FREE FOR ALL
Previous Productions Each summer, with the help of numerous community-minded sponsors, the Theatre
presents ten performances of free Shakespeare at Carter Barron Amphitheatre in Rock
Creek Park. Started in 1991 to bring free Shakespeare to new and diverse audiences
in the Washington metropolitan area, the Free For All has presented Shakespeare
under the stars to more than 500,000 area residents. Students
For Shakespeare, launched in 1996, has attracted thousands of area public
school students to the Free For All by providing transportation and free t-shirts,
fun books and drawings for scholarship savings bonds. The Shakespeare Theatre
Company Free For All's unique contribution to the community was recognized with
the Washington Post Distinguished Service Award in 1992 and the 1997 Public Humanities
Award presented by the Humanities Council of Washington, D.C.
"We wanted Shakespeare to be seen by a wide variety of new audiences—people who had never been to the theatre before, people who are unable to pay for tickets or afford a babysitter, young people, students, people on fixed incomes," remembers Artistic Director Michael Kahn, "And we made this very large commitment [to produce the Free For All] without really knowing if people would come."
They did. And now, the Shakespeare Theatre Company Free For All is a highlight of Washington's summer season, a traditional outing that attracts the city's most diverse audience. More than 500,000 people have attended the Free For All since Paul Winfield took the stage as the "gross, watery pumpkin" Falstaff in Kahn's production of The Merry Wives of Windsor.
"You read the paper, you watch the news, you forget how sweet life can be in this city," wrote Henry Allen in The Washington Post that first year, "And then you catch a night like last night at Carter Barron Amphitheatre, at the Shakespeare Theatre Company Free For All."
Championed by Kahn and Shakespeare Theatre Company founding chairman R. Robert
Linowes, and made possible with invaluable support from The Washington Post,
Philip L. Graham Fund and a committed group of community-minded sponsors, the
Free For All proved an enormous success its first year, attracting more than
2,500 theatregoers each night. Succeeding summers have seen the Free For All
build on its early promise, with audiences flocking to see some of Shakespeare's
greatest plays—Much
Ado about Nothing, Hamlet, Measure for Measure, Henry
V and King Lear—performed by the Shakespeare Theatre Company's
actors and such guest artists as Sabrina LeBeauf, Kelly McGillis and Harry Hamlin.
Former Chair of the National Endowment of the Arts Jane Alexander, a frequent attendee at Free For All productions, enthuses about the program's importance to Washington: "I remember once when I was at the Free For All, there was a couple sitting next to me with a very, very young child, and I began to talk to them and I asked: 'Why are you here?' And they said, 'Where else would we have the opportunity to introduce our child to Shakespeare and be able to afford it?' "
Alexander sums up the sentiments shared by Kahn, the Shakespeare Theatre
Company and the many generous individuals, foundations, and corporations
who make the Free For All possible each year: "The Free For All is a wonderful
success for everybody involved ... not just for the Shakespeare Theatre Company,
but for the entire city."
Past Free For All Productions:
- Summer 2008: Hamlet
- Summer 2007: Love's Labor's Lost
- Summer 2006: Pericles
- Summer 2005: A Midsummer Night's Dream
- Summer 2004: Much Ado about Nothing
- Summer 2003: Hamlet
- Summer 2002: The Two Gentlemen of Verona
- Summer 2001: King Lear
- Summer 2000: The Merchant of Venice
- Summer 1999: The Merry Wives of Windsor
- Summer 1998: All's Well That Ends Well
- Summer 1997: Henry V
- Summer 1996: Measure for Measure
- Summer 1995: Twelfth Night
- Summer 1994: Comedy of Errors
- Summer 1993: Much Ado about Nothing
- Summer 1992: As You Like It
- Summer 1991: The Merry Wives of Windsor
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