Shakespeare festival actors give back to community

BLOOMINGTON, Ill. — As part of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival, Santiago Sosa is preparing for four plays this summer. But his work won’t all be onstage.

Like others in the 100-plus company, Sosa has made service part of his seasonal stay. For him, that’s meant attending a Rotary Club picnic and teaching arts appreciation to Hispanic youth.

“We’re looking for places to share the arts — and that’s across the community,” said Sosa, of Madison, Wis.

Illinois State University provides the main funding for the 33-year-old festival, and ticket sales generate about 30 percent of its operating budget.

But the program also thrives from the help of community organizations, individual donors, and corporate sponsors, said Dick Folse, festival managing director.

This Friday’s 10th annual John Stevens Memorial Golf Outing at the ISU Weibring golf course is one example, as is a State Farm Insurance Cos. donation to make seats available to underserved populations. In return for that kind of attention, the theater company wants to give back, said Folse.

“It really is a two-way street,” added Adam Fox, who manages the festival’s stage and company staff of 20 actors and 87 support crew.

Most of these professionals aren’t local residents, but they really immerse themselves here. They’ve come to recognize how much the festival is truly loved, he said.

“Part of our job in theater is giving back,” said Chad Lowell, festival production manager.

Fox joined several company carpenters Saturday in volunteering for Habitat for Humanity of McLean County. He’ll also lead backstage tours this week of the Theatre at Ewing for youngsters in a Normal Parks and Recreation camp, and he’s helped organize a blood drive.

Meanwhile, other local groups have made performances accessible to young people not traditionally exposed to arts. That’s imperative to experiencing the genius of William Shakespeare, said Folse.

“The work comes to life when acted out in a whole different way than reading it,” he said.

This summer, five local Rotary clubs joined in a promotional night that will produce funds for social service agencies to bring youth groups to the plays.

Watching this level of professionalism will make the material easier to understand, said Folse.

Jane Chamberlain, a Rotarian who also is YWCA chief executive officer, is excited about the first-year partnership.

“Youth that might otherwise not find themselves attending these kinds of productions” deserve to see Shakespeare, too, she said. On the promotion night, 130 seats donated by Rotary fundraising will be filled with children and their chaperones, who’ll first join Rotary donors for dinner and a theater tour.

Sosa, who is earning a master’s degree at the University of Wisconsin-Madison, was born in Texas and raised in Ecuador. He learned English as a second language, as did one of the company’s actresses. The two will perform scenes of “Romeo and Juliet” in Spanish as a community service project.

The presentation, for a group of youth and their parents learning English, is an opportunity for Sosa to reach a different audience, and he’s looking forward to it.

“There’s a sort of stigma that there are not Hispanics doing classical theater. . Hopefully this will show them that’s not the case,” he said.

Sosa recalled his father’s advice, received while a teen in a high school production of the tragic lovers’ tale.

“My father told me I should do more acting when I was older, and I said, `C’mon there’s no Hispanics doing that,’ and then he sat me down and told me about Raul Julia, Jimmy Smits and others out there making it.”

100 Black Men of Central Illinois has organized another outreach program. They’ll bring 60 people to all three main stage shows, representing a member of the group, an ISU athlete and a minority teen from the Lawrence Irving Neighborhood Center. Before each performance, the visitors will take part in leadership lessons, said Folse.

“Some of these ISU athletes are first-generation college students. Who better to deliver this message about the importance of arts than freshmen or sophomores in college?” said Folse. “Those kids don’t want to hear that from me, or some other old guy.”

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