Theater Continues In Santa Fe: Outdoors With The Crows

Upstart Crows of Santa Fe actors perform in a socially-distanced, small-audience, outdoor production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth at 6 p.m. July 3, 4, 5, 10, 11 and 12. Courtesy/UCSF

UCSF News:

A director’s debut, a cast disrupted by the pandemic, Zoom rehearsals to keep the play alive, a change of venue, the need to completely reblock and redesign the play, delays as they waited for restrictions to allow performance.

Despite the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune these intrepid young players have persisted and created a live theater experience worthy of this provoking tragedy that can be enjoyed by 10 audience members for each performance in the outdoor courtyard at UU Santa Fe. 

Join Upstart Crows of Santa Fe for a socially-distanced, small-audience, outdoor production of Shakespeare’s tragedy, Macbeth, performed by 14 masked actors ages 11-19 under the direction of Liam Mitchell at UU Santa Fe’s courtyard in Santa Fe. Performances are 6:30 p.m. Friday, Saturday and Sunday, July 3, 4, 5, 10, 11, 12. Tickets $25 online: https://www.brownpapertickets.com/event/4610650

Mitchell’s Macbeth is the Crows’ first “Blackfriars Production”, a Shakespearean play entirely directed and created by the company’s young Shakespeareans. The Crows’ project takes its name from the first Blackfriars productions which took place in 1600 featuring children performing Shakespeare and other plays. We are immensely proud of these young people for rising to the challenges of this time. 

The performances are akin to a house concert: tiny audiences, socially distanced in a garden courtyard. Actors and audience are masked and all best practice precautions are in place for a safe evening of live theater.  

The ticket price supports the Upstart Crows program which brings Shakespeare to Santa Fe youth. 

www.upstartcrowsofsantafe

(505).466.3533

contact: Caryl Farkas – caryl@upstartcrowsofsantafe.org

About The Director

Liam Mitchell is the first member of Upstart Crows of Santa Fe to produce a Blackfriars project, directing a play of his choosing. He was selected to do so based on his years of experience with the Crows as well as his experience working with professional Shakespeareans: ISC Artistic Director, Ariana Karp, author and Shakespeare editor Dr. Robin Williams, Rodney Cottier, head of Drama School at LAMDA, Edward Darayni, Brad Hodder, and Josue Labourcane of the Stratford Festival, and Ben Crystal of the Globe theater. His outstanding commitment to the productions he has been part of made him a perfect candidate for the new Blackfriars program.

Mitchell is a Santa Fe native, who fell in love with theater when he first joined the Crows  in 2015. Since then, he acted, often assistant directed, and heavily involved himself in the production of 13 different Shakespeare plays, Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest, and an Upstart Reader’s production of A Christmas Carol. He joined the International Shakespeare Center’s Company in 2018, performing in King Lear, and in 2019 had roles in  King Henry IV Part 1 and Measure for Measure. 

After playing Macbeth with the Crows in 2018 in their production of the play, Mitchell knew that above all the work with Shakespeare and classical theater, this was the play that impressed him the most. He wanted to revisit the play once more before he went off to New Mexico State University in fall 2020 and Blackfriars has given him a chance to do just that.

Asked what it is about the play that he found so engrossing, Mitchell replied; “The hard-hitting themes on the dangers of ambition, fear and paranoia, Macbeth’s  terrifyingly realistic and complex characters, the difficult questions that arise on fate and free will, and what seems to me to be some of the best language in the English literature cannon.” 

The Crows are delighted and proud to have Mitchell as their first Blackfriars director and are full of admiration for the way he has coped with finding solutions to producing theater in the midst of the COVID crisis.

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