Vancouver – Bard on the Beach
May 28, 2009Known as Western Canada’s largest professional Shakespeare festival, Bard on the Beach has been running every summer at Vanier Park in Vancouver for the past 20 years. Originally an equity co-op funded by a Canada Council Explorations grant, the festival is now run by a fully professional theatre
company, with thirty actors and a budget exceeding three million dollars. In
its first year, 6,000 fans of the bard showed up over the summer to watch
thirty-four performances of A Midsummer Night’s Dream; in 2008, over 87,000 people showed up to view 213 performances of Twelfth Night, King Lear, The Tempest, and Titus Andronicus.
This year, the festival will be featuring Othello, The Comedy of Errors, All’s
Well That Ends Well, and Richard II from June until the end of September. The
plays are held on two stages: the Mainstage and the Douglas Campbell Studio Stage, both of which are set against Vancouver’s gorgeous coast mountains and the city skyline. The studio stage is smaller, seating only 240 people, and is used for Shakespeare’s lesser-known plays. Before and after each show, visitors can stroll through the tented Bard Village, which contains a gift shop and a concession.
For those who can catch a show during the end of July, there’s also a Bard B-Q for $98. Enjoy a delicious salmon barbeque during an extended intermission, and at the end of the show, enjoy the Celebration of Lights fireworks from a private seating area with coffee, treats, and a no-host bar. There are other popular events throughout the summer, including a wine and cheese sampling in August, a weekend lecture series, and Chatterbox Tuesdays, where visitors can join the cast before and after the shows to discuss the themes and plots.
For those looking to help out, there are numerous volunteer opportunities,
which include helping with the production, working at the concession, or
greeting patrons at the entrance. Enjoy the festival from a whole new
perspective, while taking in the sun and learning about Shakespeare. For
youths, there are also two-week workshops, in which actors from the company lead you through abridged versions of Shakespeare’s plays, focusing on language, acting, voice, and movement.
I take a class of grade 10 kids to see Bard on the Beach every year. I teach Shakespeare in the classroom, but for the full experience, you need to see the plays performed on stage. Being able to hear the Bard’s writing spoken by real actors provides my students with a new perspective on Shakespeare which I can’t give them at school. I still see old students who come to see the shows every year even though they aren’t in my classes anymore!