Saying Goodbye to 2011 - Shakespeare Resonates With Oakland School for the Arts in: Comedy of Errors

 

While some universities have dropped the Shakespeare requirement for English majors, Oakland School for the Arts’ weekend performance got standing ovation on their version of Shakespeare’s The Comedy of Errors.

Featuring acrobats, aerialists, mistaken identities, slapstick, puns, word play and much more, these middle and high school students under the direction of Terry Bamberger, Theater teacher, received  standing ovations all weekend long from a packed house at the Kinetic Arts Center in Oakland.

The Comedy of Errors is one of William Shakespeare’s earliest, shortest and farcical comedies. 

In the OSA’s version, the town of Ephesus is suggestive of a 10^th century Italian circus town preparing for their town’s performance. The setting of the comedy involves a history of portrayal in a fashion done with clowns and jesters in 19^th century London productions that resurged in the 21^st century by the Brothers Karamazov, the Royal Shakespeare Company and the San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s 2009 production.

According to Bamberger, it was their first Shakespeare production and it was transformative. “To watch the cast of students go from the first reading after never having done this before, the kids got a crash course in scanning lines, imagery and research as well as a crash course in history that created meaning for them now – within a two month period.” 

With a cast of 28 actors and crew members, the make-up and exquisite costumes created a magic on stage that was impressive. “A lot of the costumes were on loan from American Conservatory Theater in San Francisco,” says Bamberger.

OSA provides students with intensive conservatory style training in the arts while maintaining a rigorous college-preparatory curriculum. “Our students work and study hard and really know how to play hard as well,” says Don Harris, Executive and Artistic Director.

Filled with the dramatic mix of trickery, nimble jugglers deceiving the eye, amazing acrobats and dark working sorcerers, this skilled cast of circus arts and theater student actors’ delivered a five–show run in one weekend. 

“The most fun of all for me were the cool tricks I got to do, says 8^th grader,” Isabella Miller. Miller is a member of the Circus Spire Youth Group.

The college prep arts school is a charter from Oakland Unified School District and was the dream child of California Governor Jerry Brown.

Starting at the Alice Arts Center Building in downtown Oakland in 2002, by January, 2009 it moved to the newly remodeled historical Fox Oakland Theater.

The first senior graduation class of 2006, graduated with 100 percent of the class being accepted at four-year colleges. Students were accepted at a wide variety of academic and artistic institutions to include, Le Cardon Bleu California Culinary Academy, Columbia University, Stanford University, Spelman College, Howard University, Berklee College of Music, Boston Conservatory, California College of the Arts, UCLA, UC Berkeley, San Francisco State, our own CSUEB and many more.

Known as one of the most supported schools in Oakland by parents, teachers and the community, the school has done international productions in New York, England, and all over the globe.

 

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In charge of advertising and publicity, Andrea Fullington and Terese Merrell, parents of middle school students participating in the performance worked diligently to attract advertising for the performance from a variety of sources, including KQED and KCBS.

“The students are amazing and represent the culture of visual arts in Oakland,” says Rosie Fogelman, mother of Primo Stockton, 7^th grade, who played the First Merchant in the production.