Nashville Shakespeare Festival Says Farewell to Centennial Park, Hello to a Unique Stage

You know you’re in trouble when you depend on Shakespearean fairies to fix your toilet. 

Something like that happened to Nashville Shakespeare Festival last summer during a performance of the Bard’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream at Centennial Park. At least a thousand people had arrived to watch the production — but few likely realized that the real drama was taking place behind the scenes of Centennial Park’s historic bandshell. 

Built in 1963, the bandshell had fallen into disrepair. The structure was prone to flooding and leaking, and it lacked hot water and proper ventilation. Worst of all, the facility’s toilets tended to back up, and that had Nashville Shakespeare Fest’s executive artistic director Denise Hicks in a panic. 

“We had a thousand people in the audience, and the toilets weren’t working properly,” says Hicks, who portrayed the sprite Puck during the performance. “I grabbed a plunger, and in full costume started working on the toilets.” 

Realizing the show could no longer go on under such adverse conditions, the Nashville Shakespeare Festival team decided to make a dramatic move. After 30 years of staging its Shakespeare in the Park at Centennial Park, the fest is moving its outdoor summer productions to the large green space at the oneCITY development near Charlotte Avenue and 28th/31st Avenue Connector. Performances of The Tempest and Pericles run Aug. 15-Sept. 22, with an encore staging of The Tempest slated for Sept. 26-29 at the Academy Park Performing Arts Center in Franklin. 

Hicks and her company realized last year they would need a new outdoor venue. Nashville’s Department of Parks and Recreation offered to find them another municipal park, but none of the suggested locations seemed appropriate. Then the company learned of oneCITY. 

An old Shakespeare Fest friend, Craige Hoover, who portrayed the character Nick Bottom in a 2013 staging of A Midsummer Night’s Dream, was also a real estate consultant with expertise in mixed-use development. He knew all about oneCITY and recommended that Shakespeare in the Park move there. Hicks found much to admire in the proposed site.

“I loved that the location was less than a quarter-mile from Centennial Park,” says Hicks. “The site is also accessible, convenient and offers ample parking in a three-level garage. Most importantly, it allows us to continue staging our summer Shakespeare in the Park outside on beautiful Nashville nights.”

The new site’s outdoor space is called The Yard and is located on the east side of the complex. The most notable thing about this space is its pavilion, which boasts what oneCITY says is the largest 3D-printed structure in the world. The towering, 20-foot-tall, 42-foot-wide curved installation serves as the pavilion’s open-air bandshell. For this summer’s festival, designer Andy Bleiler has created a set that incorporates the 3D structure.

Shakespeare fans will find plenty of space in The Yard for picnic blankets and lawn chairs, and there will be additional bleacher seating around the Pavilion. For a play like The Tempest, which concerns itself with enchantment and magic, some of the most memorable features will reveal themselves only after sunset, when Jupiter and Saturn shine in the night sky.

Considered one of the last plays Shakespeare wrote on his own, The Tempest serves as a romance, as a bridge between the great playwright’s tragedies and comedies. The action takes place on a remote island, where the sorcerer Prospero and his daughter Miranda have been stranded. With the assistance of the spirit Ariel, Prospero conjures a tempest at sea that washes ashore his enemies Alonso, Antonio and Sebastian. Years earlier, these nobles had usurped Prospero’s dukedom in Milan. Now they face Prospero’s magic and wrath.

For Hicks, who is directing this month’s performances, the defining moment of The Tempest comes in the final act, when a victorious Prospero is finally in the position to exact revenge. Prospero, however, opts for forgiveness. 

“The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance,” Prospero says. 

This rejection of dark psychic forces makes The Tempest the ideal play for the current age. “We’re living in a time of tension and division, yet Shakespeare shows us the value of virtue and humanity over darkness and revenge,” says Hicks. “I can’t think of a better message for our time.”

This summer’s park performance will also include the Shakespearean rarity Pericles. Hicks describes the titular character as a kind of “everyman hero,” a long-suffering protagonist whose story at different times calls to mind Oedipus, Odysseus and Job. The production is directed by Laramie Hearn and features Nashville Shakespeare Festival’s apprentice company of artists ranging in age from 13 to 27.

Both productions this summer will feature original music, with Rollie Mains composing the score for The Tempest and Jodie O’Regan writing the music for Pericles. 

“You can’t have a Shakespeare festival in Music City without original music,” says Hicks.