Riverside Shakespeare Company - Establishment and Heritage

Establishment and Heritage

Originally founded with a core of graduates from the University of California at Berkeley, the Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City opened its first production, Romeo and Juliet, in August 1977 in Riverside Park. It then commenced a free parks tour through Manhattan, performing in Washington Square, John Jay Park, Fort Tryon Park, and Columbia University. The production was directed by McDowell.

An opening-night announcement in The New York Times read:

The Riverside Shakespeare Company is taking up where Joseph Papp left off this summer by presenting free Shakespeare in the park.... The production will be done in traveling minstrel style, evocative of Shakespeare's time. Beforehand, to set the period mood, performers will be scattered around the park – jugglers, fencers, singers, poetry readers. Then a fanfare will call the players to the stage, and the tale of star-cross'd lovers will begin.

The inaugural production of Romeo and Juliet was a two-hour version, trimmed to incorporate extensive swordplay, an extended ballroom dance scene, and pantomime, such as the appearance to Juliet of Tybalt's ghost. Each performance was also timed to end with the setting of the sun in mid August. Performances were preceded by the entire company of actors and musicians entertaining the audience with a Greenshow – a preshow spoof of the production to follow, that served the dual purpose of building a comedic, physical bridge between actor and audience, and of establishing a physical, spontaneous style of acting that incorporated the performance environment into the show. This drew on the roots of the company – and of Shakespeare – in the rich heritage of Commedia dell'arte.

The following autumn, the company began a series of readings of the works of Shakespeare, reading through the entire canon the first year. Growing out of this, the company inaugurated a series of free radio broadcasts of Shakespeare's works on the New York public radio station, WBAI. A board of directors was soon formed under the guidance of founding chairperson, Elena Scotti of Lincoln Center. At its founding in 1977, the Riverside Shakespeare Company became New York City's only year-round professional Shakespeare company dedicated to the performance of the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and Commedia dell'arte.