The Shakespeare Conference: SHK 20.0299  Wednesday, 10 June 2009

From:       Stephen Buhler <
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Date:       Wednesday, May 27, 2009 6:53 PM
Subject:    Merry Wives

The Flatwater Shakespeare Company presents William Shakespeare's The 
Merry Wives of Windsor in the open-air Swan Theatre at Wyuka Cemetery 
and Park, 3600 O Street in Lincoln, Nebraska, June 4th through the 21st.

Since 2001, director Bob Hall, dramaturg Stephen Buhler, and many 
associates have been presenting Shakespearean plays in Lincoln. Their 
initial stagings were co-productions with such partners as the Haymarket 
Theatre of Lincoln and the Wyuka Historical Foundation. In 2004, Hall 
and Buhler co-founded The Flatwater Shakespeare Company as a 
not-for-profit organization. The ensemble's name pays homage to the 
original storytellers who once occupied its geographical base, 
"Flatwater" being a translation of the Native American word Nebraska.

Bob Hall's inventive approach combines a strong sense of the visual 
(also evident in his work as a graphic artist) and a lively attention to 
language. Bob has been a director and production designer for forty 
years, twenty-two while a resident of New York City. He has been a guest 
artist at Cornell University, the University of Virginia, the Juilliard 
School, and the University of Nebraska-Lincoln. He has directed in 
regional and off-Broadway theaters, and has been associated with both 
the Nebraska Shakespeare Festival in Omaha and the Orlando Shakespeare 
Festival in Florida, where he coordinated workshops with actors and 
scholars.

Stephen Buhler, Professor of English at the University of 
Nebraska-Lincoln, has supervised a number of outreach initiatives as 
Flatwater's Education Director. With its Youth Program, the Company 
brings young people into direct contact with Shakespeare's language and 
stagecraft. Buhler has adapted several of Shakespeare's plays for 
productions guided by Youth Director Tom Crew. Several of our young 
actors have gone on to join the adult company and to pursue advanced 
training in some of the nation's most prestigious theater programs.

The Swan Theatre is a nineteenth-century carriage house located in a 
park section of Wyuka and returns that part of the cemetery grounds to 
its early 1900s use as a place of public recreation. The courtyard 
formed by the former stables and their attaching structures takes 
audiences and actors back to the Elizabethan inn-yards in which 
Shakespeare's plays were often staged in his own lifetime. The venue is, 
in a word, magical. Hall's stage designs make use of the full length of 
the courtyard, with audience members seated on either side of the 
performance area. Flatwater shows have also made extensive use of the 
hayloft and rooftops.

Flatwater Shakespeare is in its fifth year as a professional 
not-for-profit theatre company, bringing to area audiences the richness 
of the works of William Shakespeare as they were meant to be experienced 
-- played out by a dynamic ensemble of performers on stage. For more 
information about Flatwater, go to www.flatwatershakespeare.org.


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