Kristin Chenoweth , Photo: Julie Cohen
August 15, 2008
Tony Award winning actor Kristin Chenoweth will host an upcoming television documentary that goes behind the scenes of the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival’s recent production of Twelfth Night. Shakespeare on the Hudson follows the actors and creative team through the real-life, off-stage drama of the production from auditions and call backs to the final moments backstage before the performance begins.
Shakespeare on the Hudson premieres September 18 on the American public television station Thirteen/WNET in New York.
Set against the dramatic backdrop of the Hudson Valley at Boscobel, a stately 19th-century estate, the festival brings together a group of accomplished actors each summer to perform Shakespeare’s masterpieces. The documentary intersperses interviews with cast members with behind-the-scenes rehearsal footage to examine the challenges of staging a first-rate production that is true to the original work but still accessible and relevant to a modern audience.
The documentary highlights the story of veteran actress Maia Guest, who lands the part of Feste during auditions but worries whether she can pull it off - an anxiety that’s amplified because she is also the director’s wife. The show also follows a pair of rookie actors from Minnesota who struggle to prove they have what it takes to perform Shakespeare before their fellow cast mates, skeptical New York critics and theater-goers.
Gabra Zackman (left) and Wesley Mann in the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Production of Twelfth Night, Photo: William Marsh
A broadcast of the complete Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night will be shown immediately after the documentary.
Host Kristin Chenoweth is best known to many for her work as Glinda in the hit Broadway musical Wicked. Chenoweth won a Tony Award for her performance as Sally Brown in You’re a Good Man, Charlie Brown.
Thirteen/WNET is one of the key program providers for public television in America with such series as Nature, Great Performances, American Masters, The Newshour with Jim Lehrer and Charlie Rose.
Shakespeare on the Hudson premieres Thursday, September 18 at 8 p.m. on Thirteen/WNET in New York. Twelfth Night: The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival will immediately follow at 9 p.m.
WLIW in New York will broadcast Twelfth Night: The Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival on Friday, September 26 at 9 p.m. and Shakespeare on the Hudson at 11 p.m. the same evening.
Web Resources:
Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival
Video of Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival production of Twelfth Night
