Yet More of the Best of 2011!

From Ladd Wendelin's look back at 2011 for Star City Blog –

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches was a match made in theater heaven: Director Bob Hall, Flatwater Shakespeare, and the Haymarket Theatre brought Tony Kushner's epic drama to life this past April. A powerhouse cast of Flatwater regulars helped the show to earn its wings, including standout performances by Summer Widhalm (Harper), Richard Nielsen (Roy Cohn), and Daniel Kubert (Belize). With great performances and Hall’s strong directorial vision, Angels was simply divine, played with conviction, heart, and humor, all necessary components for a tale of love and death in the midst of the mid-80s AIDS epidemic.

The second coming of Angels in America, subtitled Part II: Perestroika, will run March 29 – April 14, 2012 at the Haymarket Theater.

Mike Lee, who assumed the role of a banjo-picking troubadour [as Feste in Ian Borden's UNL production of Twelfth Night], also found success as the mischievous sprite Puck in Flatwater Shakespeare’s Midsummer Night’s Dream. Leave it to Bob Hall and Flatwater Shakespeare, who brought Puck, a half-man/half-jackass, and the whole magical gang of fairy-folk to the Lincoln Foundation Community Gardens in June while the Swan at Wyuka Cemetery is under renovation. In addition to their run at the Gardens, Midsummer also played free shows at local parks, amounting to a magical evening of theater. That Shakespeare fellow. He's gonna go far...

Photo: Mike Lee as Puck in the 2011 Flatwater Shakespeare Company production of A Midsummer Night's Dream. Photo Credit: John Nollendorfs.

Our 2012 Season Unveiled!

The Flatwater Shakespeare Company is proud to announce its 2012 Season!

First is Angels in America, Part Two: Perestroika by Tony Kushner, presented in collaboration with The Haymarket Theatre. The venue is The Haymarket Theatre, 803 Q Street, Lincoln. Dates: March 29 – April 15. This is the follow up to last year’s amazing production of Angels in America Part One: Millenium Approaches. The play is described by the author as “a gay fantasia” that explores America in the late 1980s and early 90s, tackling an expansive range of issues -- gay identity and the Mormon Church, Ronald Reagan and Roy Cohn, AIDS and Orgasms, prophecy and empathy and God.

Next is Twelfth Night, or, What You Will by William Shakespeare, initially presented at the Lincoln Community Foundation Gardens, 14th & N Streets, Lincoln. Dates: June 13 – June 24. The production will then move to eight different Lincoln-area Parks and other outdoor venues. Dates: July 5 – 15. Offering free Shakespeare for all the family in Lincoln’s neighborhoods, this show continues the success of our 2011 touring production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream. A wonderful combination of twins, clowns, pirates, and poseurs, Twelfth Night is the most poetic of Shakespeare’s romantic comedies and perhaps the funniest and most musical: “If music be the food of love, play on.”

Continuing our tradition of youth performances of mainstage plays, Twelfth Night will also be presented at The Haymarket Theatre, 803 Q Street, Lincoln, on July 6 – 7. This is a perfect opportunity to see some of Lincoln’s best young actors develop their Shakespearean acting chops. The show will be directed by Sean Schmeits and produced in collaboration with The Haymarket Theatre.

Finally, we will present the inspiring classic, Cyrano de Bergerac by Edmond Rostand, at The Haymarket Theatre, 803 Q Street, Lincoln. Dates: October 4 – 23. The title character of this beloved play can boast of being the greatest swordsman in France, writing the wittiest and most romantic poetry in Paris, and having the biggest nose in all Europe. Rostand’s elegant verse tragicomedy centers on a man with the heart of a lover who thinks himself too ugly to be loved in return.

Flatwater Shakespeare looks forward to working with its partner organizations and to seeing both familiar and new faces at our alternative sites. For information about individual shows, call 402-473-2897 or visit us at www.flatwatershakespeare.org.

Again at the Top in Performing Arts!

Flatwater Shakespeare productions and actors were well represented in the list of 2011's Top Shows and Individual Performances compiled by Lincoln Journal Star reporters and reviewers.

In the Top Shows –

Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches, directed by Bob Hall, who “outdid himself (again).”

In the Top Individual Performances –

Brad Boesen as Iago in Othello – “maybe the best performance I have ever seen from a Lincoln actor.”

Amy Jirsa as Desdemona in Othello – “genuineness and an innocent sweetness.”

Dick Nielsen as Roy Cohn in Angels in America, Part One – “deliciously unappealing but somehow wickedly attractive. The dichotomy was genius.”

Eric Ojeda as Nick Bottom in A Midsummer Night's Dream – “longtime supporting player Ojeda took advantage of his starring role, giving the buffoon Bottom a puppy-dog kind of charm.”

Photo: Nathan Weiss as Louis and Daniel Kubert as Belize in the Flatwater Shakespeare Company / Haymarket Theatre production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America, Part One: Millennium Approaches. Photo Credit: Eric Gregory, Lincoln Journal Star)