{"id":10776,"date":"2015-07-13T13:40:20","date_gmt":"2015-07-13T20:40:20","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/?p=10776"},"modified":"2015-07-15T08:19:41","modified_gmt":"2015-07-15T15:19:41","slug":"greater-victoria-shakespeare-festival-returns-to-its-roots","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/2015\/07\/13\/greater-victoria-shakespeare-festival-returns-to-its-roots\/","title":{"rendered":"Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival returns to its roots"},"content":{"rendered":"

When it came time for those involved in the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival (GVSF) to plan how they were going to celebrate their 25th anniversary, they decided to celebrate the present by looking to the past. So they decided that two of the first productions they ever performed will be performed again.<\/p>\n

GVSF artistic director Karen Lee Pickett says she is very excited about the productions this year and has brought in some talented people to make both performances fantastic.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe\u2019ve got two amazing productions planned for this summer,\u201d says Pickett. \u201cRomeo & Juliet<\/i> and A Midsummer Night\u2019s Dream<\/i>; it\u2019s going to be just a feast for the eyes and the ears.\u201d<\/p>\n

Romeo & Juliet<\/i> is directed by Christopher Weddell, who was a founding member of Vancouver Shakespeare festival Bard on the Beach.<\/p>\n

\"Sarah<\/a>
Sarah Jane Pelzer as Juliet and Kiaran McMillan as Romeo in, you gussed it, Romeo & Juliet<\/em> (photo by David Bukach).<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

\u201cWe are really excited to be working with Christopher Weddell,\u201d says Pickett. \u201cHe\u2019s really a very important figure in the Shakespeare world, as he teaches and directs Shakespeare all over the world.\u201d<\/p>\n

Pickett\u2019s enthusiasm for theatre is apparent, which isn\u2019t surprising, given that she has spent her entire adult life immersed in the theatrical world. Early in her career she received classical training as an actor and participated in many Shakespeare productions. It was only when she moved to Canada that she started to focus on directing, playwriting, and producing.<\/p>\n

\u201cFor me, working with the Shakespeare Festival is a dream job,\u201d says Pickett. \u201cIt combines a lot of my artistic creative side with my experience in administration and production.\u201d<\/p>\n

When it comes to dream jobs, Susan Mullen, an actress for the festival, has found hers here.<\/p>\n

Mullen retired a couple of years ago; since then she has been doing shows non-stop. She started acting in the \u201980s and says that it means a lot to her.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s always been my passion and I enjoy the overall challenge of it all,\u201d says Mullen. \u201cEspecially with Shakespeare, the easy part is learning the lines; it\u2019s making them your own that\u2019s the hard part.\u201d<\/p>\n

Greater Victoria\u00a0Shakespeare Festival
\nUntil August 8
\n$19 student rate per show, Camosun College Lansdowne campus lawn
\nvicshakespeare.com<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

When it came time for those involved in the Greater Victoria Shakespeare Festival (GVSF) to plan how they were going to celebrate their 25th anniversary, they decided to celebrate the present by looking to the past. So they decided that two of the first productions they ever performed will be performed again. GVSF artistic director […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":10777,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,146],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-10776","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-arts","category-july-15-2015"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=10776"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":10778,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/10776\/revisions\/10778"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/10777"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=10776"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=10776"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.nexusnewspaper.com\/newsite\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=10776"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}