Nashville Shakespeare Fest seeks to build Elizabethan style playhouse in Centennial Park

To be or not to be? That is the question for the proposed Shakespearean playhouse in Centennial Park.

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival Executive Director Isabel Tipton-Krispin says they have a vision that is straight out of old time London.

“ The best way to describe it is an Elizabethan playhouse, much like Shakespeare’s Globe, retrofitted to fit inside the Centennial Park bandshell.”

The plan is for a two-story structure that would go up just before the annual five-week, late-summer production and taken down when it is over. The structure would have a tower on either side and, at the top of the towers, there will be little pennant shaped flags.

“’Cause the Elizabethans would know that there was a play that day because they raised the flag,” said Donald Capparella.

Rendering of what the temporary seasonal structure for Nashville Shakes might look like.

Capparella was part of the troupe who put on the very first Shakespeare Festival in Centennial Park in 1988. Back then it was just him and a couple of friends. Very low budget. For the first production, they didn’t even have lights.

And then the sun went down.

“And it started to get really dark. So dark that you couldn’t see the play. So we drove our cars up and turned the headlights on and finished the show to the headlights.” he said.

Nashville Shakespeare Festival has grown a lot since then. And it wasn’t that long before it had10,000 people coming to the run that would last five weeks.

Photo from the fest’s very first production, As You Like It, in 1988

For a lot of people, Shakespeare in the park might be the only play they see all year.

On a Sunday night when it was over 90 degrees in Nashville and the actors were sweating through multiple layers of clothes– the place was packed with what seemed to be mostly locals. There was so much diversity in age, race and familiarity with plays.

The people showed up for Shakespeare.

But it’s not a guarantee. If the physical structures aren’t kept up, it can compromise the entire production. Eight years ago, they left Centennial Park.

Tipton-Krispin said, “2018, the bandshell got into a place where it was in a bit of disrepair…”

Andrew Johnson, an actor, added,  “The bandshell got condemned. That’s why Shakes left.”

But they came back. And now they are trying to raise money for this new playhouse that will cost $350,000. They’ve raised about half of that, but still need much more money from the community.

A bit of Nashville’s identity

If they do raise the money and build the playhouse, what will it mean for the identity of Nashville?

There has always been this little highbrow, lowbrow battle in Nashville. Before it was Music City, it was The Athens of the South. And it feels like Centennial Park, with the Parthenon and Shakespeare, carries a bit of that highbrow identity for the Southern gentry.

But, actor Andrew Johnson reminded me that Shakespeare isn’t highbrow. “ He is, at all times, constantly playing both to the kings and the queens and the peasant gentry. Shakespeare’s Globe Theater was entertainment for everyone, especially the normal person.”

Johnson says, that if the playhouse gets built, it could be that, too. “It’s more of a chance to not only play to people that think theater is for them, but people that think theater is not for them.”

The Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s production of “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” runs through this Sunday in Centennial Park.

This summer’s performance of A Midsummer Night’s Dream in Centennial Park