The Comedy of Errors, Freewill Shakespeare Festival directed by Jeff Page 2009. Photo supplied.
By Liz Nicholls, .ca
For 35 summers the Freewill Shakespeare Festival has been banishing the winters of our discontent (not to mention, bringing on joy and mirth, and generally inspiring a holiday humour). Summer Shakespeare à la Freewill is a bona fide Edmonton institution.
But as summer #36 approaches — and with it David Horak’s 12-actor production of As You Like It (June 27-July 20) in Louise McKinney Riverside Park — “the future is at risk,” says Horak, the company artistic director. “It’s serious!”
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It’s the third year of Freewill’s punishing three-year exile from their traditional home base in Hawrelak Park, closed by the city (in a stunning burst of non-creativity) for renovations for this lengthy period. And, as Horak explains, it’s currently doubtful whether the company will be able to return to that site in 2026 with a pair of full-scale full-cast professional festival productions in Freewill’s signature bold, accessible performance style.
The road back to Hawrelak Park is a rocky one. “Can we get back to the park and on that scale? … some years 17 or 18 actors, designers, composers, 10 people at least running the show, stage managers? …. It’s hard.”
That mounting uncertainty is exacerbated, of course, by the repercussions of COVID, declining audiences, unstable funding. Accompanied by the instability and dwindling of grants, the loss of corporate sponsorships, a 30 per cent rise in building costs and materials in the last five years, the loss of office, set-building, and rehearsal spaces … the list goes on. And so far the city has failed to reveal any details about the renovated Heritage Amphitheatre, possible infrastructure changes, even whether, for example, the $100,000 stage extension Freewill built will now be usable. The unknowns in production costs and security requirements are accumulating.
Which is where you come in. Freewill has launched an urgent fund-raising campaign with a $150,000 target — about 20 per cent of their $600,00 or $650,000 budget for a two-production Hawrelak Park festival — and a deadline by the end of the upcoming run of As You Like It. “We will continue,” says Horak. “We can, we will … we know how to go small if we need to. But what it will look like we don’t know.”
The Comedy of Errors, the inaugural Freewill Shakespeare Festival 1989. Photo supplied
From its debut 1989 production of The Comedy of Errors, the Free Will Players took their adaptable resident playwright to the great outdoors in Hawrelak Park. Since that modest beginning they’ve played his comedies, from the farcical to the moody; they’ve also brought his tragedies, romances, and the odd history play to their home base in the park, at first singly and then in pairs. And in course of 35 Edmonton summers, a company that started when a co-op of enterprising U of A theatre school grads found a glaring gap in the theatre scene here, turned into a first-rate rep company that attracts the best of our actors, designers, composers, emerging artists and veterans alike.
Dave Horak and John Wright in King Lear, Freewill Shakespeare Festival 2013. Photo supplied
Not only has Freewill provided artists with opportunities to work in big casts on a large stage, it has nurtured whole generations of top actors who performed with the company, then turned their hand to directing. Ah, and then artistic directing. The company’s first a.d. James MacDonald was one, as were his successors John Kirkpatrick and Marianne Copithorne. Horak too was a professional actor when he made his debut as the Fool in the 2013 Jim Guedo production of King Lear that starred John Wright. Horak’s directing debut was a Freewill Comedy of Errors in 2018, then The Winter’s Tale in 2019, the last pre-COVID summer run.
The Comedy of Errors directed by David Horak, 2018. Freewill Shakespeare Festival. Photo supplied.
There isn’t a more resourceful, adaptable company in this theatre town — even by the standards of a post-COVID age that has demanded extreme flexibility. Horak became the Freewill artistic director at the very moment in 2020 when live theatre got shut down. The festival was cancelled, and “in order to do something and hire some actors,” he devised travelling Shakespeare troubadour-style variety entertainments for a trio of performers, “busking shows for backyards, parks, farmers’ markets, community leagues….”
Chris Bullough in The Winter’s Tale, Freewill Shakespeare Festival, directed by David Horak. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux Photography
In 2021 Freewill was back in Hawrelak Park with A Midsummer Night’s Dream and their first production ever of the “problem comedy” Measure For Measure. “We weren’t sure what the rules would be,” says Horak, who directed Dream and blocked scenes for social distancing. “We performed outdoors, yes. But we started rehearsals (indoors) in masks. I didn’t see people’s faces till we moved outside.” And it turned out, as he says, that “people were still nervous about coming back (to the theatre),” even en plein air.
Laura Raboud, Nadien Chu, Rochelle Laplante in Macbeth, Freewill Shakespeare Festival 2022. Photo by Marc J Chalifoux.
Evicted from Hawrelak Park, Freewill adapted again in 2022 with small-cast travelling versions of Much Ado About Nothing, and an all-female three-actor Macbeth — with separate casts for reasons of safety. Horak directed the shows at Louise McKinney Park and took them to the Fringe, a first for the company.
In 2023, still in exile, Freewill took a big chance with audiences who have demonstrably preferred their Shakespeare outdoors. A reduced-cast (nine actors) Romeo and Juliet ran alternately with Twelfth Night in a vintage Spiegeltent at Northlands. The tent was beautiful. But the audience capacity (1100 in Hawrelak Park) was reduced to under 200, and in an unfamiliar location.
Cristal Palace Spiegeltent. Photo by West Coast Spiegeltents
For last year’s edition Freewill took The Tempest to four community league hockey rinks. As Horak points out, “without the Hawrelak Park infrastructure — fences, bathrooms, a tent, power — costs go up dramatically.”
Ingenuity counts, to be sure; it’s a theatre specialty. And Horak continues to think about “possible co-productions? a Shakespeare musical?” But the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune have taken their toll on a beloved Edmonton tradition, and one that has played a big role in the continuing liveliness of the theatre scene here. And now, it’s a moment for audiences to step up on behalf of a festival that has kept our top theatrical talent in town for the summers, covered with mosquito spray maybe, but here and working.
Calgary’s summer Shakespeare is no more. Vancouver’s Bard on the Beach has reduced its programming. “My goal,” says Horak, “is to come back full-strength: two plays, full casts.”
Contribute to Save Freewill at crowdfunding.alberta.ca. Ticket options and full schedule for As You Like It: tickets.freewillshakespeare.com.
