The lion’s share of its funding comes from the City of Columbia’s Hospitality Tax program, with additional support from the South Carolina Arts Commission, corporate grants and private gifts from donors and audience members. The company still passes a hat at intermission for those who choose to chip in and contribute.
The spirit Ariel (Kenna Nelson) beholds the sleeping Lord Gonzalo (Bill Arvay) in rehearsal for “The Tempest.”
Provided/The South Carolina Shakespeare Company
Kaufmann has played many classic stage roles, including the male leads in “Death of a Salesman” and “A Streetcar Named Desire,” and has performed everywhere from Key West, Florida, to the famous LaMaMa Experimental Theatre Club in New York. An original member of SCSC, Kaufmann operates a company that provides roleplay-based training for federal employees, and is also the voice heard in the current “University for South Carolina” marketing and branding campaign.
“It’s got such elegant wording, and such human sentiment,” Kaufmann said of the “Tempest” script. “It’s bad enough that he was stripped of fortune and country,” he continued, but at some level “Prospero wants to forgive and forget — but they (i.e. his persecutors) have to be present.”
Khoury said in “The Tempest,” Prospero has “evolved.” A priority for the character is to ensure that Miranda, played by Brittany Bierman, is safely situated in a happy marriage, after which Prospero vows to renounce the dark arts once he is restored to his throne and is able to find closure.
“It’s built up over twelve years,” Kaufmann said. “It’s about his leaving, going back to his job, the one he was born to do, and giving up magic. It’s about the righting of his direction — it’s all for a purpose. It encapsulates so many human ideas about love, and humanity.”
Paul Kaufmann as Prospero and Brittany Bierman as Miranda rehearse a scene from “The Tempest.”
Provided/South Carolina Shakespeare Company
Beyond the script
These themes of conflict resolution and tying up loose ends have led some scholars and dramaturgs to draw parallels with Shakespeare’s own life, and consider this his last play, although he actually collaborated on three more before retiring to his home town of Stratford.
Comments are closed.