| Madison Dunaway in Twelfth Night. Photo – Kentucky Shakespeare. |
By Keith Waits
Entire contents are copyright © 2013, Keith Waits. All rights reserved.
In an announcement posted early Wednesday on its Facebook page, Kentucky Shakespeare states that all remaining performances of Twelfth Night, originally set to run through July 14, have been cancelled.
Patrons who arrived at Central Park Tuesday evening were disappointed to find there would be no performance, and a Facebook posting that night around 7 p.m. stated that the abrupt cancellation that night was “due to a personal emergency with a cast member….” The following morning’s posting did not elaborate on the reason for shortening the run, but did emphasize that The Players production of Taming of the Shrew and the scheduled Movie Mondays would continue.
Speculation that there is more here than meets the eye runs rampant within the arts community since the announcement, and no more detailed official statement has been forthcoming from Kentucky Shakespeare. The lack of understudies for the lead roles has been explained as the result of a severe budget restrictions. Yet the cancellation of six performances ending a month-long run is highly unusual.
This disruption is particularly unfortunate, coming as it does after a difficult off-season in which the Kentucky Shakespeare Board of Directors struggled to secure funding for the current summer programming. Several individual donors stepped in to ensure the 2013 season would be fully realized.
We will update this story as more information becomes available.
