Odessa Arts, Odessa College, Basin PBS and the Texas Shakespeare Festival have partnered to film two Shakespeare plays, “Hamlet” and “Much Ado About Nothing,”at the Globe Theater at Odessa College.
These filmed performances will be broadcast on Basin PBS in honor of Shakespeare’s birthday, April 23.
“When the COVID pandemic hit, live performances were shut down immediately. One of the first cancellations was the 2020 Odessa Shakespeare Festival scheduled for November 2020,’ Odessa Arts Executive Director Randy Ham said in a news release. “We knew this was going to mean disappointing a lot of students, so we immediately started working on a scenario where we could do something.”
Odessa Arts and the Texas Shakespeare Festival had been working together for the past five years building an audience. Matthew Simpson, associate artistic director of TSF, began crafting a plan to cast and rehearse the productions in TSF’s home in Kilgore. The cast would rehearse for three weeks, observing strict quarantine rules, maintaining social distancing, wearing masks and sanitizing. The cast was tested once a week while in Kilgore.
The cast and crew arrived in Odessa on Feb. 21, and were immediately tested one more time. After two days of rehearsal in the space, Overton Films arrived to capture the performances on film. The shooting schedule will keep the cast and crew in Odessa through Feb. 26. Upon completion, Overton Films will edit the footage, which will then be broadcast on Basin PBS. In addition, digital copes of the film will be made available for classroom use to any school that requests them.
