While you’re in: Sample the Shakespeare Festival, revel in Ravel, and create cocktails
Be with the bard
Plenty of South Sound theater lovers have sampled the delights of a trip to Ashland, Oregon, where Shakespeare reigns supreme and, it’s said, retired English teachers go to live out their days among kindred spirits. This summer, Ashland looks a little less appealing, since the Oregon Shakespeare Festival had to shut down its performances. But you can pay a virtual visit to Oregon’s own bard central because the festival has made films of two of this year’s shows available for streaming. “The Copper Children,” a world premiere about the orphan trains that transported young immigrants to the American West in the early 20th century, is available only through July 15, with “A Midsummer Night’s Dream” on tap July 9-22. Each show is $15 for a 48-hour rental — not cheap but way less than a single ticket to the in-person performances. If you just can’t get enough Shakespeare, check out Olympia’s own Animal Fire Theatre Co.’s ongoing series of readings and visit Seattle Shakespeare Company’s Shakespeare at Home, a calendar of what’s available online.
See Juilliard’s students and stars
The Juilliard School’s made-during-quarantine video of Ravel’s “Bolero” reimagines the orchestral classic in many moods and offers a window into the world of the prestigious conservatory’s students and alums. The video combines footage of students and such well-known names as musicians Yo-Yo Ma and Itzhak Perlman and actors Christine Baranski, Patti LuPone, Laura Linney and Bebe Neuwirth (you know, “Frasier’s” wife Lilith). The performers play, dance and sing, yes, but they also brush their teeth, drink coffee, stretch, put on mascara, walk their dogs, wave, meditate and even make faces. “This is really a day in the life of being an artist and a student and a human in this pandemic,” a performer says at the end. It’s a drama and a comedy as well as a musical — all in 9½ minutes. Among the many highlights is a segment where a young dancer crawls behind her sofa cushions to hide. Who can’t relate?
Make a quarantini
OK, so The Olympian is coming a little late to the quarantine cocktail party, but doesn’t summer weather (on those days that the sun actually appears) make you thirsty? “It’s always cocktail hour in a crisis,” food celeb Ina Garten wrote when she posted the viral video in which she makes herself a cosmopolitan using most of a bottle of vodka and pours the result into an absolutely enormous martini glass. “You have to shake it for 30 seconds,” she said in the video. “You have lots of time. It’s not a problem.” If you’re looking for more drink ideas, what’s more pandemic perfect than a trash cocktail? The recipe, shared by the New York Times, reveals how to make an old-fashioned cordial using citrus peels. If you want to show off your culinary creativity, drink it at your next Zoom happy hour.
Freelance writer Molly Gilmore sometimes wants to crawl behind the couch cushions, too, and not just to look for that earring she lost last week. She discusses local arts, entertainment and more with 95.3 KGY-FM’s Michael Stein from 3 to 4 p.m. Fridays.