Shakespeare in the Garden returns to Huntsville Botanical Garden
Annual tradition making Shakespeare’s plays accessible
HUNTSVILLE – A midsummer night’s dream becomes reality with Huntsville Shakespeare.
Set to a backdrop of golden hour at the amphitheater at the Huntsville Botanical Garden, the Huntsville Shakespeare’s ‘Shakespeare in the Garden’ summer performances bring an ethereal aspect to William Shakespeare’s famous plays by drawing in the natural beauty of the North Alabama landscape.
The Huntsville Shakespeare performing company was founded in 2018 under the leadership and direction of two visionary University of Alabama in Huntsville professors.
“In spring 2018, my colleague Dr. Chad Thomas, who is an associate professor in English, approached me with an idea to do summer Shakespeare performances at UAH, and I thought that sounded like a great idea,” said co-founder and Associate Professor of Theater, Amy Guerin. “It was another way to provide opportunity to our students. It was another way to explore questions about theater that we can answer in performance and just to do Shakespeare, which he and I both love, and to do it in a way that would be fun and accessible to folks.”
At first, Huntsville Shakespeare made its home in the indoor performing spaces on the UAH campus. Their first season’s performances, in 2018, took place in the Wilson hall theater. In 2019, they moved to the tech annex space, and in 2021, the company utilized the new outdoor amphitheater at Morton Hall.
In 2023, they hosted the first ever Shakespeare in the Garden series. Shakespeare in the Garden performances began through a partnership with Huntsville Botanical Garden.
The idea for the garden performances was inspired by the popular Shakespeare in the Park performances that originated in New York City’s Central Park in the 1950s as a way to make art and Shakespeare’s works more accessible. The garden performances fulfilled an original goal of the company which was to establish a Shakespeare in the park tradition which was previously missing from the Huntsville performing arts scene. “Because Huntsville doesn’t have a Shakespeare in the Park tradition, we thought that this would be a way to start that,” said Guerin.
Since the start of Shakespeare in the Garden, the company has seen the audience grow and the impact of their performances grow.
“We had smaller, but dedicated audiences in 2018 and 2019, and by 2021, especially that first summer at UAH, at the amphitheater, we saw a big increase in audiences from the previous years I think because we were outside,” said Guerin.
Opening night at Huntsville Botanical Garden in 2023 was a sold out show, a performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, and in response to the popularity, the garden asked the company to expand their run from two weekends to three weekends for the 2024 season.
The partnership with the well-established Huntsville Botanical Garden has allowed Huntsville Shakespeare to flourish and grow its audience.
“This season coming up is our eighth season, and part of it is due to our partnership with the Huntsville Botanical Gardens. They have a reach and an establishment into the community that we just couldn’t replicate being just two professors with full-time jobs already,” said Guerin. “That word of mouth spreads. So, it’s been a fantastic response from the community.”
And their audience remains dedicated. Audiences have shown up rain or shine for the performances, and many even come dressed in costume, allowing for special interactions between audience members and performers, something only possible with live performances.
“The last performance we did of Henry V that summer, a little boy came dressed in a suit of armor,” said Guerin. “I told the actor playing Henry V, at a certain point in the play he goes into the audience seating to give one of his many speeches, and I said, ‘Hey, in the house on your righthand side, there’s a little kid in a suit of armor. You should definitely speak your speech to him as your talking about, ‘Hey, soldiers, let’s be brave together,’ And he did. So, what a foundational memory for that little boy.”
The Huntsville Shakespeare program is a statewide affair. Performers for the summer plays come from all over the state. Last year’s crew was entirely made up of UAH students while the performers were a mix of students from Montevallo, University of Alabama in Birmingham, and Jacksonville State.
Performers spend five weeks rehearsing beginning in mid-June ahead of the performances in late July and early August.
Each year, the company selects two of Shakespeare’s plays for their performances, “a greatest hit” and “a lesser known”.
“It’s an exploration for every- one to see theater they wouldn’t have seen before, to get exposed to theater in a new way, and to just experience the community that gathers when that happens,” said Guerin. For the 2025 season of Shakespeare in the Garden, the company will be presenting their takes on Macbeth and The Comedy of Errors. While some might feel Shakespeare’s works are too outdated to understand and to resonate with, Huntsville Shakespeare strives to make the famous playwright’s stories accessible by performing abridged versions of the plays but with true, Shakespeare wording and in modern takes on costuming.
“We always tell our audiences, ‘Give yourself a couple minutes and it’s going to come to you’,” advised Guerin. “Our goal is to help you understand the story. Our goal is not to make you feel dumb. Our goal is to include you in the storytelling.”
More information about Huntsville Shakespeare is available on Facebook at Huntsville Shakespeare and Instagram and X @hsvshakes. Shakespeare in the Garden information, including tickets will be available at hsvbg.org.
