Colorado Shakespeare Festival
| Colorado Shakespeare Festival | |
|---|---|
 |
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| Location(s) | University of Colorado Boulder |
| Artistic director | Timothy Orr (2014) |
| Foundation | 1958 |
| Date(s) | Annually, June through August |
| Type of play(s) | Shakespeare, classics and contemporary works |
| Website | |
Coordinates: 40°00′26″N 105°16′22″W / 40.007190°N 105.272780°W
The Colorado Shakespeare Festival is a professional acting company in association with the University of Colorado at Boulder. It was established in 1958, making it one of the oldest such festivals in the United States, and has roots going back to the early 1900s.
Each summer, the festival draws about 25,000 patrons to see the works of Shakespeare, as well as classics and contemporary plays, in the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre and indoor University Theatre.
The company is made up of professional actors, directors, designers and artisans from around the United States and the world, along with student interns from around the nation.
Timothy Orr, the current producing artistic director, was hired in 2014 after serving as an actor in the company since 2007 and associate producing artistic director since 2011.
The festival has roots in the earliest days of the university, when senior classes performed commencement plays under a grove of cottonwood trees planted in the 1870s on the east lawn of the first building on campus, Old Main.
When electric lights became available in 1901, the university began to stage evening performances. The tradition was interrupted by World War I and resumed in 1919 by George F. Reynolds, an Elizabethan theater scholar and professor of English Literature.
In 1936, Reynolds helped develop plans to build the Mary Rippon Outdoor Theatre. Rippon (1850-1935) was the first female professor at the university and the first woman in the United States to teach at a state university. She was chair of the Department of Germanic Languages and Literature and also served, without financial compensation, as Dean of Women.
After her death, University President George Norlin suggested that a planned outdoor theater be named in Rippon’s honor. Construction began in 1936 with funding from the Board of Regents and the federal Works Progress Administration, as well as private donations. “Alumni Day” celebrations were held in the still-incomplete theater on June 13, 1936.
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