Also known as “Shakespeare Under the Stars,” the prestigious company was founded by well-known director Arthur Lithgow (father of actor John Lithgow) and Antioch drama professor, Meredith Dallas (father of director Tony Dallas). Over the course of three summers in the 1950s they produced all of Shakespeare’s plays bringing in actors from New York joined by Antioch students, local amateurs, and young professionals.
That tradition is being strengthened once again by the addition of two new local theater companies making Shakespeare their focus: Shakespeare in the Heights and Gem City Groundlings.
The nonprofit Huber Heights company, founded in 2024 by David Meadows and his wife, Jene Rebbin Shaw, performs in the Eichelberger Amphitheater at the Heights on Brandt Pike. Their most recent production was “Much Ado About Nothing” earlier this summer.
Gem City Groundlings was also founded by a husband-wife team: Andrew and Riki Mitakides. This summer they presented “Macbeth” with performances at both the Levitt Pavilion and the Roger Glass Center. Their ambitious agenda calls for year-round productions including “A Steady Rain” in September, “A Comedy of Errors in December and ”God of Carnage in March.“
Mitakides is presently working with Shakespeare Behind Bars, an educational program for inmates at the Loudoun Adult Detention Center in Leesburg, Va.
“Shakespeare is meant to be performed,” said Mitakides. “When I started performing it out loud, to my ear it sounded normal ... like some people can speak other languages.”
Olivia Jones, 17, loved Shakespeare when she studied the plays at school but never had the chance to perform any of his works until she was asked to be an extra with the Groundlings this summer.
“I am so eternally grateful and honored to have finally gotten the opportunity,” she said. “I had a wonderful experience with Macbeth and it will certainly stand out as one of the most memorable and enjoyable shows I’ve done.”
Shakespeare in South Park (SiSP) has been going strong for the past 16 years. A group called “Free Shakespeare” also performed in that neighborhood decades ago. Although the Richmond Shakespeare Company no longer mounts its own productions, the Indiana folks continue to bring in plays staged by Kentucky Shakespeare and Cincinnati Shakespeare Company.
Cincinnati’s is a professional company that began in 1993 and in 2017 opened a state-of-the-art custom built facility. It’s the fifth theater in the United States to complete Shakespeare’s entire 38-play canon. In addition to Shakespeare titles, it produces other classics, world premieres and a holiday offering.
It tours for nine weeks in the summer to more than 40 regional parks and offers in-school residencies and workshops.
Happening this month
If you’d like to give Shakespeare a try, you’re in luck: two free outdoor productions are slated for this month. Shakespeare in South Park will stage “The Merry Wives of Windsor” Aug. 15-17 at the South Park Green.
And if you missed Cincinnati Shakespeare Company’s lively production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” at Stubbs Park in Centerville on Aug. 3, you can still catch it in Richmond on Aug. 21.
Why all the fuss about Shakespeare?
We’re lucky to have a Shakespeare expert in our own neighborhood. Patrick Flick, the former artistic director of the Richmond Shakespeare Festival, currently heads the 34-year-old Shakespeare Theatre Association and lives in Oxford.
His organization serves the artistic, managerial and educational leaders of Shakespeare theaters around the globe, including the historic Globe Theatre in London, the Stratford Festival in Ontario and the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, 125 member theaters in all.
“You can compare Shakespeare to ‘Saturday Night Live’ because in its day it was political satire,” Flick said. “It was full of ‘in jokes’ because theater was a form of news. In 1600, everyone in the audience would have gotten the jokes.”
Ray Ontko, president of the Richmond Shakespeare Festival, saw his first Shakespeare in the Park in Lexington, Kentucky after finishing college and began to develop live productions himself.
“It was one thing to read it in high school and quite another to experience in a live performance under the stars by a cast that was passionate about the material,” Ontko said. “Shakespeare has a lot to say for us, even in today’s times. His words are deeply embedded in many aspects of our culture.”
Galen Wilson of SiSP says a Shakespeare script, for all its rich plot, elegant prose and quotable poetry, remains in many ways a blank slate.
“You can set it almost any place and in any time period, and it still works,” he said. “Director Susan Robert set SiSP’s 2011 production of ‘Merry Wives’ in a 1950s American suburb. Shakespeare in the Heights’ June production of “Much Ado About Nothing” played out convincingly in Chicago’s Roaring Twenties’ gangster land.”
Flick would agree.
“It’s quite adaptable. I have set Shakespeare in the 1930s, I’ve set it in ancient Babylon. It’s really a way to play with the story and some work better than others.”
Another case in point is SiSP’s upcoming production of “Merry Wives of Windsor. ” Director Wilson has set the play on the Ohio frontier in 1775.
“Being steeped in a love of Revolutionary War era history, and with the American semi-quincentennial upon us, I saw the 250th anniversary of American Independence as an ideal setting,” Wilson said. ”Sir John Falstaff —Shakespeare’s most beloved comedic villain — and his three henchmen — are cast as British soldiers foisted on the town of Windsor under the very unpopular Quartering Act of 1774 which required colonists to feed and house soldier."
A few text alterations helped him to place the action firmly in colonial Ohio. Sir John, hiding from a jealous husband in a large laundry basket, finds himself dumped not into London’s Thames River, but the Great Miami.
“This is Shakespeare’s only play entirely devoid of nobility and royalty, so placing the action on the American frontier, where nobility and royalty certainly never trod, isn’t too much of a stretch,” Wilson said.
South Park seamstresses are hard at work producing period costumes cut from bedsheets. Period British soldiers’ uniforms are being rented courtesy of a grant from the Montgomery County Arts and Cultural District through CultureWorks.
Why outside? Why free?
Jeanna Vella, director of marketing for the Cincinnati Shakespeare Festival, said outdoor Shakespeare productions are popular because they blend historical tradition with broad community appeal.
“Shakespeare’s plays were originally performed in open-air theaters like the Globe, and their themes—forests, storms, moonlight—translate beautifully to natural settings," she said. “Free or low-cost performances in public parks make theater more accessible, drawing diverse audiences and fulfilling the part of our mission around education and community engagement.”
Cincinnati’s Producing Artistic Director Brian Isaac Phillips believes Shakespeare endures because he wrote about family, ambition, jealousy, and hope — the same forces shaping our lives today.
Mitakides would agree.
"Shakespeare endures because he understood people—our contradictions, our chaos, our craving for meaning—and he wrapped it all in language that sings. Audiences still flock to his plays not out of duty, but delight: they recognize themselves in his characters, laugh at jokes centuries old, and feel the pulse of something timeless. The theatre, after all, is one of the last communal acts of imagination—and Shakespeare gives us a reason to gather."
John Wysong will be appearing in South Park’s upcoming production of “Merry Wives.”
“I get to continue a great tradition of actors, who every summer for the last four centuries, give or take a few plagues and black deaths, get together in a field and put on a show.”
‘THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR’
What: “The Merry Wives of WIndsor” Produced by Shakespeare in South Park
Where: South Park Green (601 Hickory St., Dayton, just west of Wayne Avenue).
When: 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 15, Saturday, Aug. 16 and Sunday, Aug. 17
Admission: Free; donations are gratefully received.
More info: facebook.com/shakespeareinsouthparkdayton or call 937-222-7324
Other: Bring a lawn chair or blanket. Park at Veritas/Hope Lutheran Church (500 Hickory) or Emerson Academy (501 Hickory). In case of rain or excessive heat, the show will play at Veritas/Hope Lutheran Church (500 Hickory).
‘A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM’
What: “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” by William Shakespeare, presented by the Richmond Shakespeare Festival and featuring the Cincinnati Shakespeare Company touring production.
When: 7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 21. Food trucks at 6 p.m. The play runs 90 minutes with one 15-minute intermission.
Where: Jack Elstro Plaza (47 N. 6th St., Richmond, Ind.)
Admission: Free
Other: Please bring a chair or blanket. The play will be presented rain or shine. If rain seems likely, it will be indoors in the Bard Room at the Morrisson-Reeves Public Library, 80 N. 6th St., Richmond. The play will be performed at 7 p.m. Aug. 17 at Lebanon Bicentennial Park, 7 Cherry St.
More info: cincyshakes.com
SHAKESPEARE LECTURES
What: Andrew Mitakides of Gem City Groundlings is giving a series of lectures on Shakespeare at Dayton Metro Libraries.
When: 5:30-7 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 14. The topic is “Shakespeare in Film.”
Where: Kettering library, 3980 Wilmington Pike
Admission: Free
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