This year’s Shakespeare in the Park production by the Wild Imaginings theater company may be more Shakespeare on the Patio, but that’s fine by director Trent Clifford. The company’s annual Shakespeare in the Park moves to the courtyard of downtown Waco’s Hotel Herringbone this weekend for “The Winter’s Tale,” a change from past productions at Indian Spring Park, but one Clifford feels will win over audiences. The outdoor Song Bird venue that’s part of the hotel has a stage for live music with tables and chairs for seating, for one thing.
There’s also an adjoining wine and charcuterie bar for those who feel there’s nothing like wine and cheese to accompany Shakespeare in the open air. The seating area is more level than the incline of the Indian Spring Park amphitheater, and there’s built-in lighting. “It’s a more technically capable space,” Clifford noted.
“It’s still free. It’s still outdoors.” Clifford’s 10-person cast tackles “The Winter’s Tale” as its summer presentation, one of Shakespeare’s later and lesser-known romances, though a romance with a shadow over it.
Many people know it for its memorable stage direction, “Exit, pursued by a bear,” the director said. The story concerns a jealous Leontes (Judson Williams), king of Sicilia, who becomes convinced his pregnant wife Hermione (Breshena Crosby) has cheated on him with his best friend Polixenes (Jeffrey Vitarius), the king of Bohemia. He jails her and orders that her .
