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Contact: Dana Werdmuller: (831) 459-3160
dwerdmul@ucsc.edu
SHAKESPEARE SANTA CRUZ CELEBRATES
ARTISTIC DIRECTOR PAUL WHITWORTH’S FAREWELL SEASON
SANTA CRUZ, CA – After a decade of inspired leadership, Paul Whitworth, Shakespeare Santa Cruz’s Artistic Director since 1996, has announced that 2007 will be his final season. Having first appeared as an actor with SSC in 1984 and served as Associate Artistic Director for eight years prior to taking on the role of Artistic Director, Whitworth’s 2007 season will conclude a 24-year career with the company. In celebration of his prolific tenure as Artistic Director, Whitworth has crafted a farewell season that showcases the very best attributes of the nationally acclaimed company. The natural beauty of the Festival Glen will play host to the two Shakespeare offerings, Much Ado About Nothing and The Tempest. The Theatre Arts Mainstage will be the setting for a mini Irish festival celebrating the 100th and 50th anniversaries respectively of two great milestones of the Irish theatre: The Playboy of the Western World by John Millington Synge and Endgame by Samuel Beckett.
Named “one of the ten most influential Shakespeare Festivals in the country” by USA Today, Shakespeare Santa Cruz has gained a reputation under Whitworth’s direction as a festival unafraid of tackling lesser-known works by Shakespeare and showcasing other classic playwrights including Shaw, Molière, Sartre, Ostrovsky, Beaumarchais and Ibsen. SSC’s artistic vision and high production standards, along with one of the most beautiful outdoor performance venues in the nation, continue to attract a diverse and talented company of professional actors, directors and designers from across the country. SSC is a rarity among summer theatre festivals in that it mounts repertory seasons of thematically linked plays. Once the theatrical norm, repertory theatres are built around the concept of a company of actors performing multiple plays in a rotating schedule that allows audiences to see three or four plays in a single weekend and showcasing company actors in various roles.
Whitworth is also a rarity in the theatre in that he is an Artistic Director who acts. After studying Spanish and Portuguese languages and literature at the Universities of St.Andrews and Oxford, Whitworth acted and directed professionally in England. He performed for several years with the Royal Shakespeare Company in Stratford-upon-Avon, one of the most influential and celebrated theatre ensembles in the world. He first appeared with Shakespeare Santa Cruz in the role of Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I in 1984 and lists among his favorite SSC roles Salieri in Peter Shaffer’s Amadeus (1990), the title role in Richard III (1997), Iago in Shakespeare’s Othello (1998), and George in Edward Albee’s Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (2004). In his final season as Artistic Director for SSC, Whitworth will perform two roles: the enigmatic Hamm in Beckett’s Endgame and Old Mahon, the tyrannical father in J.M. Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World.
As a director, Whitworth cites among his favorite productions: W.S. Gilbert’s Engaged (2005) and the critically acclaimed productions in 1992 (Lyric Studio Theatre, London) and in 1994 (SSC) of Tirso de Molina's 17th century masterpiece The Rape of Tamar. The latter was performed in Whitworth’s own translation, which was published in 1999 by Oberon Press. Whitworth introduced the play into the English-speaking theatre for the first time.
Another career highlight for Whitworth during his SSC tenure has been the introduction of SSC’s Winter Holiday season, a tradition that has brought a whole new audience into the theatre and ushered in a new way of celebrating the winter holidays. Whitworth initiated the winter performances by producing and directing his adaptation of Kenneth Grahame’s classic tale The Wind in the Willows (1997 and 1998). Whitworth’s cherished ambition to introduce pantomime to SSC audiences has been an overwhelming success. Collaborating with his wife, playwright Kate Hawley, he has created a series of highly successful original “pantos”: Cinderella (1999), Gretel and Hansel (2001), The Princess and the Pea (2004) and Sleeping Beauty (2006). Whitworth will again direct Hawley’s Princess and the Pea in 2007. Combining the best traditions of the British traditional panto and the American musical, Whitworth and Hawley have created a distinct theatrical form.
“In addition to the opportunity to learn so much by overseeing all the elements that go into producing plays, being Artistic Director has provided me with the opportunity to articulate the relationship between a theatre and a town. This has been a passport to getting to know the community in a way afforded to few faculty members,” says Whitworth, who will continue his professorship in the Theatre Arts Department at UCSC. “I know people of all ages and walks of life to whom this theatre company matters. It has been refreshing to have my eyes opened to thinking about the conversation a theatre has with the community it serves. SSC is widely regarded in the profession as an exemplary model of communication between a research university and a theatre company. I look forward to furthering UCSC’s visionary support of the festival as a vehicle for research, instruction and community collaboration as well as seeing SSC continue to play a leading role in how Shakespeare and other great playwrights are interpreted and performed in the 21st century.”
Whitworth’s plans for the future also include continuing to work in the professional theatre as an actor and director, taking full advantage of national and international opportunities, something he has frequently had to turn down due to his commitments as Artistic Director. That enduring commitment has brought Shakespeare Santa Cruz an enhanced reputation and has set the stage for new and exciting artistic directions. “Paul has managed to raise our national profile in both the artistic and academic worlds, while at the same time, he has strengthened our links to the community through the creation of the holiday show and the expansion of our educational outreach tour, Shakespeare to Go,” says SSC Managing Director, Marcus Cato. “As Shakespeare Santa Cruz begins its search for a new Artistic Director, it’s worth noting that SSC has been a model for successful transitions in artistic leadership. Throughout our 25-year history, each new Artistic Director has retained and honored the best of the past while finding fresh new ways to expand our vision of what this festival can be.”
Shakespeare Santa Cruz will perform its 26th Festival Season in repertory from July 17 through September 2, 2007, on the UC Santa Cruz Campus.
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