant of Venice. HVSF productions are as down to earth as the dirt stage they walk on. Before we learned of the critical acclaim they have garnered over the years we thought they were like Shakespeare for Dummies.

It’s not that they’re pandering. The actors just have great timing. Like master musicians they understand that the spaces between the sounds are important too. We’re big fans of their bawdy take on Shakespeare’s comedies but even his most difficult plays are made accessible by their economy of style, clarity and invention. Terry Teachout, of the Wall Street Journal, wrote of Terrence O’Brien, he “has a knack for handling Shakespeare’s problem plays so deftly that you come away wondering why anyone ever found them so difficult.”

Five Plays in Repertory all summer long

For 2017, HVSF presents five productions throughout the summer so you never miss a window of opportunity to see your favorite title. This season they will perform Shakespeare’s Love’s Labour’s Lost, Twelfth Night, Richard Nelson’s The General From America and World Premieres of Kate Hamill’s new adaptation of Jane Austen’s Price and Prejudice, and Lauren Gunderson’s new irreverent play about the Bard, The Book of Will and . You can read more about them here.

They will also stage four performances of Thornton Wilder’s Our Town and So Please You, a comical-tragical family friendly production conceived and directed by Zachary Fine and featuring the HVSF Conservatory Company. Read more about this year’s lineup!

Picnic time at HVSF

Ah yes, the Sauvignon Blanc

Still not convinced you’ll be able to pry hubby away from Noah Syndegaard? Tell him you’ll start your evening with a picnic on Boscobel’s lawn with breathtaking views of the Hudson. And that you’ve had the whole dinner expertly wine-paired by a Shakespearian scholar who was once a dresser for Dame Judi Dench and a sommelier at Stone Barns. You can pack your own or order from their picnic menu when you buy your tickets. You can BYOB or purchase beer, wine or sangria there. Their website lists ten local eateries a short ride away – but why would you?

The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival performs daily (except Mondays in June) from the first Saturday in June through Labor Day. (Boscobel, 1601 Rt. 9D, Garrison: www.hvshakespeare.org)

More What To Do: In & Around Town

See what else is on What To Do’s Bucket List

Sign up for the What To Do Email Newsletter … carefully curated for townies, foodies, culture-vultures and weekend warriors!

Like us on Facebook Amigos!