In a region whose 40-plus professional theaters pride themselves on producing new work - one in every four of the plays they stage here is a world premiere - and whose late-summer festival of fringy shows often skirts the edge and maybe jumps over it, good old William Shakespeare has had a great season.
The writer of so many familiar phrases may have departed "this mortal coil" (Hamlet) 392 years ago, and, yes, many a new play has come and gone as he's lain "dead as a doornail" (Henry VI, Part 2). But for plenty of directors, actors, and stage designers hereabouts, a successful production of Shakespeare's work remains the "be-all and the end-all" (Macbeth) of their art and craft.
"Shakespeare can hold your interest better than anybody," says Charles McMahon, artistic director of Center City's Lantern Theater.
He was discussing how the playwright galvanizes him as a director (he staged Lantern's Henry IV, Part 1 in the spring), but he could have been speaking of entire theater companies - and, apparently, audiences.
As the master might have coined it were he writing today: Shakespeare still rocks. So much so that in the season now ending, the region's theaters easily will have spent more than $2 million on productions of his plays.
In the 2008-09 season, far fewer companies gave the thumbs up on whether Shakespeare was to be or not to be staged: Six professional companies mounted a total of seven productions, a more typical number. So what happened to "stir, stir, stir!" (Romeo and Juliet) things up in 2009-10?
