Metro Pulse/Backstage/As You Like It

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What:
As You Like It

When:
Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, Aug. 15 thru 31, 7 p.m.

Where:
Market Square

Cost:
Free

Shakespeare troupe digs into Market Square

by Paige M. Travis

Here's an example of Brandon Daughtry Slocum's powers of persuasion: When she asks TVA to turn off the water, they oblige. The water in question is the fountain at their corporate headquarters on Wall Street. The sound of rushing water will drown out the actors who will be performing Shakespeare's As You Like It on a temporary stage in Market Square starting Aug. 15. If you're trying to imagine a troupe of players in Elizabethan dress entertaining an audience in the middle of a construction zone, you've yet to see the same big picture that Slocum envisions.

With cooperation from the City of Knoxville, CBID, the merchants of Market Square, and Cardinal Construction, the Tennessee Stage Company will perform its annual summer Shakespeare festival in the heart of downtown. It's a dream come true for Slocum, who is board chair of TSC.

"There's something about outdoor Shakespeare. The open air, downtown." She pronounces the word—downtown—like it's a sacred gem, a rare flower deserving love and nourishment. "We are a downtown theater company. We want to be downtown. We don't want to be out in the 'burbs."

TSC found itself in Bearden last year after being unable to use the beleaguered Tennessee Amphitheater, their home for 10 years, in 2001 or 2002. Renting the Actors Co-op's Black Box Theatre was a good Plan B, but after drawing crowds numbering more than 100 and charging $5 a head, the company's founding artistic director Tom Parkhill was less than enthusiastic about performing in a smaller space and needing to charge $10 per ticket to cover their costs.

"Our mission statement is to provide affordable, accessible Shakespeare," Slocum says. It has been a feat of fundraising and coordination to make the play happen in downtown and for free, but Slocum is fit for the challenge. She heads the TSC board like a locomotive. Just more than a year ago, she started BoB (Buddies of the Bard), the support guild for the company. The group has 360 members, who, through their $15 dues, put $5,400 in the coffers, which the scrupulous theater professionals can practically spin into gold.

"We can do more with $5,000 than any other arts organization in this town," Slocum says. "We run lean and mean.... We also have zero debt. Which means when I come to you and ask for $15 to join BoB...that $15 isn't paying off a debt from 10 years ago. That $15 you give me, you're going to see it on stage."

This year, that money plays a starring role in the form of new costumes and sound system, which will further offset the sound challenges in the outdoor setting.

"You never know what's going to happen," Slocum allows. As the set designer (and even an actor in a very small part), Slocum has tried to anticipate the ever-changing nature of the square, so most of her plans have been made on a hypothetical basis. She can make contingency plans for rain and ambient noise, but there have been a lot of unknown factors. For one thing, the square has been fenced off for months.

"I've designed the set for Shakespeare on the Square six times since March," she says in a weary tone recognizable to anyone who's been maneuvering in the square for the past several months. Due to the ongoing construction, the availability of the square has been pushed farther into the summer, past the company's usual starting date of July. By the time Cardinal Construction could feasibly have the north end ready to accommodate a stage and some seating, Slocum & Co. were looking at nine performances in three weekends —not nearly enough time to do two plays. So Macbeth—which had already been budgeted and cast—was cut from the schedule and moved to next summer. Slocum calls it one of the hardest decisions she and Parkhill have had to make.

If flexibility has eased them through some tight spots, the support of people and businesses has greased the wheels even more.

"It's amazing how so many people have worked with us. And I mean done the limbo under a very short stick," Slocum says. When she told her board of directors that she and Parkhill were determined to make this year's show a free event, they raised the necessary funds. And despite the fact that producing a play on one end of a construction zone will slow the development progress, business owners in Market Square have been supportive of the play.

"We started going into every business, shaking hands and saying, this is who we are and what we're doing. We want to be a good neighbor to you, and we want it to be a collaborative effort," Slocum says. "These merchants have offered us space for dressing rooms, space to store our props and sets at night, offered to feed our actors. Basically whatever they can do, they've offered to do." TVA has printed all the promotional material, and Preservation Pub has given in-kind and cash sponsorship. Village Marketplace, a non-profit organization like TSC, is giving the company 10 percent of the profits from sales during the nights of the show.

Lest the logistics of producing Shakespeare overshadow the play itself, As You Like It is, Parkhill assures, is Shakespeare at his funniest and most romantic.

"Most of the comedies have a love story, and everyone gets married in the end, but there's all the other stuff," Parkhill says. "In As You Like It, virtually all of the story and subplots are love stories." Several TSC favorites return this year, including Amy Loyd and Brian Bonner, who have proven themselves truly hilarious in the past. Jenny Ballard, Susannah Devereux, Lee Lenox, and Amy Hembree join some newcomers in the tale of lovers lost in the forest and mistaken identity. So bring on the masses, the pigeons and the unexpected tribulations of outdoor theater. It's the kind of situation Shakespeare would love.