The Jewish Community Center, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival and Johnson County Community College Performing Arts Series are collaborating to produce Kansas City’s first professional production of “The Merchant of Venice” since 1950.
Krista Blackwood, director of Cultural Arts for the Jewish Community Center, says “ ‘The Merchant of Venice’ is such an important piece on so many levels. From the Jewish perspective, the production will create a forum for discussion on issues that are particularly relevant to the Jewish community, most specifically anti-Semitism and the concept of the ‘other.’ ”
The Heart of America Shakespeare Festival will produce “The Merchant of Venice,” starring festival veteran Mark Robbins as Shylock. The play will run March 19, 20 and 22, 2015, at the Jewish Community Center’s White Theatre. The play will run the following week, March 26-29, 2015, at Johnson County Community College’s Polsky Theatre. Individual tickets for both locations are $25. Youth tickets are $13. JCCC Performing Arts Series will also offer package ticket pricing at $22 with Friends package pricing at $21.
“The three organizations have been planning this production for nearly a year, and the project is made up of a lot of firsts,” says the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival’s Executive Artistic Director Sidonie Garrett. “This is the first time we have staged a full-length Shakespeare production indoors. This is the first time we have done a full-length production in a season other than summer. This is the first time the festival has produced ‘The Merchant of Venice.’ This is the first time the festival has collaborated with the Jewish Community Center or Johnson County Community College Performing Arts Series. To our knowledge, this is the first three-way, bi-state collaboration of its kind.”
Emily Behrmann, general manager for the Johnson County Community College Performing Arts Series, spoke to the significance of the collaboration. “One of the things the JCCC Performing Arts Series focuses on is collaboration with local arts groups. We’re proud and pleased to have forged this partnership with two respected organizations. We’re breaking new ground. It’s this kind of innovative thinking that introduces unique opportunities to our audiences and will continue the growth within the arts community across Kansas City in the years to come.”
A post-show talkback with the production’s director and actors will be held after each performance to facilitate a dialogue about the production, to provide information about the text, and to address questions specific to the play.
“I am so pleased that Sidonie Garrett and the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival will be mounting this production in our space at the White Theatre,” says Blackwood. “There’s a scene in the play where the children of Venice tease Shylock for being a Jew. Will society continue this way? Will these children retain the prejudices of their parents as they grow up? Certainly, despite progress over the 414 years since the play was first published, the story continues. It is up to us and our children to determine whether it will ever end. And “Merchant” gives us a forum to explore those questions and issues.”
Garrett will direct “The Merchant of Venice” following the Festival’s 2014 summer production of “The Winter’s Tale.” She directed last season’s “As You Like it,” “Antony and Cleopatra” and “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” (2012), “Macbeth” (2011), “King Richard III” (2010), “The Merry Wives of Windsor” (2009), and “Othello” (2008), “Romeo and Juliet” (2007), “King Henry V” (2006), “Much Ado About Nothing” (2005), “Julius Caesar” (2004), “Hamlet” (2003), “The Taming of the Shrew” (2002), and “Twelfth Night” (2001).
Founded in 1991 by Tony-Award-winning Broadway-producer Marilyn Strauss, the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival launched its first season in 1993 in Kansas City’s Southmoreland Park. Since then, over half a million theatergoers from 42 states and 11 countries have enjoyed the classical, professional productions the Festival presents each summer.
The White Theatre is a 500-seat theater located in the heart of Johnson County at the Jewish Community Center of Greater Kansas City. It mounts a variety of musical and theatrical productions in house, as well as hosting a performing arts series. The Cultural Arts department at the Jewish Community Center unites art, community and culture through creative engagement, education and enlightenment
The Johnson County Community College Performing Arts Series fosters an appreciation for the arts, enhances the city’s quality of life, and nurtures and supports creativity in the suburbs. It presents high quality national and international celebrities and entertainers, representing genres from Broadway to classical. The series also sponsors an Arts Education program, which will offer a weekday performance of “The Merchant of Venice” to allow area schools the opportunity for their students to see the show and engage in educational activities based on the themes Shakespeare’s play raises.
