For the first time since its inception, Greenport’s popular “Shakespeare in the Park” is planning performances outside the village – and one of them will be in Riverhead.
Northeast Stage’s outdoor performances of Shakespeare’s works have attracted hundreds of visitors to Mitchell Park in Greenport every year for the past two decades. And this summer, the theater company is planning an additional two outdoor performances outside Greenport Village: one in Riverhead and another in Patchogue.
“For a number of years, we’ve been saying, ‘God, we do all this work – we should get a bigger audience and do more performances,’” said Amie Sponza, co-founder of Northeast Stage. “We’re really excited to finally make that happen.”
This summer’s production of As You Like It will span a week in July and August, opening in Riverhead July 31, holding several shows in Greenport through Saturday August 6 and closing in Patchogue on August 7.
Riverhead’s performance will take place at the grassy rear of the East End Arts property on Main Street.
“[Riverhead] is far enough west that it will be a completely different audience,” Sponza said. “East End Arts is downtown, but it’s set back from most of the traffic. It’s on the water, but it’s not a noisy waterfront like Greenport is.”
Following in the footsteps of Greenport’s performances, the show will be free of charge – something Sponza says is “part of the group’s mission.”
“There are underserved portions of our communities that don’t get to go to the theater, or even to the movies sometimes,” she said. “We want to give people who normally wouldn’t have exposure to this material a way to have access to it.”
This philosophy has worked for years in Greenport. Hundreds of visitors have attended the summer performances each year, some bringing lawn chairs and blankets and others simply wandering over after seeing the crowd of spectators.
“We have people from every walk of life coming to see our shows,” Sponza said. “When we’re rehearsing on the boardwalk in partial costumes or with swords, families will be walking by with their ice cream cones and their kids will make them stop and watch.
“Kids are just rapt watching us,” she added. “They’re like, ‘What is this magic that’s happening?’ It’s the most gratifying thing to see how they’re drawn to it.”
But free admission also has its down sides.
Though Northeast Stage has discussed performances outside Greenport in the past, the theater company has been restricted by its tight budget, especially when it comes to renting microphones – a crucial investment when putting on a play in a noisy outdoor space like Mitchell Park.
“Microphones are the majority of our budget,” Sponza said. “It’s about $3,200 a week to rent them and to pay someone to run them.”
Up until a few years ago, Greenport Village paid for the technical expenses of the show, including lighting and microphones. “But budgets being what they are, the arts are always first to go,” she said. “Now we rely on donations and the business improvement districts.”
After paying for expensive microphone rentals, there is not much left over for costumes and sets, never mind paying the actors. “You can’t do it without the artists, but we aren’t able to pay them what we’d like to,” she said. “But artists being who we are, we want to do the work, even if we have to do it for free. It’s something we’re driven to do.”
Until now, the group has stuck to just a handful of performances each summer, because renting microphones for more than one weekend would be too expensive.
But Sponza hopes the space at East End Arts, which is walled off by several buildings, will allow the group to do without microphones in Riverhead. “We think the sound will bounce off the buildings,” she said. Patchogue’s performance, which will be at the Shorefront Park Bandshell, will be able to utilize the microphones rented for the week for the Greenport performances.
“I’m thrilled that these other communities want us to bring it there,” Sponza said. “It’s been a big hit in Greenport.”
The material has a big role to play in the theater company’s success with the series, she said. “Shakespeare is so universal and still so relevant, more than 400 years later,” she said. “The themes that are in Sheakespeare’s work are just as relevant now as they were then.”
But before Northeast Stage even considers casting this summer’s production of As You Like It, there’s still a lot of money to be raised.
Northeast Stage will be applying for grant money for Shakespeare in the Park this summer, but Sponza says grants have been more and more difficult to get because the production has been running for so many years.
“We’ve been around for so long, it’s assumed that by now we ought to have enough community support that we don’t need that anymore,” she said. “But that’s a big assumption. Everybody’s wallets are tight right now, and it’s harder for people to donate money.”
To help fundraise, the theater company holds another few productions throughout the year. One of those fundraising productions will be held the last two weekends of April at Holy Trinity Church in Greenport, featuring an original comedy written by Riverhead native Michael Horn.
Northeast Stage also hopes to get a few corporate donors to contribute.
The theater company is also looking for a new volunteer to organize fundraising and handle public relations, as well as someone to sign live performances in American Sign Language.
Anyone interested in donating or volunteering can contact Northeast Stage by email or donate online.
