The Sun Looking with a Southward Eye upon Us

Shakespeare in South Florida

Authors

Kevin Crawford

Abstract

Since 1990, the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival (PBSF) has operated out of Jupiter's Carlin Park, a mere two hundred yards' walk from the now-dilapidated Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre. PBSF's successes and failures are likely to resemble the experiences of many theater companies, big or small, Shakespearean or community. I focus, though, on what might be the most Floridian, or South Floridian, conditions under which the festival works. Based on years of local press support and criticism, interviews with co-founder and producing artistic director Kermit Christman and English actor Paul Prescott, and my own testimony as a PBSF founding company member and Associate Artist and Director, I examine how PBSF has survived in a sometimes hostile cultural and theatrical environment.

Author Biography

Kevin Crawford

Kevin Crawford has just defended his PhD this spring as a Hudson Strode Fellow of Renaissance Studies at the University of Alabama, where he has worked under the direction of Gary Taylor; he was previously a Lecturer in English and Literature at Florida Atlantic University. His academic work has appeared in Medieval and Renaissance Drama in England, Journal X, and Journal for the Fantastic in the Arts. He also serves as Vice-President and Co-founding Associate Artist for the Palm Beach Shakespeare Festival, for which he most recently directed and performed in Othellofor the company's fourteenth season; this summer he will direct and appear as Falstaff in The Merry Wives of Windsor.