Trans-national Shakespeare
Shakespeare Santa Cruz was nationally renowned for its high-quality productions and its marriage of scholarship and performance, all among the unique beauty in the campus redwoods. While embracing the surfer-cosmopolitanism of Santa Cruz, productions incorporated transnational perspectives (the 1984 Balinese-inflected The Tempest) and modern contexts (the 1985 Hamlet as soap opera). The company maintained a larger national and global reach by including Actors Equity Association actors and by fostering a longstanding relationship with performers from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC).
Local festivals, such as the Berkeley Shakespeare festival, were an early influence on the establishment of SSC.
The company maintained a larger national reach by hiring unionized Actors Equity Association actors. Here, a young Bryan Cranston acted in the productions in 1992.
SSC founder Audrey Stanley writes to potential theater attendees about bringing the Royal Shakespeare Company to campus. September 24, 1981.
Tony Church of Britain's Royal Shakespeare Company plays King Lear in Shakespeare Santa Cruz's premiere season. July 22-August 15, 1982.
The company also maintained a larger global reach by fostering a longstanding relationship with performers from the Royal Shakespeare Company (RSC). Patrick Stewart, of Star Trek fame, here visit in 1983 but also put on a solo version of Dickens' winter classic "A Christmas Carol" in 1993.
Inspired by his previous trip to Bali, director Bradford Clark held a "Bali Day" event on campus to engage the local public in his Balinese inflected version of "The Tempest" in 1984.