Local Shakespeare company takes classic performance to unexpected graveyard

The Flatwater Shakespeare actors are used to performing for a dead audience – literally.

After the troupe's founding 11 years ago, Lincoln's Flatwater Shakespeare Company began using the Wyuka Stables (of Wyuka Cemetery) – fondly known to the actors as the Swan Theatre, after Shakespeare's theater – for performances.

The professional company performs Shakespeare's works, as well as contemporary plays, with their season running from late spring to early fall. This year they will open on Mar. 29 and beginning June 13, they will show adult and children's performances of "Twelfth Night."

Flatwater Shakespeare director, Bob Hall, was first introduced to the stables when he moved back to Lincoln. He has performed in renditions of Shakespeare's plays throughout his career and decided it was exactly what Lincoln needed. The Swan Theatre added the perfect touch.

"If you've studied Shakespeare and you knew Shakespeare, you would think, ‘Jesus, this is a Shakespearean theater,'" said Hall.

Or at least, it was.

The Wyuka Stable Building was finished in 1908 as part of a cemetery beautification project to house the horses needed to work on the grounds and drive funeral processions. Within a few years of the completion of the building though, the use of motor-powered vehicles began growing and the stables became a shed.

The stable building has also previously been used for children's theater and Medieval re-enactors.

"What you're seeing here is a building that really has not been used for its original purpose and was used for a long time (as a garage and storage for maintenance crews) ... until Flatwater Shakespeare discovered it," said Lori Raphael, the development director for Wyuka.

Currently a rusting boat, trampoline and orange polyester chair litter two drafty stable rooms that are now destined to become an air-conditioned and heated meeting room, available to the community. Outside of the two rooms stands the stage, or more of a decaying courtyard at this point.

During its summer shows, about 120 audience members are able to squeeze inside. They sit on either side of the stage and in the instance of a summer storm they are able to move back into the garage space. The theater company usually builds a platform using an alley design.

But actors are rarely limited to just the platform.

Hall stages shows to use all parts of the stables, including the hayloft for balcony scenes, such as the famous "Romeo and Juliet" dialogue and sometimes actors will repel from the rooftop or other windows in the stables.

"People see the outside and they're like, ‘Does Shakespeare go on in there?'" Raphael said, "And it does, because it has this wonderful courtyard."

Despite its grave appearance, Hall said the Wyuka Cemetery doesn't affect audience turnout too much. Patrons attend shows, despite the location.

"I think when people look beyond the sad times they've been here ... I think they get it," Raphael said.

According to her, the building's restoration, which will be funded by the Federal Transportation Enhancement Program is set to begin as early as this spring and could take up to nine months to complete.

When finished, the stable will continue to be used by the Flatwater Shakespeare Company as a theater and as a place for Lincoln residents to hold graduation parties and meetings.

While they are away from their home, Flatwater will perform at different venues, including the Haymarket Theater. But the great outdoors continue to call their name.

Last summer the group toured Lincoln, performing in six local parks in an attempt to bring Shakespeare's shows to a larger demographic.

"We feel it really reached out to different parts of the community," Hall said.

However, the company's home stage will always be at The Swan: It's the place they have transfigured into a Shakespearean world for more than a decade.

Raphael remembers one particular production where a torrential downpour began halfway through the show. The theater cleared out, save for about 20 audience members and the actors improvised the rest of the show beneath the hay mount.

"If they do a comedy, you will be in stitches," Raphael said. "If they do a tragedy, you will feel tears come to your eyes. The audience was just overwhelmed with gratitude towards the actors."

katienelson@dailynebraskan.com