Shakespeare: By the Numbers

A Midsummer Night’s Dream headpieces designed and built by this year’s Costume Designer Kärin Simonson Kopischke and Wardrobe Assistant Evie King. Submitted.

by Amy J. Ludwigsen, Executive Director, Door Shakespeare

As I sit down to write this article, our company of actors, designers and directors are preparing for their first day of technical rehearsals for the 2016 season featuring William Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, directed by Joseph Hanreddy, and Julius Caesar, directed by James Pickering. These rehearsals involve the addition of production elements including lights, costumes, negotiating the backstage wooded areas at night, as well as music and movement sequences. We have six days left of rehearsal until the first audience views A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

As we near opening, I thought I would once again share a few fun facts about Door Shakespeare and break down the process of creating our season by the numbers. I wrote a similar article last year and it is amazing to see how each year the numbers change, the process evolves, and Door Shakespeare continues to grow.

These shows are assembled by a very small set of extremely skilled artists in a very short amount of time. Below are the numbers that reveal how we produce Shakespeare for you under the stars in the Garden at Björklunden. Here we go:

176

Actors, Season Directors Joseph Hanreddy and James Pickering, and I, auditioned for this season over the course of five months in Milwaukee, Spring Green, Urbana-Champaign and Chicago, with video submissions accepted from several states

18

Actors cast for the season, including five young performers, with the youngest cast member at 13 years old

9

Designers/directors on the production team

6

Returning company members

21

New company members

6

Actors’ Equity Association union contracts

25

Adult company members housed on the peninsula by Door Shakespeare in 14 locations for a duration lasting either four or up to 11 weeks

123

Hours of rehearsal, over a span of 20 days, for both plays. Only 20 days for two full plays – that equates to 10 rehearsal days per play.

164

Pages of Shakespearean text to learn during the rehearsal period

11

Weapons rented: four bodice daggers and seven karambits that look like carving knives, dulled to stage-safe standard, and various dowel rods, composite swords and found-object weapons for our production of Julius Caesar.

88

Ounces of fake blood we anticipate to use for Julius Caesar

More than 115

Schedules and rehearsal and/or performance reports generated by the Production Stage Manager during the season

2,000

Feet of lighting cable rented and run to the instruments during the season, and draw 17,250 watts of power for this year’s lighting rig

70

Costume looks: 43 for A Midsummer Night’s Dream and 27 for Julius Caesar. Costume Designer Kårin Simonsin Kopischke and assistant Evie King have been hard at work building these shows from scratch. The headpieces for A Midsummer Night’s Dream alone are worth the price of a ticket!

16 (and counting)

Trips to Green Bay, Milwaukee and Chicago for production purposes over the pre-production period

33

Bard Buddy volunteers that facilitate our performances; call the office to be the 32nd!

47

Shows in the season; a full week was added to our performance season this year!

170

Seats in the house for each performance; get yours today by calling 920.839.1500 or visit doorshakespeare.com!

We hope you will visit the Garden at Björklunden in Baileys Harbor to witness the wonderful sum of all of these numbers, which is the stunning 2016 season! The season runs July 2 through Aug. 20. See DoorShakespeare.com for more information on our performance and events schedule.