Learned Ladies stage set (photo: author)

Outdoor theatre has tremendous pleasures—and perils. For once, the sun wasn’t broiling last Saturday when we saw Moliere’s The Learned Ladies at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey’s outdoor stage (the charming 1932 Greek Theatre at the College of St. Elizabeth). Probably because I had with me the new sun parasol I’d bought in Vancouver! The STNJ does classic comedies in this venue, and the poor actors are always costumed in layer upon layer, wearing wigs—particularly hilarious in this production. It makes you light-headed to look at them.

Planes routinely take off flying low overhead from the small airport is near the theatre. This year, the players responded by yelling “Maestro!”, a harpsichord would play, they’d do some bouncy minuet steps, and a page would run by with a sign reading “Flying Machine Interval” until the noise subsided. Got a laugh every time.

I was in Regent’s Park, London, at a performance of The Tempest as a real storm approached, frightening the unprepared audience members, and at a performance of Doctor Faustus at Wolf Trap, when a giant Washington summer lightning-and-thunder extravaganza broke, just as the devil appeared (nervous laughter). We lived near a tiny outdoor theatre in Arlington, Virginia, where we could push our stroller and lurk near the back if a hasty departure was needed. We saw a sweet production of Carousel there. Baby slept.

Shakespeare is a staple of summer theaters, though many do history plays, and some do musicals or religious plays. Almost 1.4 million Americans attended an outdoor performance in 2013, according to 67 reporting members of the Institute of Outdoor Theatre (hardly a complete sample).

“An evening on the turf (is) real in a way indoor performances are not. We may think we’re distracted when we notice the pair of bunnies seated next to the stage earnestly observing the bipeds, but we’re actually becoming aware of the whole environment in which theater takes place,” said Kelly Kleiman in a comment on Chicago’s theater scene. And, you can have fireworks—onstage and off!

(photo: Adam Baker, flickr, cc)