Old Globe hits the road with ‘Shakespeare: Call and Response’

Actors rehearse a scene for the Old Globe's Globe For All Tour production of "Shakespeare: Call and Response."

Free performances will be held throughout the county Wednesday through Nov. 14

San Diego Union-Tribune

Oct. 24, 2021 1:25 PM PT

The Old Globe will hit the road again next week for the seventh year of its Globe for All Tour of free public performances at community centers, libraries and parks from Chula Vista to Oceanside and from Lemon Grove to San Marcos.

Over the years, the Globe for All Tour has entertained more than 11,000 audience members with professional productions of Shakespeare’s plays and Shakespeare-inspired shows performed for diverse multigenerational audiences. Beside the public venues, private performances are also presented at homeless shelters, military bases and in correctional facilities.

Old Globe artistic director Barry Edelstein said in a statement that the revival of the Globe for All Tour after the 18-month pandemic is “yet one more sign that our city, and the arts in particular, are roaring back to vibrant life after a long shutdown. Globe for All is a celebration of theater and community, and Shakespeare is its beating heart.”

This year’s production is “Shakespeare: Call and Response,” conceived and directed by Old Globe Resident Artist Patricia McGregor , who directed both the 2018 Globe for All Tour and the Globe’s upcoming filmed production of “Samuel Beckett’s Krapp’s Last Tape,” which will premiere on the Old Globe’s YouTube channel on Monday, Oct. 25..

Old Globe Resident Artist Patricia McGregor portrait

“Shakespeare: Call and Response” is an hourlong celebration of verse, music, dance and audience participation performed by five actors who transform into a variety of Shakespeare characters based on feedback from the audience. Described as part “Whose Line Is It Anyway?” and part “The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged),” it’s a fast-paced, DJ-hosted show that will change with each performance but will feature scenes from five of William Shakespeare’s significant plays.

Freedome Bradley-Ballentine, the Globe’s associate artistic director and director of arts engagement, said Shakespeare lived in uncertain times, just as we do today, so his plays remain timeless.

“Shakespeare is masterful at exploring the human condition, and his prolific works are very relevant in speaking to the times we are living in today,” Bradley-Ballentine said, in a statement. “Patricia McGregor has gathered Shakespeare scenes that speak to the moment we are in and stitched them together with newly written and devised work to create something unique. ‘Shakespeare: Call and Response’ is a celebration and exploration of the things that bind us: love, family, loss, and tragedy. It’s a beautiful way for us to enjoy theatre outdoors, safely and together.”

Admission to all performances of “Shakespeare: Call and Response” are free. No tickets are required. Seating is first-come, first served. All patrons who attend the closing-night performance at the Old Globe on Nov. 14 must wear a mask and submit proof of COVID-19 vaccination or a negative result for a COVID-19 PCR test within 72 hours of the performance. For more details, visit theoldglobe.org/arts-engagement/globe-for-all.

Performance Schedule:

4:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27 — Mountain View Park, 641 S Boundary St, San Diego
4 p.m. Thursday, Oct. 28 — San Diego Central Public Library, 330 Park Blvd., East Village
3:30 p.m. Oct. 29 — Martin Luther King Jr. Park, 570 S. 65th St., Encanto
4 p.m. Oct. 30 — Chula Vista Civic Center Library, 365 F St., Chula Vista
4 p.m. Nov. 2 — Cal State San Marcos University Student Union, 595 Campus View Drive, San Marcos
4:30 p.m. Nov. 5 — Prescott Promenade, 200 E. Main St., El Cajon
4 p.m. Nov. 6 — Montgomery-Waller Recreation Center, 3020 Coronado Ave., Otay Mesa
3:30 p.m. Nov. 10 — Treganza Heritage Park, 3200 Main St., Lemon Grove
3:30 p.m. Nov. 11 — City Heights Performance Annex, 3795 Fairmount Ave, City Heights
3:30 p.m. Nov. 12 — Oceanside Civic Center Plaza, 300 N. Coast Highway, Oceanside
3:30 p.m. Nov. 13 — Lauderbach Park, 333 Oxford St., Chula Vista
3:30 p.m. Nov. 14 — Lowell Davies Festival Theatre, The Old Globe, 1363 Old Globe Way, Balboa Park
Private performances will also be offered at Richard J. Donovan Correctional Facility, Centinela State Prison, Las Colinas Detention and Reentry Facility, San Diego Rescue Missions, Veterans Village San Diego and U.S. Navy installations in San Diego.

Pam Kragen

Pam Kragen is the arts and entertainment editor, as well as the chief theater, dining and opera critic, for the San Diego Union-Tribune. She joined the Union-Tribune staff in October 2012 after 27 years at the North County Times, where she served as the Arts & Features Editor, as well as the paper’s longtime arts writer and theater and opera critic. She is the co-founder of the San Diego Theatre Critics Circle. She holds a bachelor of arts degree in journalism from San Diego State University and completed fellowships in theater criticism at the University of Southern California and opera-classical music criticism at Columbia University’s Graduate School of Journalism. And in 2022, she was chosen as one of the fellows in the prestigious National Critics Institute, run by the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center in Waterf, Conn.