The Merry Wives of Windsor in Clark Park. July 2012.

A fundraising campaign is currently underway to help bring more free Shakespeare shows to the neighborhood. Some of The Merry Wives of Windsor shows this past summer were rained out and end-of-performance red bucket donations were half of what is needed to make next year’s show possible. To support Shakespeare in Clark Park, please visit The Red Bucket Campaign page and submit your donation.

NOTE: The fundraising campaign ends on Sunday, 11:59 p.m.

Clark Park Youth Soccer, a non-competitive and family-friendly program, is looking for volunteer coaches to work with children between ages 5 and 11.

The Fall season begins on Saturday, September 22 and continues until November 17. Kids ages 5-7 practice and play at 10:30-Noon; kids ages 7-11 practice and play from Noon to 1:30. Each team has two to three coaches assigned (with a roster of subs).

If you want fresh air and exercise on Saturday mornings or afternoons and enjoy working with kids, please email to: clarkparksoccer@yahoo.com. Parents, students, or neighborhood soccer enthusiasts are welcome to apply. More information about the program is available here.

Twelve bike racks will be installed in the sidewalks around Clark Park this Saturday and Sunday. A group of volunteers from the Friends of Clark Park will do the work. Please contact Doug Naphas (douglasnaphas@gmail.com) if you would like to help with the installation or if you can lend any of the following tools: a hammer drill, a portable generator, an impact driver, a Shop-Vac, extension cords, a caulk gun.

Registration is now open for the Fall 2012 season of Clark Park Youth Soccer League, a recreational, non-competitive soccer program. The program kicks off on Saturday, September 22 and kids ages 5 through 11 are welcome to register. Registration information and forms can be found on this page. If you have questions, please email clarkparksoccer@yahoo.com.

Last night Clark Park hosted the first performance of the “Merry Wives of Windsor” as part of the annual summer “Shakespeare in Clark Park.” It was great – see the review below written by Kelly Lawler. Also, please check out our photos of the merry performers and the crowd watching them. Not only is Shakespeare in Clark Park a great chance to connect with friends and neighbors and see a great show, it’s also a great place to people-watch.

If they weren’t using Shakespearean language, a passerby might mistake the performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor for a party or a dance or a barbecue in Clark Park’s bowl. And indeed, everyone has fun with the play; the actors, the musicians, and the audience all revel in the ridiculousness and hilarity. And the result is a very pleasant theater experience.

The play, one of Shakespeare’s less-famous comedies, follows several wives and lovers through an absurd series of events. Falstaff, a knight, is in debt and decides to alleviate this problem by seducing the wives of two rich merchants, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Meanwhile, Mistress Page’s daughter, Anne, is in love with Fenton, but her father wants her to marry Slender and her mother wants her to marry Dr. Caius. Hilarity ensues.

Merry Wives takes place in Elizabethan Windsor in England, but as is the norm with Shakespeare productions now, it is put in a different setting. The director, Rebecca Wright, chose to place it in an old West setting, complete with cowboy hats and boots and country music. It works well in an outdoor performance like this, where the physical space is so large and so distinct that the actors and the set and the props must also be large and hammy to compensate. If the play were inside a normal theater it might have seemed cheesy, but instead it worked well in the park. The production was at its best when it utilized the space it was in. Not being able to have a traditional “back stage” area the actors were forced to stay in character for the whole performance, even when not in the scene. But this allowed things like young lovers Fenton and Anne to wander off and have a romantic talk under a distant tree.

The production also utilized music very well. A three piece band accompanied much of the show, complete with a banjo and a real washtub-bass. Original songs were written for the production, which was more of a musical than other Shakespeare, but worked really well both with the absurd story of Merry Wives, and with the Western setting. It was also great for the audience who got to clap along to the beat, and join in the party-like atmosphere of the play.

All in all the performance is a lot of fun. The story is easy to follow and quite funny. With a picnic blanket and basket, Shakespeare in Clark Park is a really lovely way to spend a summer evening.

– Kelly Lawler

If you missed last night’s show, there are four more left. For more information, go here.

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Shakespeare is coming to Clark Park this week, and all I have to say is: to picnic or not to picnic, that is the question.

From this Wednesday, July 25, to Sunday the 29, Shakespeare’s comedic classic, The Merry Wives of Windsor will be performed in Clark Park at 7:00 p.m. The play chronicles Falstaff, a poor sod in Elizabethan England, who decides to solve his debt problems by wooing the wives of wealthy merchants. But of course, the wives have a plan of their own. The play is directed by Rebecca Wright and stars Jess Conda as Mistress Ford, Mary Tuomanen as Mistress Page, and Robert DaPonte as Falstaff.

All shows are free (although donations are accepted) and are performed outdoors in the park by the Shakespeare in Clark Park company. It is recommended that you bring chairs and blankets, as the performance is just under two hours, and there is no intermission. The play is family-appropriate and a great treat for those who’ve never seen it before.

Shakespeare in Clark Park was started in the fall of 2005 and has grown immensely since then. The free outdoor performances have become a much-anticipated event of the West Philly summer. As Mistress Quickly says, in the play, “Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.” In the most fun way possible, of course.

Look for our review of this performance later this week.

– Kelly Lawler

Dear Department of Parks and Recreation,

So it has been seriously hot over the last couple of weeks. You already know this. We hear it is going to be just as hot for another week. Here’s the problem: We have a great drinking fountain in Clark Park that is right next to the basketball courts and playground. We would love to use it because, as you probably know, playing basketball when it is 95 degrees out makes you very thirsty. But the fountain doesn’t work. Could you please, please fix it?

Sincerely,

The Kids of Clark Park

(This letter represents views we heard expressed in Clark Park by kids young and old who want their fountain fixed.)