History
Shakespeare in Delaware Park was first founded in 1976 by Saul Elkin, as a part of the University at Buffalo’s theater department.
Elkin began the project for Shakespeare in Delaware Park by asking the Mayor of the city of Buffalo to help in developing a free Shakespeare theater festival to resemble the New York Shakespeare Festival. Mayor Stanley Makowski gave permission for the performances to take place in Delaware Park, as well as pledge to fund the electricity costs for all performances (a pledge honored to this day).
Shakespeare in Delaware Park’s current Tudor style stage was first built and designed by Gary Casarella (technical director for the University at Buffalo's Theatre department), and was constructed at the University at Buffalo with funding from the school's dean. After the construction of the stage it was marked, taken apart, and transported to Delaware Park, where it was reconstructed at the base of what is now known as “Shakespeare Hill”, during the 1993 season, in time for that year's production of Romeo and Juliet. That season's first production used a temporary stage, and prior seasons used other stages. The seating has always been the hill itself, and audience members watch the productions on blankets, lawn chairs, and other self-provided seating.
In 1991, Shakespeare in Delaware Park became a fully independent non-profit organization whose only funding comes from donations made by the public, audience members, the City of Buffalo, Erie County, and outside entities such as M&T Bank, the local NBC affiliate WGRZ-TV, the New York State Council on the Arts (NYSCA) and The Buffalo News.
Read more about this topic: Shakespeare In Delaware Park
Famous quotes containing the word history:
“Let it suffice that in the light of these two facts, namely, that the mind is One, and that nature is its correlative, history is to be read and written.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“I saw the Arab map.
It resembled a mare shuffling on,
dragging its history like saddlebags,
nearing its tomb and the pitch of hell.”
—Adonis [Ali Ahmed Said] (b. 1930)
“Postmodernism is, almost by definition, a transitional cusp of social, cultural, economic and ideological history when modernism’s high-minded principles and preoccupations have ceased to function, but before they have been replaced with a totally new system of values. It represents a moment of suspension before the batteries are recharged for the new millennium, an acknowledgment that preceding the future is a strange and hybrid interregnum that might be called the last gasp of the past.”
—Gilbert Adair, British author, critic. Sunday Times: Books (London, April 21, 1991)