OAK PARK (WBBM NEWSRADIO) — Things are abuzz in Austin Gardens as the Oak Park Festival Theatre returns with its brand new stage, which is currently under construction in the middle of a public park.
"It's one of the oldest outdoor professional theaters still in existence in the central region. We're going into our 47th season,” said Barbara Zahora, Artistic Director at the Oak Park Festival Theatre. “We weren't always in Austin Gardens. We were in, almost, like a pageant wagon about a half-mile from here. In 1978, they found this park.”
"Oak Park has grown up around this little jewel," Zahora said.
What makes the community theater unique is that it uses a public park.
"We are bringing an entire set, all the lights, all the sound to just a lawn every year," Zahora said.
The Oak Park Festival ensemble has performed hundreds of times in Austin Gardens, and they average about four shows a year.
After a pandemic shutdown and a devastating fire in November of 2021, the community theater group is returning to live performances this summer.
"We had a fire at our main offices,” Zahora said. “It was declared a total loss for us. Our lighting, our equipment. We lost a lot of memorabilia, photographs. It was a rough end of the year."
Zahora added that the community has rallied around the theater during the last two years.
"People have been incredibly generous, both in material donations, [financial donations] and emotional support for us all,” she said. “We're still down people, down materials, down equipment."
The Oak Park Festival Theatre, founded in 1975, is a 501C3 non-profit.
"We rely on donations,” Zahora said. “People have been amazingly supportive.”
The theater opens another season on July 16 with Shakespeare’s "The Winter's Tale."
"The past couple of years was extremely difficult,” said actor and director Kevin Theis. “But we're ready to be back.”
"We are right in the middle of building the set,” Theis said. “It's a really challenging play. It's not Romeo & Juliet, it's a lesser-known Shakespeare. We're so excited to bring this show to people. People aren't going to believe it. The plot is fascinating."
The stage is created from scratch with each production.
"We build from the ground up every year,” Zahora said. “We have chosen to date to do our whole build from the ground up. We start with nothing and it's all built in about 3 weeks.”
Theis said working outside has its challenges.
"You have to deal with weather, rain, wind and then there is the village itself,” he laughed. “We have fire trucks go by, dogs barking, firecrackers. It can be crazy, chaotic but you gotta focus."
"Winter's Tale" has 13 cast members, a costume designer, a set designer and several other crew members.
“When we are done with this, it's going to look like you reached right down into these kind of Stalingrad buildings and plunked a government building down in the park,” Theis said. “We then switch to Bohemia after intermission. That's the magic of theater. How do we go from outside, where everyone can see what you're doing — but that's the fun part."
Zahora says Oak Park Festival Theatre is unique to the Midwest.
"We're kinda like a drive-in movie theater,” she said. “I feel like we are holding up an old school part of the past and that's kind of wonderful.”
"It's Ravinia, but it's Shakespeare,” Theis said. “You bring your dinner, you bring your bottle of wine. You camp out in the park early. The sun goes down, the lights come up and you get to watch Shakespeare outside. It's great fun."
Both agree the last few years have been a rollercoaster, but the ensemble has come out of the other side with new hope for the future.
"When that fire happened, we were still coming off of COVID. Even though we did well that previous summer, I just thought, is something trying to tell us to just stop. I'm thrilled that's not the case. Art always finds a way, it always finds its way, and it did," she smiled.
"The Winter's Tale" opens at Austin Gardens in Oak Park July 16th and will run through August 20th. Performances are Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., as well as Sundays at 7 p.m.
Brom Stoker's "Dracula" will debut on Oct. 12 at Pleasant Home in Oak Park.
Tickets are available at https://oakparkfestival.com/
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