Bill Shakespeare Is Back On The Verdant, Tree-Covered Slopes Of Buffalo, New York’s Delaware Park

A Brief from Niagara At Large publisher Doug Draper

If you survived the boredom of grade school English classes enough to still have a place in your heart for the plays of William Shakespeare, don’t miss a chance to enjoy two of his greatest ones in one of the most scenic settings in our Greater Niagara Region.

Shakespeare In Delaware Park in Buffalo, New York is back for 40th season. File photo by Doug Draper

The 40^th season of Shakespeare in Delaware Park is already underway in Buffalo, New York with Romeo & Juliet on now followed byTwelfth Night later this summer.

These performances remain free to the public after all these years despite government cut backs to the arts, which is why members of the cast will walk up the hill during the intermission asking members of the audience to place a small cash donation in a hat.

And it is always a wonderful cast, including some of the best theatrical actors in Western New York.

And it all unfolds in a Delaware Park that is the creation of one of North American’s greatest urban designers, Frederick Olmstead who made his name with Central Park in New York City and went on to create fabulous green spaces in Buffalo, and in places like Goat Island in Niagara Falls and Montebello Park in St. Catharines, Ontario.

The schedules for the Shakepeare in Delaware Parks plays go like this. Romeo & Juliet began on June 18^th and runs to July 12^th. Twelfth Night runs from July 23 to August 16^th. Both plays begin each night at 7:30 p.m (show up early with blankets, pillows and/or lawn chairs) and run Tuesday through Sunday each week, with Monday as an off day.

For more on Shakepeare in Delaware Park, the location of the play site, etc., click on http://shakespeareindelawarepark.org/ .

By the way. I had two great English teachers in high school – Herb Kah and Robert Livesey. The rest of them, as was the case with most of the other teachers I encountered on whatever other subjects imposed upon my peers and I in grade school, bored the ever living crap out of me.

So bad that it wasn’t until years later that I discovered how great the literature of writers like Conrad, and Dickens all by myself. Maybe that’s why it hardly matters to me any more if teachers go on strike. Let’s use any further disruption in our corporate schools as a driver for a movement for community-based, home schooling.

More about that later. In the meantime, see if you can make it out to Delaware Park to enjoy these fabulous plays.

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