All of Washington's a stage for the Bard

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How do you sum up Shakespeare's influence in six months? Well, you can't, of course. But Michael M. Kaiser and Michael Kahn have had a lot of fun trying.

Kaiser, president of the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, and Kahn, artistic director of the Shakespeare Theatre Company, respectively, conceived and curated "Shakespeare in Washington," the festival that between now and June is bringing more than 100 performances and presentations to the nation's capital, staged by more than 60 arts organizations.

In addition to Washington-based companies such as Kaiser's and Kahn's, those organizations include established and progressive groups rooted in other parts of the country and the planet, from the New York City Ballet to Russia's Kirov Ballet and Opera and the Cameri Theatre of Tel Aviv.

As that sampling suggests, the festival's focus is not limited to the Bard's own plays. A diverse assortment of music, dance and film efforts, classical and experimental, bears out how Shakespeare continues to influence creative people of every stripe and sensibility.

"No other artist has so influenced all the other arts," Kahn says. "There are geniuses in every form, but I don't know that Mozart's influence has gone into a lot of plays and paintings."

The lectures and exhibits Kahn and Kaiser have scheduled are equally wide-ranging, including Washington's Bead Museum's To Bead or Not to Bead, showcasing jewelry and accessories worn in various productions and adaptations of Shakespeare's work. The character who gave that exhibit its name will face a fresh ordeal in March, when The Supreme Court Hears the Trial of Hamlet, hosted by Kahn with Justice Anthony Kennedy presiding.

Kahn notes that the event, which will enlist audience participation, already has met with such great demand that it has been moved from its original venue, Kennedy Center Terrace Theater, to the larger Eisenhower Theater.

Other offerings have garnered similar enthusiasm, right from the opening event, a free staged reading of Twelfth Night directed by Kahn at the Kennedy Center Concert Hall. The performance was one of numerous free events he and Kahn have sprinkled through the festival.

"We had to turn away 2,000 people because there were only 2,400 seats," Kaiser says. He says ticket prices have been a greater deterrent to potential Shakespeare fans than fear of iambic pentameter: "When you have 4,400 people show up for a three-hour reading that's not even staged or costumed, that means something."

Kahn agrees. "Shakespeare wrote for everybody, and there's something here for everybody. And if you see yourself as liking one art form more than the other, you'll have an opportunity to try the others out." He points to another free event in February, when the Shakespeare Theatre Company, the Washington National Opera and the Washington Ballet will collaborate on Romeo and Juliet.

There also will be modern plays inspired by Shakespeare, including Tom Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead, presented by the Studio Theatre, and the Woolly Mammoth Theatre Company's gender-bending She Stoops to Comedy. Current theater selections range from a King Lear set in ancient Mesopotamia, co-produced by Washington's Folger Theatre and the Classical Theatre of Harlem, and Kahn's more traditional but robustly imaginative Richard III.

A complete list of festival programming is available at shakespeareinwashington.org.

Though Kahn describes Shakespeare In Washington as "a one-time opportunity" in terms of size and scope, he admits that putting it together has made him think about staging a "mini-festival" around the works of another playwright -- something akin, perhaps, to past and upcoming Kennedy Center tributes to latter-day greats such as Tennessee Williams (which Kahn took part in), Stephen Sondheim and August Wilson.

"I've gotten my enthusiasm up and my feet very wet," Kahn says. "It would be great to connect again with other organizations and do something special."

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