Oberon Shakespeare Study Group

Oberon Chair Tom Hunter accepted the invitation of Michigan Shakespeare Festival Managing Director Robert Duha to present two pre-play, public talks during the 2010 festival season. Dates have not yet been set for the performance of Romeo and Juliet and Comedy of Errors  next summer because the festival is currently negotiating for a new artistic director to replace John Neville Andrews. Duha said an announcement is imminent. Duha reported that the festival hired David Blixt to create a 75-minute version of Romeo and Juliet that the company will tour in Jackson County high schools next April. Blixt is a Shakespearean actor, author of the novel Master of Verona , and founder with wife Janice Lee Blixt of A Crew of Patches Chicago-based, Shakespearean theater company. Duha said the festival plans to repeat their annual high school monologue contest, and they hope to present the finalists at the festival for the first time this year. He also said the festival's new Marketing D...

FROM Michigan Shakespeare Festival FOR RELEASE: August 18, 2009 CONTACT: Robert Duha, Managing Director 517-998-3673 Neville-Andrews to step down as MSF artistic director JACKSON – After a dozen seasons helping build the Michigan Shakespeare Festival into a highly respected, regional classical theatre, John Neville-Andrews announced he will step down as the organization‟s Artistic producer when his current contract expires on September 30. Neville-Andrews‟ decision was accepted, with regret, by the Festival board of directors at their regularly-scheduled meeting Monday night. “It has been a most joyful 12 years, and although a frequently challenging undertaking, providing the artistic leadership of guiding the Festival from a community-based theatre to a fully professional organization and becoming The Official Shakespeare Festival of the State of Michigan, is something I have cherished and been honored to be a part of,” Neville-Andrews said. N...

Dear Oberon 2009!   Last year our January meeting got us off to a great start. This year promises the same.   In addition to discussing plans for the 400th anniversary of Shakespeare's sonnets and for a celebration of Shakespeare's unbirthday, our meeting this Thursday evening, January 22, at the Farmington Community Library on 12 Mile Rd. between Farmington Rd. and Orchard Lake Rd. will feature special guest Robert B. Duha, Managing Director of the Michigan Shakespeare Festival  .  We have been looking forward to being with Mr. Duha to explore the future of the Festival and ways in which Oberon can provide support.   There is the further exciting possibility that Mr. Duha will have with him the festival's artistic director John Neville-Andrews whom we hosted at our between the plays dinner at the Festival last summer.  Mr. Neville-Andrews provided us with special insights into the Festival at that time and can be counted on for even more insight ...

Dear Oberon, I am pleased to report that a merry troupe of Oberoners spent an entertaining Saturday at the Michigan Shakespeare Festival at Jackson Community College in mid Michigan. The plays, All’s Well That Ends Well and Julius Caesar , were well done and exemplary of the festival’s high standards, but the highlight of the day had to be dinner with our guest, John Neville-Andrews, University of Michigan theater professor and Artistic Director of the Festival. Mr. Neville-Andrews provided the group with stimulating observations about the festival and the direction of Shakespeare’s plays. He emphasized the need to understand all that can be known about the author of the works and encouraged us to keep him informed of our activities, including the Hamlet Project. We feel that, now that we have had a chance to become acquainted with him, that we have gained a new friend. Mr. Neville-Andrews was in fact the director of All’s Well , a production that tosses out old shibboleths that the p...

Anyone attending the Michigan Shakespeare Festival may be interested in the appearance of festival Director John Neville-Andrews and cast members at the Ann Arbor District Library (343 S. Fifth Ave.) from 7-8:30 p.m . on Monday, July 9. They will discuss and perform scenes from their upcoming production of the Scottish play. I'm not sure if I can go, but it sure looks worthwhile. Linda