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The Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City was founded in 1977 as a professional (AEA) theatre company on the Upper West Side of New York City, by W. Stuart McDowell and Gloria Skurski. Focusing on Shakespeare plays and other classical repertoire, it operated through 1997. ==Establishment and heritage== Originally founded with a core of graduates from the University of California at Berkeley,〔The graduates from the University of California at Berkeley included Stuart McDowell, Gloria Skurski, Mary Skinner, Peter Siiteri, Kent Odell, John Jonas, Bob Helsel, and Dan Southern.〕 the Riverside Shakespeare Company of New York City opened its first production, ''Romeo and Juliet'', in August 1977 in Riverside Park. It then commenced a free parks tour through Manhattan, performing in Washington Square, John Jay Park, Fort Tryon Park, and Columbia University. The production was directed by McDowell.〔With fight choreography by Joel Leffert and music by Michael Moore, featuring Peter Siiteri, Dan Southern, Mary Skinner, Kent Odell and Eric Hoffmann, Jim Brewster, Stuart Rudin and Eloise Watt, Lisa Kramer, Harriet Bigus, Marilyn Beck, Douglas Stone, Warrington Winters, and Victor Argo, all of whom became founding members.〕 An opening-night announcement in ''The New York Times'' read: The Riverside Shakespeare Company is taking up where Joseph Papp left off this summer by presenting free Shakespeare in the park.... The production will be done in traveling minstrel style, evocative of Shakespeare's time. Beforehand, to set the period mood, performers will be scattered around the park – jugglers, fencers, singers, poetry readers. Then a fanfare will call the players to the stage, and the tale of star-cross'd lovers will begin.〔"Shakespeare on the Drive", ''The New York Times'', August 19, 1977.〕 The inaugural production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' was a two-hour version, trimmed to incorporate extensive swordplay, an extended ballroom dance scene, and pantomime, such as the appearance to Juliet of Tybalt's ghost. Each performance was also timed to end with the setting of the sun in mid August. Performances were preceded by the entire company of actors and musicians entertaining the audience with a ''Greenshow'' – a preshow spoof of the production to follow, that served the dual purpose of building a comedic, physical bridge between actor and audience, and of establishing a physical, spontaneous style of acting that incorporated the performance environment into the show. This drew on the roots of the company – and of Shakespeare – in the rich heritage of Commedia dell'arte.〔The tradition of the ''Greenshow'', with which Riverside began its first production of ''Romeo and Juliet'' in 1977 and continued for each of its subsequent parks tours, had been established for company members as a key part of outdoor Shakespeare performance by Carlo Mazonne-Clementi, renowned master of Commedia dell'arte, and Jane Hill, the co-founders of the ''Dell'Arte School of Mime and Comedy'' (now known as the Dell'Arte International School of Physical Theatre) in Blue Lake California, where McDowell and Southern had acted and trained as part of the inaugural summer festivals established by Mazzone and Hill during the summers of 1973–1974. According to Michael Fields, Company Producing Artistic Director of the current Dell'Arte School, Carlo Mazzone-Clementi "...brought to the United States a living breathing theatrical form that changed, moved, inspired and transformed generations of performers." It was this intensive form of physicalization that characterized the carefree ''Greenshows'' and a performance style that became hallmarks of Riverside's subsequent outdoor productions. "Behind the Mask: Carlo Mazzone-Clementi, 1920–2000", Bob Doran, ''The North Coast Journal'', Nov 16, 2000.〕 The following autumn, the company began a series of readings of the works of Shakespeare, reading through the entire canon the first year. Growing out of this, the company inaugurated a series of free radio broadcasts of Shakespeare's works on the New York public radio station, WBAI. A board of directors was soon formed under the guidance of founding chairperson, Elena Scotti of Lincoln Center. At its founding in 1977, the Riverside Shakespeare Company became New York City's only year-round professional Shakespeare company dedicated to the performance of the works of Shakespeare, his contemporaries, and Commedia dell'arte.〔Three years after the founding of Riverside Shakespeare, ''Show Business'' noted that "Going into its third season as New York's only year-round Shakespeare producer, Riverside has established a fine reputation for producing high-quality classic theatre." ''Show Business'', Thursday, August 30, 1979.〕 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Riverside Shakespeare Company」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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