I wanted to let you know that this weekend (April 30-May 1) will be our spring Festival of Play at Winedale.  

The spring Shakespeare at Winedale class will be performing The Merchant of Venice both Friday and Saturday evenings at 7:00 p.m. (please note the early start time).  This is a class that has been focusing on conflict and belief in Shakespeare, in conjunction with the Texas Institute for Literary and Textual Studies on 'Religious Conflict in the Renaissance.'  Tickets are available online at www.shakespeare-winedale.org; they are $10, $5 for students.  Please join us if you can!

On Saturday, students from Clayton Stromberger's Outreach program will be performing in the Barn beginning at noon, followed by a Maypole, cake, and games for the kids.  Clayton has been working with students from several central Texas schools on scenes from The Tempest, Romeo and Juliet, A Midsummer Night's Dream and other plays.  These kids are pretty amazing and I know you would enjoy seeing them.

Also, these Outreach students, and others, will perform on the UT campus on May 12 and 14 in our annual UT Children's Shakespeare Festival.  Performances will be in the B. Iden Payne Theatre from 11-1 on both days.  We would love to have some of you join us to see the wonderful work these kids have been doing with Clayton.

We have an exciting summer coming up, with Camp Shakespeare performances June 18-19 and July 9-10, the summer season running July 14-August 8, the Reunion performance August 14, and celebratory 40th Anniversary events throughout the summer.  I hope many of you will be able to participate in some of our pre-performance scenes, or attend our 'Midsummer Night at Winedale' party July 17.  More about those soon!

We hope to see you this weekend--

All the best,

James