Community Collaboration--Expansion of Great River Shakespeare Festival Public Library Complimentary Ticket Program
This proposal has two expected outcomes: 1) The program will increase availability of the arts to the public. 2) The program will connect the text of Shakespeare's plays to the experience of a live performance of Shakespeare's play(s). The Great River Shakespeare Festival will measure these outcomes in the following ways: Video recordings will be taken of portions of the WillReads sessions, with interviews of participants included directly following the session. GRSF aims to record part of each session at each library, so long as the participants and library agree to be recorded.
The Great River Shakespeare Festival will collect email addresses by requesting it on the back of the complimentary ticket vouchers. At the conclusion of the 2013 performance season, GRSF will administer an online survey requesting the response of those patrons that utilized the free tickets.
1.) Comments from the Library Ticket Voucher surveys stating that the patrons would not have been able to attend the performances without the access to the vouchers. Feedback from members of this target audience included: "We would not be able to afford tickets without the ticket vouchers. These are a great way to introduce people unsure of Shakespeare to GRSF. I encouraged everyone I knew to attend." "As a senior citizen, it enabled me to attend the performances." "In our current state, it gave us the opportunity to be able to view the play."
2.) Many patrons who had seen a number of productions attended the library partnership workshops, and expressed coming away from the workshops feeling a greater connection with GRSF, with Shakespeare, and a deeper understanding of the world of professional theatre and professional Shakespeare production. Patrons were asked about their reaction to reading versus seeing the plays, and reading the plays and receiving information about them prior to seeing them. Here are some of the responses in that category:
"Absolutely! They helped me to keep track of the characters and understand the subtleties more."
"Reading an overview made me less nervous that I would miss key points in the plot. I was excited to see how they would depict war scenes and themes." "I really liked that the library also was able to provide copies of the play to read prior to viewing."
3.) Several library patrons who had never attended a GRSF production attended the Library Partnership Workshops. The presenters enjoyed the interesting and enlightening conversation with many positive, inspiring patron interactions throughout the process.
Other Outcome Goals:
On numerous occasions, patrons volunteered the opinions that the material was engaging and that the workshop enhanced their viewing of the plays when they did see them. "I highly recommend the workshop. The presenter was enthusiastic and informative. I'm sure that the workshop helped me decide what play to attend and to understand the performance more than I would have without the workshop." 62 copies of the plays were checked out during the project.
Hokah Public Library, LaCrescent Public Library, Houston Public Library, Lanesboro Public Library, Rushford Public Library, St. Charles Public Library, Winona Public library