Today, The Old Globe opens its 42nd season of outdoor Shakespeare productions on its festival stage in Balboa Park with a production of “Twelfth Night.”
Today also marks the 10th summer of Shakespeare in San Diego for Barry Edelstein, who is celebrating his 10th anniversary this year as artistic director of the Old Globe.
Edelstein came to the Globe on Jan. 1, 2013, from New York City, where he oversaw Shakespeare programming at the Public Theater, the huge nonprofit entity founded by Joseph Papp in 1954. His duties included running Shakespeare in the Park, the free summer festival that is one of New York’s signature cultural events, and the Public’s Mobile Unit, which took the Bard’s plays into prisons and homeless shelters.
A decade later under Edelstein’s leadership, the Old Globe’s Shakespeare programming has also expanded far beyond the stage of the Lowell Davies Festival Theatre into this region’s prisons, refugee centers, senior centers, schools, libraries and community centers.
Edelstein has also created Shakespeare educational “Thinking Shakespeare Live!” events onstage, lectures on YouTube during the pandemic, and a Shakespeare-themed podcast earlier this year — all designed to teach San Diegans how the Bard’s words are just as timely and meaningful today as they were 400 years ago.
Old Globe Artistic Director Barry Edelstein leads a “Thinking Shakespeare Live!” event in 2014.
(Doug Gates)
Edelstein has also transformed how the Globe presents Shakespeare’s works on its own stages.
First he oversaw the installation of a $250,000 sound system at the festival theater that made the actors’ words crystal-clear for audiences.
He replaced the repertory company approach of two plays alternating each night from June through September to presenting two independent productions in shorter, 10-week runs. This made it easier for him to attract big-name actors — like Blair Underwood to play Othello and Grantham Coleman to play Hamlet — who are too busy to commit to a five-month rep season.
“That has put major actors at the center of our work in a really important way,” Edelstein said. “That harkens back to the days of Ellis Rabb, Rosemary Harris and Richard Easton in the golden age of the Globe and Shakespeare.”
And, in contrast to the Globe’s previous Shakespeare fest director, former Royal Shakespeare Company leader Adrian Noble, Edelstein introduced an American style of Shakespeare, where American actors speak in their own voices, not faux English accents, as a way of communicating to the audience that Shakespeare is for everyone and for all times.
“I’ve devoted my entire professional life to the idea that there is such a thing as American Shakespeare,” Edelstein said. “That’s why it’s such an honor to be working at one of the great American Shakespeare companies.”
Another clear change has been the rise in diversity onstage in the Shakespeare and other productions, with many actors of color in lead roles, and in some cases male characters played by women actors and vice-versa.
Now, Edelstein is embarking on his next Shakespeare project, “Henry 6,” which will be presented on the Globe’s festival stage next summer. He has written a two-play adaptation of Shakespeare’s history plays “Henry VI, Parts I, II and III.” They’re the only plays in Shakespeare’s canon that the Globe has never produced in its 88-year history.
Among Shakespeare’s earliest works, the “Henry VI” history plays tell the story of the War of the Roses, a decades-long war between England’s York and Lancaster dynasties in the 1400s. Edelstein has condensed the three plays, which would normally run a total of nine hours, to two 2-1/2-hour plays that will focus on the characters’ quest to achieve power at any cost, and how that single-minded purpose can lead to chaos, violence and anarchy.
To prepare audiences for what Edelstein has nicknamed “H6,” the Globe is embarking on an extensive education blitz at the end of June to work with community members citywide for dialogues offstage and, possibly, onstage.
“I’m proud of putting Shakespeare in the middle of our community-based work. So many of our arts engagement programs have Shakespeare in them somewhere,” he said. “I imagine the idea that Shakespeare is a kind of glue that binds together so many different parts of American culture and speaks to so many different sectors of American society powerfully and eloquently. I think the Globe is doing that in a way that nobody else is doing.”
A scene from the Old Globe’s 2017 production of “Hamlet,” directed by artistic director Barry Edelstein and starring Grantham Coleman, center left in black doublet and hose, in the title role.
(Courtesy of Jim Cox)
But Shakespeare represents just a part of Edelstein’s job at the Old Globe.
Over the past decade he has overseen the production of 130 plays and musicals, and has directed 12 of those shows himself (his favorite self-directed Globe shows are “What We Talk About When We Talk About Anne Frank” (2022); “The Wanderers” (2018); “Hamlet” (2017); and the Michael John LaChiusa musical “Rain” (2016).
Eden Espinosa, pictured in The Old Globe’s “Rain” in 2016.
(Jim Cox)
During the past 10 years, the Old Globe’s budget has doubled, from $19.1 million in 2013 to $40 million in 2022. Last year’s budget was enhanced by investments from the Broadway producers of “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’,” which debuted at the Globe last summer and went on to a two-month Broadway run this spring.
“The Globe has doubled in size over the past 10 years,” he said. “The thing that makes me happiest about that is last year the Globe issued nearly 1,200 W-2s and 1099s. In addition to this place being a real asset, we’re also a huge employer.”
Edelstein said his biggest challenge now is teaching San Diegans that the Globe is much more than just a producer of Shakespeare plays an the annual “Grinch” musical. A marketing campaign launching this fall aims to help San Diegans see the Globe’s impact beyond the stage.
“Ten years later, we still haven’t been able to penetrate the city’s imagination about all the stuff that we do beyond putting on plays,” he said. “It’s amazing how hard it has been to tell that story. There are maybe three other theaters in the country (the Public, The Goodman in Chicago and the Guthrie in Minneapolis) that do the work at the level we do.”
Edelstein recently sat down for a wide-ranging interview to talk about what brought him to the Globe, what he’s most proud of and his favorite productions of the past decade. The following comments have been edited for length.
Q: What attracted you to come work for the Old Globe?
A: I was working at the Public Theater which produced outdoor Shakespeare, indoor plays, new plays, classic revivals and community-based work. The Old Globe is all those things … but I wasn’t the boss there (at the Public). The Globe is this famous place with an amazing reputation, and San Diego is one of the country’s most beautiful cities and I’d get to raise my kids there. Absolutely nothing about it had a downside.
Q: Having spent the earlier part of your career on the East Coast, what did you know about the Old Globe’s history?
A: Even in the ‘80s when I graduated from Oxford, I knew what Jack (O’Brien) was doing with Shakespeare outdoors at the Globe. I thought then, and I think now, that the Public Theater on the East Coast and the Old Globe on the West Coast are the polar theaters of the United States. Certainly at this moment I think the numbers would bear out that we’re the largest nonprofit theater outside New York.
Q: Looking back on what you’ve built over the past decade, what are some of your proudest achievements?
A: I take pains to make this not a story about me. So many people have been part of what this is: the artists who come and work here, the huge effort of forging partnerships with community-based organizations; our arts engagement department; the board and philanthropists; the magnificent staff of the Old Globe. And I’m proud of Freedome (Bradley-Ballentine, the Globe’s former associate artistic director and director of arts engagement) who built the arts engagement work with help from the Irvine Foundation.
I’m happy to conceive of myself as a leader who articulated a point of view and who worked really hard to suggest a path. But what actually happened was done by hundreds and hundreds of people who did the heavy lifting over the years.
A scene from “Time and the Conways” which was produced at the Old Globe in 2014. It’s one of Globe artistic director Barry Edelstein’s favorite productions since he came to the San Diego theater in 2013.
(Jim Cox)
Q: What was your perception of San Diego’s theater community when you arrived in 2013, and how has it changed?
A: I got here and saw this amazing theater community. I saw the La Jolla Playhouse and San Diego Rep and a network of small theater companies. But what’s happened in the past 10 years is a huge explosion of energy.
The growth of the San Diego Symphony, the growth of the museums in Balboa Park and at the Museum of Contemporary Art in La Jolla. It’s been a sea change in the arts and culture sector of the city. The city has adopted an arts and culture plan, energized its arts commission in a new way and the county has an arts commission. And the building of the Rady Shell was a game changer.
I would like to think that the Globe’s energy has been a real catalyst for that. I thinking of the Globe’s investment in our community-based work; the idea that we should take the insides of these nonprofits and turn them to face outside; and the idea that we should enfranchise our neighbors who are not participating to the extent that they would love to and invite them to become part of our work.
I don’t think in 2012 I would have believed it if someone would have said that a decade from now San Diego will be a city in the country that people are talking about as a real innovator in the arts.
Q: The pandemic was devastating for San Diego’s theater community, but the Globe was a rare bright spot, offering so many online community engagement, education, playwriting and other programs when everything else was shut down.
A: I had this idea to try to activate things here at the Globe and I’m just thrilled with what happened. Lots of theaters that tried to turn their lights back on in 2022 found they didn’t have any people anymore. They’d moved on, left the field. We kept everyone on health insurance, whether they were furloughed or not. We tried to keep a big chunk of our staff working and making content to keep our audience engaged. And I’m proud of the Old Globe’s Social Justice Roadmap that came out of that time.
Jōvan Dansberry with the cast of “Bob Fosse’s Dancin’”.
(Courtesy photo by Julieta Cervantes)
Q: What is another achievement you’re proud of from the past 10 years?
A: I think we and La Jolla Playhouse are doing incredible work contributing to the future of American musical theater.
“Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” was the sixth (Globe-born) Broadway show that happened during my time. So much of our new playwriting has gone on to productions all over the country, not just New York. “Dial M For Murder,” that we did last summer, is being produced all over the country now.
You can’t do that work unless you know there’s an audience that’s hungry for what’s going to be next in the American theater. Playwrights want to come and be produced here and that’s what makes directors want to come and work here. So I think that recommitting the Globe to its historic musical theater roots and really building the infrastructure for new playwriting has been a huge part of it.
I have to share this with (director of new plays and dramaturgy) Danielle Mages Amato and (philanthropists) Paula and Brian Powers, whose huge gift turbocharged that work.
Carmen Cusack in the musical “Bright Star,” which premiered at The Old Globe in 2014 and transferred to Broadway.
(Joan Marcus)
Q: One thing I really enjoyed this spring was your new eight-episode podcast series, “Where There’s a Will,” which was about how Shakespeare lives in our world today. Where did you get the idea?
A: A job like this is such an extraordinary platform. There’s such an opportunity to evangelize for the idea of Shakespeare. That’s the real gift this community has given me over the past 10 years. (The podcast) has allowed me to make a public case for this thing that I revere and value and I think is so important.
Q: How is the Shakespeare audience at the Old Globe different than it was at the Public?
A: The San Diego Shakespeare audience listens extremely carefully. The New York Shakespeare audience tells you how hard it’s listening. There’s a certain kind of laugh (there) that is telling the person next to you that you got the joke. Here it’s a real genuine connection to it. That intense listening, that intense sense of discovery, is really special and fresh about this audience.
Our Shakespeare audience is, by and large, younger than our indoor audience because a lot of people bring their kids or friends here to experience this thing they know they should have in their lives for the first time.
A scene from The Old Globe’s 2019 Globe for All tour of “The Winter’s Tale.” This year’s tour, “Shakespeare: Call and Response,” kicks off Oct. 26.
(Rich Soublet II)
The climate (here) is also a big part of it. It’s just so wonderful to sit out there on a warm summer night. There’s something so bucolic about it that makes for a certain kindness in the audience, which is unique. In New York, it’s humid and muggy. In London it’s chilly. In Ashland (Oregon), it can be super hot in the summertime. Not here. It’s just perfect.
Q: Looking back on the past decade, how would you sum up your experience in a few words?
A: If you were to ask me what is the theme that pulled together all the disparate parts of my 10 years here, it’s that theater really matters. Theater can touch people’s lives in unique and profoundly powerful ways and it’s my job as the steward of a major theater institution to make theater mean as much as it can in as many different places as it can to as many people as it can. That’s been my privilege in my decade here.”
A scene from the Old Globe’s 2018 production of “Uncle Vanya,” which is one of Globe artistic director Barry Edelstein’s favorite Globe productions from the past 10 years.
(Courtesyof Jim Cox)
Barry Edelstein’s favorite Old Globe shows from the past 10 years:
“Time and the Conways” by J.B. Priestley (2014)
“Bright Star” by Steve Martin and Edie Brickell (2014)
“Camp David” by Lawrence Wright (2016)
“The Lion” by Benjamin Scheuer (2016)
“Uncle Vanya” by Anton Chekhov (2018)
“In-Zoom” by Bill Irwin (2020)
“Bob Fosse’s Dancin’” by Bob Fosse (2022)
“The Old Man and the Old Moon” by PigPen Theatre Co. (2022)
A scene from “The Wanderers,” directed by Barry Edelstein at The Old Globe in 2018, had a New York City run in early 2023.
(Courtesy of Jim Cox)