Tag Archives: King Lear

Creative Class of 2015: Rebekah Scallet

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scalletRebekah Scallet is the producing artistic director of the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre.  A graduate of Parkview High School and Brandeis University, she has an MFA from Illinois State University.  In addition to being active in theatre at Parkview while a student there, she served as stage manager for productions of the former Shakespeare Festival of Arkansas while she was in college.

After working in several Illinois-based theatres, she returned to Arkansas in 2011 and took her position with the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre.  In addition to overseeing the artistic facets, she directs productions for AST.  In 2012, her first season, she directed Twelfth Night. The work on that garnered her an Arkansas Arts Council Fellowship in 2014.

In subsequent seasons, she has directed The Merchant of Venice, King Lear and Two Gentlemen of Verona for the Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre. She also directed The Caucasian Chalk Circle and A Lovely Sunday for Creve Coeur at UCA, where she also serves as a lecturer in theatre.

On Shakespeare’s birthday, a look at Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre events

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AST_logoToday is the traditionally accepted birthday of the Bard of Avon.  He also died on this date in 1616 at the age of 52.  The Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre has an event later this week and is preparing for the 2013 season.  In honor of William Shakespeare’s birthday, today’s entry looks at some upcoming AST events.

On Wednesday, April 24, Robert Quinlan, who directed Richard III last season for AST, will speak in the Brewer-Hegeman Conference Center on the UCA campus (next to Reynolds Performance Hall) at 7 p.m. about his particular process and explorations involved in directing Shakespeare.  The event is sponsored by the UCA Foundation.

Quinlan is a freelance director based in Chicago. His other recent directing credits include the world premiere of The Magic Bicycle, #thisrocks, A Midsummer Night’s Dream, The Illusion, Iphigenia, Other Daughters, 44 Plays for 44 Presidents, and Killer Joe.

He was the assistant director to Tina Landau on productions of Superior Donuts on Broadway and The Tempest at Chicago’s Steppenwolf Theatre Company. Internationally, he has directed The Maids and Proof at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts in Singapore. He holds an MFA in directing from Illinois State University.

The 2013 Arkansas Shakespeare Theatre season will open on June 6 with a production of Much ado About Nothing.  The other productions this summer, which will alternate in rotating repertory, are Oliver!, King Lear and a special one-hour version of A Midsummer Night’s Dream.