by Joe Mooney
SHAKESPEARE IN THE Arb turns 15 this summer, and Matthaei Botanical Gardens and Nichols Arboretum are celebrating with the upcoming exhibition, “Shakespeare’s Garden.” The week-long celebration kicks off March 27 and continues through May 4, 2015, 10 a.m.–4:30 p.m. daily (until 8 p.m. Wednesdays).
Throughout the conservatory at Matthaei and in the display gardens, plants and flowers that appear in the works of Shakespeare will be featured, accompanied by relevant passages from the Bard’s plays and poems.
“The exhibition will be a great opportunity to experience the plants in the conservatory at Matthaei through the words of Shakespeare,” said Matthaei-Nichols visitor services manager David Betz. “We hope visitors will appreciate how important nature and plants were to Shakespeare and to his work.”
Betz said the exhibition will have something for everyone: photographs from past Shakespeare in the Arb productions, artist and U-M alum David Zinn’s Shakespeare in the Arb posters, and a selection of original costumes from director Kate Mendeloff’s Residential College productions. Visitors will also see in the conservatory a Shakespearean fairy village complete with the Globe Theater, a medieval castle and an Elizabethan town square.
Shakespeare in the Arb began in spring 2001, when then-Matthaei-Nichols development director Inger Schultz received a three-year Ford Motor Co. grant for the arts. Schultz, impressed by Kate Mendeloff’s U-M Residential College outdoor production of Chekhov’s “The Seagull,” invited Mendeloff to produce a play in Nichols Arboretum using part of the Ford funding.
Mendeloff, who specializes in early modern and modern drama, originally considered directing Chekhov’s work once again. Instead she chose Shakespeare’s masterpiece “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” a play she says is “perfect for the Arb,” with its natural setting, structure and language. The apparent crowd favorite, “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” has enjoyed a repeat performance every five years and will be performed again this summer for the 15th anniversary of Shakespeare in the Arb.
The Shakespeare’s Garden exhibition is free to the public. Shakespeare in the Arb performances in June are ticketed events. Tickets will be available later this spring.
