Megan Navarro
WIMBERLEY — With the help of Wimberley’s Parks & Recreation Department, the students of Central Texas Theatre Academy have worked to bring Shakespeare to life at Blue Hole Regional Park.
Founded in 2020 by Bridget Gates, the academy was established in Wimberley with the mission to provide every child with the opportunity to fulfill their dreams of being on stage and participating in theatre programs, alongside instilling them with a lifelong appreciation of the arts. The after school theatre education program has classes for ages five through seven, eight through 11 and 12 through 18; the younger classes have smaller, shorter performances, while the older classes do full productions.
One of the full productions includes Shakespeare on the River, which is in its fifth year of being a six-week program for students ages 12-18. Beginning on July 7, the students meet at Central Texas Theatre Academy Monday through Friday, where they design and build costumes and sets, participate in professional theatre workshops and rehearse for their production — this year being “Much Ado About Nothing.”
Prior to starting up Central Texas Theatre Academy, Gates ran the EmilyAnn Theatre in Wimberley for more than 12 years. During COVID-19, the EmilyAnn Theatre was forced to shut down the program, but Gates was able to find an alternative space — where the academy is currently housed. According to her, it’s great for student shows and rehearsal space, however, they are limited to an audience of 45, thus leading them to expand bringing Shakespeare productions to the Blanco River.
“I actually met with Richard Shaver, who is the director of the Wimberley Parks and Rec team; he encouraged us and really wanted to partner with us to bring the show out to the river. One cool thing about it is the students, they [build their] costumes and sets, but … we also have lighting towers and lighting equipment and we transport all of that out there. They have teams and sort of little subgroups they work in. So, we have a team of students that actually hook up and set up all of the lighting equipment out there, as well,” she said. “We'll have some people working on bringing all the costumes out, hanging up the costumes, assigning the costumes, sorting. We have other people that are putting up the tents that serve as our backstage area. Then, we have a lighting team that's putting up lights. It's like a big working machine. It's pretty cool to get to have that experience to kind of feel like we're touring the show.”
Putting on the Shakespeare on the River show is not an easy feat. Gates shared that her husband, who is a theatre history professor at Texas State University, helps the students with breaking down the language — known as scansion — alongside Shakespeare professional, Bill Perkins. While blocking for the show, they also learn about iambic pentameter and all of the different ways that the text can be broken down, along with analyzing the text and characters.
The leads of the show, Chloe Swindle, who is playing Beatrice, and Austin Howard, who is playing Benedick, both shared that they believe the Shakespeare on the River program is beneficial to local students and the community.
Swindle has been doing theatre with Gates since she was five years old and always knew that she wanted to eventually partake in the Shakespeare program, looking up to the actors who were onstage since she was little. With her love for acting and the community that she relied on and spent her summers with, she decided to join five years ago and said it was one of the best decisions she made.
“You can get very beneficial training that you can use elsewhere. We also get a professional Shakespeare workshop, which is going to help us dive into those texts better because we get to understand the language of Shakespeare, which can also help with school, if you ever have to analyze Shakespeare texts within school,” Swindle said. “A lot of school theaters tend to stray away from Shakespeare because it's so challenging for actors to sometimes comprehend. So, understanding this and being involved in such a Shakespeare workshop, if you want to be involved in theater when you're in secondary education or in college, you'll have that prior experience, which could give you an advantage whenever you're in professional settings or wanting to work professionally within the theater world.”
For Howard, he did a lot of community theatre growing up in San Marcos, especially summer camps at Texas State University for intermediate acting courses. When he was in the seventh grade, his family moved closer to the Wimberley area. Though his middle school did not have a theatre program, Central Texas Theatre Academy was opening up and so, after enrolling into courses and programs there, that contributed to his decision to transfer to Wimberley ISD and become more involved in the local community and activities there.
“Shakespeare is very interesting, like just a text to work with and very rewarding to get out of it because the skills that you learn, especially the Shakespeare on the River program, can transfer over extremely well to other parts of academic life and not even just that,” Howard said. “It just contributes more to your overall enjoyment of not just like Shakespeare programs, but theater as a whole, in my opinion, like the skills that I've learned in the workshops that are conducted here over the summer have contributed very largely to the growth of my skill as an actor and has contributed very much to my love of theater in general and my appreciation for kids who don't see a lot of other places.”
Swindle will be attending The University of Texas at Austin beginning this August and though she is not planning on majoring in theatre, she is going to find community theatre classes and do shows with Gates over the summer.
“I do definitely plan to continue doing theater, maybe not professionally, but still in the community world,” she said.
Similar to Swindle, Howard is looking at colleges that are close by to continue to stay and help with the programs at Central Texas Theatre Academy.
Shakespeare on the River has two more free performances for the community from 8-9:30 p.m. Aug. 7 and 10 at the Blue Hole Regional Park Swim Lawn, located at 333 Blue Hole Lane, Wimberley.
More information about Central Texas Theatre Academy can be found at www.centextheatre.org.
