Oberon Up North 2009 -- day 1

Torch Lake, Michigan

This year Oberon Up North was about exuberance and awe. Our visit to Interlochen Center for the Arts' Interlochen Shakespeare Festival provided a Taming of the Shrew unlike any Shakespeare performance I've ever seen. Dustin Tucker and Laura Ames Mittelstaedt portrayed Petruchio and Kate as a lion tamer and knife thrower in William Church's exuberant circus of a production. From the first act when Kate whirled knives at her terrified sister played by Ana Luderowski -- tied hand and foot to a giant wheel -- joyous imagery burnished this frolic a play.

Laura Ames Mittelstaedt as Kate in Interlochen's Taming of the Shrew

Marshall Maynard Fredericks' "Two Bears" sculpture fit into the circus theme outside the Harvey Theater on the Interlochen campus.

Sue Width, Tom Hunter and Richard Joyrich admire Fredericks' bears.

Oberoner and Interlochen Market Research Manger Gordon Berg escorted our group around the huge Interlochen campus in a stretch golf cart.

Gordon Berg escorting Oberons at Interlochen Center for the Arts

He introduced us to Costume Shop Supervisor Candy Hughes to gave us a tour of the two-year-old facility.

Gordon Berg, Rosey & Tom Hunter and Candy Hughes at Interlochen's costume shop

Hughes said she had been designing costumes at Interlochen for twenty years -- her expertise showed in her masterful organization of materials -- like shoes.

Candy Hughes contemplating ingenious shoe storage at Interlochen's costume shop

. . . and crinolines.

That night I was forced out of my tent and into the Hunter's cottage by a deflated air mattress at 2 a.m., or I never would have encountered the monstrous star-filled sky filling the moonless night with crystal light. I saw a falling star amid the tumult and count myself beyond fortune in my wealth.

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