The idea for Travels with Willie began around 2008, when I was turning 50. I was reflecting on my career in the theatre and realized how much William Shakespeare had been a part of my life’s journey. I remembered reading Romeo and Juliet in the 6th grade and performing in Measure for Measure while still in the Navy. My first production in college was acting in Taming of the Shrew and the list goes on from there. Shakespeare has taken me around the world – to Budapest, Moscow, Belgium, across Italy, and of course to England multiple times. I have listened to Shakespeare being performed in so many languages and have been amazed by many dynamic interpretations of his works. Willie was also there in more personal moments – I escaped the pain of a divorce by spending the summer on stage performing Two Gentlemen from Verona and Henry V in Louisville’s Central Park, rebuilding my life and make new life-long friends. A few years later, I announced to the world on that same stage while performing in The Tempest that I was about to become a father for the first time (thank you Eli). Shakespeare has been with me on my life’s travels, so when I began to develop plans for a sabbatical in 2008, it seemed perfect to include William Shakespeare.
My original plan was simple. There are more Shakespeare productions performed annually in the U.S. than any other type of theatre. So, the question that framed my sabbatical proposal was this: Is it possible to travel around the U.S. and see the complete canon of Shakespeare’s plays – all 38 of them – in one year? That journey in itself would be an adventure, but to make it more “scholarly”, I planned to write an article or two about my Travels with Willie as an exploration of the state of Shakespeare in the U.S. at the start of the 21stCentury.
Regretfully, in addition to celebrating my 50th birthday in 2008, we also suffered the bursting of the real estate bubble and the stock market crisis. My sabbatical never materialized, but the idea of Travels with Willie never left me. I began writing a blog in 2011 but became busy in my academic career. I moved on to administration, becoming a Dean of a College of Fine and Performing Arts at a major regional university and I pursued and completed my Ph.D. in Educational Leadership by my 60th Birthday. All the while, Shakespeare traveled with me. I had the honor of directing King Lear with my dear friend Dennis Krausnick from Shakespeare and Company in the titular role (Dennis’s last production before he passed). I had just finished directing Hamlet (with my daughter Callista playing Ophelia) when the Pandemic hit (Something was indeed rotten in the state of Denmark!) To demonstrate to my students we could keep the theatre alive while sequestering, we mounted a production of Love’s Labours Lost as “Zooming Shakespeare”, one of the first live streamed production produced in the early months of the crisis. The old man (Shakespeare of course) still had it in him!
So now, at the ripe age of 66, I am beginning to consider the next great adventure of my life – retirement. Ah, but I am not ready for an RC (rocking chair) rather Eli and I are dusting off my original plans for Travels with Willie, revising it, and taking it on the road in an RV (a Thor Challenger 37FH to be specific.) While our great road trip is still a year or so off, we are making plans. Our new quest – Can we visit all 50 states (and some locations in Canada), see Shakespeare performed in each state and by the end of our journey, see the complete cannon? To keep with our original vision, I plan on interviewing Artistic Directors, Theatre Artist and performers, and most importantly audience members to not only explore and celebrate Shakespeare as we travel, but to also return to that original question: What is the state of Shakespeare in the U.S. in the 21st Century. We will document and share this adventure through this blog but also through Podcasts and our YouTube Channel. Now that’s TRAVELS WITH WILLIE! An Epic Journey across the U.C. to Explore and celebrate Shakespeare!