Contact Palm Beach Business.com by phone: 561 450-8258. By email.
Take Heed Theater looks at home at Old School Square
Take Heed's production of Much Ado About Nothing. At the far end of the stage is Niki Fridh as Beatrice, with Jill Biegler as Hero, Matt Stabile as Leonato, Patrick Wilkinson (sitting) as Claudio, Hero's father, Brian Edgecomb as Don Pedro and Dave Hyland as Benedick. In the photo below are Niki Fridh as Beatrice and Jill Biegler as Hero.
By David Sedore, Palm Beach Business.com
DELRAY BEACH — It’s 8 o’clock on a Saturday — show time.
Joe Gillie, the executive director of Old School Square, stands on the pavilion stage with Chuck Frustaci, his operations guy. Both look skyward fingers crossed figuratively, if not literally. Nearby stands Dave Hyland of the Take Heed Theater Co., which has transformed the pavilion into Delray Beach’s version of the Globe Theatre for the evening’s performance of Shakespeare’s Much Ado About Nothing.
Unlike the original, this Globe doesn’t have a roof, and that’s a problem, because it’s raining. A couple of dozen patrons huddle under what little shelter is available waiting while Gillie, Frustaci and Hyland huddle.
The clouds break, the rains slow. The show will go on, the men decide. Slowly the crowd builds to about 75 to 100 strong; they set up lawn chairs and lay blankets, umbrellas at the ready and settle in for an evening’s entertainment. It’s a little less than the approximate 125 who watched Friday’s performance under dryer but similarly threatening conditions. For Hyland and Gillie it’s an encouraging sign that there is an appetite for Shakespeare in Delray Beach.
“Give us a couple of sunny days and who knows what we’d do,” Hyland says minutes before the play begins. “I think we’d even surprise ourselves.”
The run is significant for Take Heed because the company, which has been around for three
years and loosely based in Lake Worth, is searching for a permanent home. It would like that home to be Delray.
The company has performed mostly at the G Star School of the Arts in West Palm Beach and at Palm Beach State College’s Lake Worth campus, where the actors have working ties. They are all professionals but most also teach. Hyland, who is the company’s artistic director and an actor himself — he plays the role of Benedick in Much Ado — heads the drama department at Palm Beach State.
Cast members Matt Stabile, Brian Edgecomb, Jill Biegler and Patrick Wilkinson all teach at G Star. Niki Fridh teaches drama at the Gulfstream School.
“We don’t just teach; we do,” Hyland said. “And that makes us better teachers.”
The play has significance as well for Old School Square: it’s the first time the pavilion has been used for a live theater production.
In Much Ado, the six actors play 13 roles. It’s serious Shakespeare but with an appropriate touch of whimsy. The play begins almost like a silent movie, with a ragtime piano theme. The cast marches across the front of the stage carrying a trunk. Inside are signs that reveal the play’s characters, a live version of a Playbill. Without saying a word, the actors introduce each other to the audience.
The six dress in uniform, each donning an off-white smock, black knee pants, black knee socks and black buckled shoes. Each defines his character with a prop or two. You know when Brian Edgecomb is playing Don Pedro because he wears a large pendant that says Don Pedro. Fridh as Beatrice wears a red scarf; when she morphs into Dogberry, she wears brown shawl and puts on a large black mustache.
The set is a collection of brightly colored walls, windows and doors through which the actors enter and exit as the play rolls along.
The audience seems to enjoy what it sees; no one leaves despite the less-than-ideal conditions.
Take Heed for its part enjoys being there. “We just adore the community,” Hyland says. “We think its ready for something like this to happen.”
Old School Square’s Gillie says there’s a pretty good chance that Take Heed will become a permanent part of Delray. He sees a kind of Shakespeare in the Park event at the Old School Square pavilion as an annual event, most likely in March when the weather is cooler and more predictable and the venue has some openings. The company also could be “spotted” a few weekends during the winter season in Old School’s indoor Crest Theatre, although longer runs would be difficult to schedule.
“We’re extremely pleased with the production level and the talent level,” Gillie says. “We think it’s going to take off. Once we establish this, people will start coming on a regular basis.
“It’s the start of a partnership.”
Beatrice and Benedick. Niki Fridh and Dave Hyland in the photo immediately above.
