About
Shakespeare in the Woods (SitW) is professional outdoor theatre company experimenting with the canon through modern, radical, and gender expansive queer lens. Each production seeks to deliver a professional caliber celebration of classical text through unconventional, innovative, and socially aware approach, all while embracing Vermont’s natural offerings. The intention behind every production is to meet the natural landscape with respect, and to mindfully work in collaboration with nature versus imposing upon it. SitW was founded in 2019 producing artistic director, Katharine Maness (they/them), and is based in Manchester, VT.
Mission
To provide exceptional quality theatre that celebrates the text through exploration of relevant social issues and themes; To make bold and innovative art that is accessible to all audiences regardless of socioeconomic or geographic standing; To engage younger generations of Vermonters through educational outreach that demonstrates the importance of making art outside traditional pathways.
Shakespeare in the Woods' Green Practices
SitW's biggest green theatre practice is around costume, prop, and set materials. We heavily reuse, rework, and upcycle costumes & props. When we need new pieces we first try to borrow or rent from other theatres, university departments, and sometimes community members; then thrifting; and with the last option being to purchase a brand new piece (which goes into our company vault). Similarly with set design, we use minimal set pieces in an effort to disrupt the natural space we're in as little as possible. We want the outdoors to feel like part of the production vs detached from, which means less is more. Set that is built is broken down at the end of performance and materials are either saved to be reused in future seasons, or donated to local craftspeople (carpenters, woodworkers, etc). As often as possible, we are sourcing certain items (ex: tables, pop up tents, bicycles) from community members who are happy to loan them out. Additionally, being based in VT where composting is state law, means that it's also a company practice and all of the housing we rent during our season as well as performance venue, has the necessary bins/instructions to enable our team to participate. Ahead of company arrival in VT we share a list of suggested items to bring for the contract, which includes reusable water bottle(s) for rehearsal (and in general). Our previous performance venue (2019-2023) had a refillable water station that folks were great at taking advantage of. We still have plenty of ways to improve and expand our practices, but these are some of the continuous and successful things we've done so far.
Ways Shakespeare in the Woods' Productions Highlight Ecological Issues
The concept for our 2022 production of Coriolanus was partially born out of the director, Elizabeth Dinkova(she/her), putting forth the question, "How do we put an end to man's insatiable hunger - for sustenance, resources, power? Is overconsumption a man's problem?", coupled with the staging concept of it taking place through the lens of asylum seeking refugees in a present day immigration center. The events of traditional play and the fallout- that Rome had been starved and scorched- had already happened, and the survivors were breathing life into the retelling of what had happened, to bear witness and serve a warning. Once inside the retelling, our production begins with riots occurring because the ruling class is hoarding grain/corn, and the through line of how food insecurity and deserts as socioeconomic eco crisis is blatant. Another example is our 2023 production of The Tempest. Though the initial design concept leaned heavily into overconsumption and waste that would've seen plastics and trash littered and repurposed on the island, director, Roberto Di Donato(he/they/el/elle), ultimately decided to scale back in set dressing and instead focus on the colonial power dynamics between Prospero and the island's native inhabitants, Caliban and Ariel, and recognize the act of land seizure that has occurred and its effect on the ecosystem. During the rehearsal process, actors were encouraged to reference the land itself that they were performing on, and in their Director's Note within the playbill, Di Donato encouraged audiences to "Help take care of the land that we call Manchester, which was taken - like Prospero from Caliban- from the Abenaki and Mohican people. We are human. We make big mistakes. We love big, too. Let's learn from Prospero, instead of repeating the same mistakes." Finally, in 2021, while live performance remained suspended, SitW produced a film adaptation of As You Like It, which took place entirely outdoors in a variety of locations around Bennington and Rutland Counties. We were lucky enough to partner with Merck Forest and Farmland Center (MFFC) for one of our locations, and highlighted the work that they do on our social media throughout production. MFFC is "a nonprofit educational org on a mission to inspire curiosity, love, and responsibility toward our natural and working lands." and a vital part of the region's community as it serves as both a working landscape and a field classroom for school groups on its 3200 acres of sustainably managed land. We were honored to be welcomed onto their land for filming (which included working with their resident sheep flock!) and hope to have another opportunity to do so in the future.
Ecological Goals for Shakespeare in the Woods
An overall long-term goal for SitW, which is directly tied to green practices & land use, is to have our own land/venue space. The vision for this is to partner with early-stage local farmers who are either also looking to take the next step of acquiring land, or an established farm that is interested in converting space for SitW to take on. We view the opportunity to partner with farmers as a way to steward land through both agricultural and creative care vs being a theatre co. that acquires land and only uses it for housing & performance. It's important to us to embrace and collaborate with community, and VT is a state that is by and large an agricultural one- it's an exciting idea to have sustainable farming practices and radical outdoor theatre existing in collaboration with each other in a way that benefits the land, the surrounding community, and the artists. We've discussed what a permanent venue/structure could look like for us when the time comes, and have been researching landscape design/architecture that, again, comes with a collaborative natural approach vs imposition and maximalism. In the more immediate future, we want to continue building out green practices during our season, connecting within our community & state over environmental practices/climate disasters we're facing together, and strengthening ties with/learning from other companies doing the same. It would be great to be able to gain insight and advice from others as to what their approach has been, what they've found success in, and what has been a struggle- while we each will have things specific to our region/communities, there is a lot to be gleaned from what the commonalities are despite location. For example, even though we've always been an outdoor co. and have a rain or shine policy, last season (2023) was a historic summer for rainfall in VT, seeing extreme storms during our performance run, as well as catastrophic flooding in much of the state 2 weeks before our company arrived to start rehearsals. This experience has brought a more urgent need for imagining and understanding what it means to be an outdoor co. in a time of climate disaster. Manchester was fortunately unaffected by the floods except for case by case properties (ex: one of the homes we were set up to rent flooded), but the storms that took place during our run forced cancellations in a few instances, and the days-after each involved region wide power outages, sections of main roadways obstructed by trees that had fallen in the storm, and damage to our set (which we were able to salvage, luckily). As a co. that's ethos and identity is tied to the outdoors, we are uninterested in the well-meaning but unhelpful advice of "just move indoors" we heard during last season. Being able to get advice and also imagine pathways forward together with other eco-forward artists would be immensely valuable to us.
