Steve Cardamone 1993

out, damn PumPkin pants

"If Shakespeare were alive today, he'd want perform-ances of his plays to be contemporary. The pumpkin pants and tights that his actors used were the Levi's of today," says Steve Cardamone ('93). "I don't see a point in doing a Shakespeare production set in Elizabethan times, in Elizabethan dress, when Shakespeare didn't intend for it to be that way."

Pretty strong words for a former self-proclaimed "Shakespeare hater," who was called out for this confession by JMU's former "chairman of the Bard," English professor Ralph Cohen.

Cohen now directs the internationally acclaimed Blackfriars Theatre, and Cardamone is artistic director of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival. The duo's story is not unlike The Two Gentlemen of Verona -- friendship wins in the end. But when Cardamone first arrived at JMU, the bold freshman told Cohen, "Shakespeare was a joke ... [it's] written in a foreign language that isn't relevant today. ... I was unaware of Dr. Cohen's vast background in Shakespeare, including founding the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express. ... Cohen called me a 'melon head' and made me enroll in his Shakespeare class. I learned to look at Shakespeare from a performance perspective. Dr. Cohen changed the way I perceived Shakespeare which, in turn, changed the way I perceived things around me. He changed my life."

  Cardamone performed with the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express for four years and built a love of the Bard that continues. As artistic director of the Nashville Shakespeare Festival, Cardamone directs plays and coordinates workshops and educational programs for the nonprofit theater company. Last summer he directed a production of Romeo and Juliet with -- of course -- contemporary style costumes.

"I hope my artistic direction will make Shakespeare's stories more accessible to modern audiences," he says, "by working to create an ensemble of actors who care less about their individual performances and more about ensuring that the audience gets the story loud and clear."

Cardamone's directing credits include A Midsummer Night's Dream and The Comedy of Errors for the Shenandoah Shakespeare Express, Much Ado About Nothing for Aspen Theater in the Park, Pygmalion at Plays and Players, and Harvey for Capital Productions. He earned a master's degree from the University of Delaware and has worked for the Colorado, Texas and Oregon Shakespeare Festivals.

-- Allison Mall ('04)