Hope Summer Repertory Theatre celebrating 50 years with large slate of performances
HOLLAND — Hope Summer Repertory Theatre is going big as it reaches the half-century mark. The company began its 50th anniversary season earlier this summer and will continue to perform through early August.
“It’s been a great year, everybody is really excited,” HSRT Artistic Director Lenny Banovez said. “The shows have been fabulous and they’re continuing to be fabulous.”
The nine shows on the schedule for this year are the most ever for HSRT.
“We knew we wanted to go big,” Banovez said. “Doing nine shows, that’s the most we’ve ever done in a year by a long shot. We definitely knew we wanted to go big in terms of programming and make sure that it felt like a 50th anniversary season.”
Founded in 1972 by Hope College Theatre professor John Tammi, HSRT is a professional theatre company that puts on shows every summer. The HSRT Company is made up of over 100 members including casts and crews.
Over the 50 seasons, Banovez said HSRT has “evolved” to provide more diverse stories and shows, along with the classic shows.
“I believe that we’re still doing shows that are crowd pleasers, the golden oldies, the ones with a big wow factor,” he said. “But we’re doing more diverse stories, too, and that is a great thing for the community.
“I love to see the shows that we’re doing now, and the community embracing them fully.”
This season’s schedule consists of nine shows, some of which have concluded their runs. Performances of “Every Brilliant Thing,” “50 Years of HSRT,” “A Gentleman’s Guide to Love and Murder” and “Figaro” have wrapped up as of early July.
“Lulu and the Long Walk,” a commissioned children’s musical making its world premiere, opened June 23 and continues until Aug. 4. The musical was created by Ayesu Lartey with set artistry by Holland’s Joel Schoon Tanis. It is based on a book from Dan Haseltine and Schoon Tanis.
A one-person play centered on the internment of a Japanese-American family called “Hold These Truths” opened July 1 and runs through July 16. The classic Shakespeare comedy “Much Ado About Nothing” opened Friday and will be performed through July 22.
“The Color Purple,” a musical based on the Pulitzer Prize-winning novel and Steven Spielberg film, will run July 23-Aug. 4. The show is considered the “flagship” for the anniversary season.
A special holiday performance of “It’s a Wonderful Life” will be performed Dec. 20-23 at the Knickerbocker Theatre as well.
Banovez said he likes to give people “something they know they like, something they think they like and something they don’t know they like” within an HSRT season.
HSRT is performing in four venues this summer — The DeWitt Theatre, DeWitt Studio Theatre and Jack Miller Recital Hall on Hope College’s campus and the Knickerbocker Theatre in downtown Holland.
Banovez said holding shows at four different theaters gives the programming more of a festival feel.
Tickets are available at Hope College’s ticket office in the Anderson-Werkman Building on Eighth Street, online at hope.edu/hsrt or by phone at 616-395-7890. HSRT asks that patrons be masked at all times during performances in order to ensure the season can continue with no interruptions.
— Contact reporter Mitchell Boatman at mboatman@hollandsentinel.com. Follow him on Twitter @SentinelMitch.
This article originally appeared on The Holland Sentinel: Hope Summer Repertory Theatre celebrating 50th anniversary season
