Catskill Mountain Shakespeare’s spring tour of “Hamlet” will close this weekend, capping an expanded run that brought Shakespeare to schools and community venues across the Catskills and Hudson Valley.
Now in its third year, the company’s community tour has grown from 14 stops in 2024 to 23 this spring, including 13 schools and 10 public venues. The final performances are scheduled for Saturday, May 2, at Opus 40 in Saugerties; Saturday evening, May 2, at the Doctorow Center for the Arts in Hunter; and Sunday, May 3, at Van Dusen’s in Lexington.
The production, directed by Sydney Berk, has been shortened to 90 minutes and set in the 1980s, in a preps-versus-punks world. Hamlet’s angst is channeled through Basquiat-inspired paintings by set designer Thomas Jenkeleit and the music blasting through his headphones.
The approach reflects one reason Shakespeare’s plays have endured: They are unusually open to reinvention, allowing directors and actors to cut, reset and reinterpret them across different places, eras and audiences.
The tour marks another step in the growth of Catskill Mountain Shakespeare, which was founded in 2020 by Sarah Reny, a West Kill resident and London-trained actress who wanted to see Shakespeare performed closer to home.
“I often say, having the idea for Catskill Mountain Shakespeare feels as if I woke up and there was this baby in my lap, like a whole concept was there that already existed,” Reny said.
The company was founded just before the coronavirus pandemic shut down live performance across the country. Reny had planned to launch with “Twelfth Night” in the summer of 2020, but the shutdown forced the company to adapt.
“And for the first two months [of the pandemic] I really thought we would be able to move forward for the summer. Looking back, I think the enforced break helped me get my footing,” Reny said.
Instead of staging a live production that summer, the company created “Forest Scenes,” a YouTube series filmed outdoors on public land on Route 28 near Phoenicia. The videos drew from Shakespeare scenes set in nature, including the Forest of Arden courtship from “As You Like It” and the witches of “Macbeth.”
Outdoor performance had been central to Reny’s vision from the beginning. In 2021, the company made its official debut with “Twelfth Night” at the Emerson Resort and Spa in Mount Tremper, a hamlet of Shandaken.
Frank Wildermann, who joined the company as managing director in 2022, said the organization has tried to “grow and develop organically,” even as its pace has accelerated.
The company moved to Hunter in 2023, where its mainstage summer productions are now performed under a white tent behind the Red Barn off Main Street. That same year, the company began considering a spring touring production to precede the summer show.
Wildermann said the idea came about “on a whim,” after the company found a grant that would support a tour if it was selected.
“We didn’t think we were going to get it and then we got it: that was the birth of the community tour,” he said.
The first tour, a 2024 production of “The Tempest,” made stops at eight public venues and six schools. This year’s “Hamlet” spring tour expanded to include schools serving students from fifth grade through high school, including schools in the Windham-Ashland-Jewett, Hunter-Tannersville and Onteora central school districts.
David Michaeli, a Twin Cities-based actor who plays Hamlet, said school audiences have responded strongly to the play’s direct engagement with the audience.
“During the ‘oh what a rogue’ monologue, at one point he (Hamlet) asks the audience directly, ‘Am I a coward?’” Michaeli said. “I spotted a kid in the front row raising his hand. He was smiling and nodding.”
Michaeli said that exchange points to why Shakespeare can work with younger audiences. Audience members, the actor said, “are a character in the play that Hamlet is talking to.”
The cast includes Michaeli; Detalion Dixon, a Memphis actor who plays Claudius; Molly Martinez-Collins, who is based between Texas and Chicago and plays Ophelia; Nick Trotta, of New York City, as Polonius and Horatio; Steele Whitney, of New York City, as Laertes and Rosencrantz; and local actress Ashley Hill as Gertrude.
The six actors also serve as crew during the tour. Whitney, a company member and tour manager, said the cast typically has about 75 minutes to set up at each venue.
“Truly theater is one of the oldest art forms and forms of storytelling. All that’s required is actors and an audience: that’s it. You can do it anywhere,” Whitney said.
The production also includes sound design by Lola Basilere, but Whitney said the essentials remain simple.
“This is a beauty of human connection that you can’t get by scrolling TikTok,” he said.
Wildermann added that the Catskills landscape has become part of the company’s identity.
“The Catskills themselves are another character in the play,” Wildermann said. “You have this other beautiful landscape,” just outside the set, “and it works in our favor to use it.”
Sometimes, he said, the landscape enters the performance.
“Last year, during one of the performances, we had a bear wander through. There were lots of local folk there so everyone just saw the bear, and went back to the show,” Wildermann said.
After the “Hamlet” tour closes, Catskill Mountain Shakespeare will return to Hunter for its summer mainstage production of “Much Ado About Nothing,” directed by Conner Wilson. The production will run July 11 to 26 outdoors under the tent at the Red Barn on Main Street in Hunter, with performances at 7:30 p.m. Wednesday through Saturday and 3 p.m. Sunday.
Lex Sottile is a contributing writer. Send correspondence to reporting@theoverlooknews.com.