Shakespeare, in love

Celebrating and supporting a special summer program

EDITORIAL

The first warm -- well, okay, not-quite-so-cold -- days of spring signal an annual shift in the city's cultural life. For months, the arts have been indoors, often formal, and pricey. As we move toward summer, the emphasis will be on outdoors, informal -- and free. From the Pops on the Esplanade to jazz concerts in Copley Square to street performers in front of the Park Street T station, summers in Boston are as culturally rich as winter nights at Symphony Hall or weekends at the Museum of Fine Arts.

Since 1996, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company has been a vital part of this summer scene. Performing on Boston Common, the company puts on free, innovative, professional-quality versions of Shakespeare's plays. Last year, 12 performances of As You Like It drew an estimated 22,000 people. This year, the company will present 15 to 17 performances of Julius Caesar. And with Shakespeare hot thanks to the Oscar-winning Shakespeare in Love, it's likely to be the company's biggest hit yet.

One of the most striking attributes of these performances has been the racial diversity of both the cast and the audience. "You see people from Beacon Hill with their picnic baskets and families from Dorchester and Charlestown with their McDonald's bags," says city councilor Peggy Davis-Mullen, who is co-executive producer (along with Joan Moynagh) of the company. "This is what the real world looks like."

And the company does much more than just give free performances. It's involved in several youth-outreach programs. In the spring of 1998, the company was in residence for 10 weeks at the Boys and Girls Club in Charlestown. The result: a production of Romeo and Juliet, performed by neighborhood kids, outdoors in John Harvard Mall. "When we started it, there was a lot of skepticism as to whether townie kids would do Shakespeare. Hockey is the thing there," says Steven Maler, the company's artistic director. The program is being repeated this spring (Maler promises "a very funky, very hip, and very cool production of A Midsummer Night's Dream"), and similar efforts are planned for other parts of the city later this year.

Of course, the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company costs money -- lots of it. The annual budget has risen to $300,000, with the vast majority of that coming from corporate and foundation donors such as Bell Atlantic, BankBoston, and the Judith and Douglas Krupp Family Charitable Foundation.

The city itself should do more. Yes, the Boston Parks and Recreation Department made a contribution of more than $20,000 to support the program in 1998. But the city is notoriously tight-fisted when it comes to supporting the arts financially, and Davis-Mullen and Mayor Tom Menino are not exactly political allies. A stronger commitment on the part of City Hall would ensure the program's future.

More important, everyone who loves literature and is excited by what the company is doing can do more, too. On Monday, April 26, a fundraiser will be held at Aria, a club in the Theater District owned by nightlife impresario Seth Greenberg. It's dubbed "An Elizabethan Evening," and ticket sales will benefit the company. Or you can donate directly by sending a check to the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company, Box 1023, Boston, MA 02117. For more information, call (617) 624-6780.

"This is a great gift for the city of Boston," says Davis-Mullen. It's a gift that deserves nurturing.

What do you think? Send an e-mail to letters[a]phx.com.