SYRACUSE, N.Y. (NCC News) — Thornden Park in Syracuse is usually a popular destination for many people to exercise, spend time with their families and enjoy nice weather. In the months of June and August Thornden Park’s green lot and amphitheater stage become the homes to the Syracuse Shakespeare-In-The-Park performances.
This year’s show for June is “Troilus and Cressida.” The show will run June 4 -13 in the amphitheater. Friday and Saturday afternoon performances start at 5:30 p.m. and Sunday the shows begin at 2:00 p.m.
Ronnie Bell is the co-founder of the organization and has been very involved since helping to found the organization in 2002. Syracuse has had a performance every year since 2003. He said none of the work he does would be possible without each of the show’s 13 sponsors and his team of volunteers.
“For this show I’m also the producer,” he said. “I’m in charge of everything that doesn’t take place on stage and I’m also the house manager for this. So, I’m in charge of everything that happens for the audience… and sometimes I have to act too.”
Bell stays involved and does not let the scorching summer heat or the recent pandemic stop him from being at the events. He has three things that keep him there.
“I love theatre, that’s number one,” he said. “I love Shakespeare, that’s number two. And I love the community atmosphere of this, these shows in particular.”
Bell said that performances in June are usually Shakespeare’s tragedies or some of his least performed works. In August, however, the shows are more commonly known, are family friendly and would include a children’s play area if the pandemic was not around. Bell said he will always love the June performances the best.
“This one in particular is what motivates me the most and why I put in 15,000 steps every single performance,” he said.
Director Anne Childress said the actors in this year’s show had to face new challenges.
“It was hard the very first two weeks because we had to rehearse on Zoom,” she said. “Normally I would start off and give the actors their blocking, but we couldn’t do that . You couldn’t say ‘enter here, leave there’ because you’re just stuck there in front of your zoom camera.”
She said this caused the cast to be two weeks behind coming in to the first rehearsal. They had to go back and block once the park was opened back up.
Childress also said the masks were a problem when learning lines.
“We had to wear masks at the beginning of rehearsal which made it really difficult because we couldn’t hear anyone,” she said. “(The actors) were like ‘okay, did the person say my cue or not?'”
Despite all of the challenges, high school student Jacob Garofalo came back to the stage a second year to perform.
“I think Shakespeare is a timeless classic,” he said.
Garofalo said Shakespeare in the Park allows him to experience Shakespeare’s works in fresh interpretations.
“It’s not stiff, ” he said. “It’s a constantly changing world of text that, you know, though it is so esteemed and held in just a plain way in a lot of English classes, which I think bums a lot of people out. Shakespeare is something that the people here are constantly looking to reinvent and reanalyze.”
He says that plays are written for their abilities to appeal to audiences and they should be talked about in multiple different ways.
“A lot of people just won’t get into it because they feel it’s stuck in one interpretation and that is something we need to consider when we teach this,” he said. “It doesn’t matter if Shakespeare is the greatest author in the world if people can’t read these plays and feel something then we are doing something wrong.”
Bell said people who attend the shows this year will experience changes from their past audience experiences. The biggest differences are having one entrance and one exit into the space and requiring audience members to reserve a ticket in advance.
Bell said tickets are free but there are no walk-ins allowed this year. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines and pod style seating are still in effect. He said these protocols have not stopped people from wanting to come see the shows.
“Today’s show sold out, yesterday’s show sold out,” he said.
In the next few years, Bell hopes to take a final bow and pass the torch to a new set of theatre lovers.
‘That’s my long term goal, to replace myself,” he said. “And isn’t that everybody’s long term goal to replace themselves in whatever position they’re in so they can go to do something else?”
Until then, Ronnie will still be at each performance wearing his multiple hats and spreading his love for theater.
