This spring, Kentucky Shakespeare is bringing The Tempest to a park near you. Or should that be an island?
Set on an enchanted island, the bard’s final play has a tropical feel, complete in this production with toe-tapping Puerto Rican bomba music. Watch it, and you may feel you’ve finally left behind the winter of our discontent (to quote another Shakespeare play).
The 2026 Shakespeare in the Parks tour runs through most of April and May. It will visit 44 parks across the metro area and venues as far away as Berea, Ky., and Richmond, Ind., as well as 20+ area schools. Thanks to presenting sponsors, each park performance is 100% free, although donations are welcome. CLICK HERE for the complete schedule—including rain locations.
As in past years, the tour features a fresh, fast-paced production with a small cast. Third-year director Crystian Wiltshire has crafted an 80-minute, one-act version of The Tempest that relies on just five actors and countless costume changes. The production serves as both an introduction to Shakespeare and a prelude to the Kentucky Shakespeare Festival in Central Park, which runs May 27-August 9. (CLICK HERE for details)
Audience502 recently sat down with Wiltshire and Leonard Peterson III, a second-year tour actor, to learn more about the production.
Audience502: The Tempest includes everything that makes Shakespeare Shakespeare, doesn’t it?
Crystian Wiltshire: Yes. If you want a love story, it has that. If you want fools, it has that. If you want fairies, it has that. If you want a monster, it has that. If you want a shipwreck, it has that. If you want iconic speeches, it has that. I mean, it has everything. It’s him being Shakespeare, just unleashing all of his best qualities into one show.
Leonard Peterson III: I would say it is a magical island frenzy of storms and ships and hallucinations and spirits. You’re really in a magical fantasy land where beasts and monsters can talk and spirits can be invisible and mess with the humans.
Audience502: How do you distill such a jampacked play into 80 minutes?
Wiltshire: The work starts months before the actors arrive. I start cutting first and then collaborate with Greg Maupin, our company dramaturg. He might see value in adding some text back or making a verse clearer. While some text is going to get lost, we don’t want to miss out on the meaning of the story.
Audience502: On the surface, The Tempest seems to be a sort of revenge comedy. Is that your take?
Wiltshire: For awhile, I thought this show was about revenge as Prospero (the main character) chooses to torment those that harmed him and his daughter. But as I’ve gotten older, I’ve come to realize that revenge is the thing that leads him to forgiveness. “The rarer action is in virtue than in vengeance”—that line is my North Star with this particular show.
Audience502: This production features a splash of Spanglish, right?
Wiltshire: I thought how interesting it would be if the folks from the island, Caliban and Ariel, spoke Spanish (but not for the entirety of their text). Thankfully, we found a phenomenal actor named Krisel Morales, who speaks Spanish and just knocked it out of the park. She plays both those roles, with Ariel being a puppet. We’ll also be taking this production to JCPS schools, where the numbers of bilingual students is growing. I’m thinking about how many kids are going to hear their native tongue being spoken on the stage.
Peterson: We even have a song in that’s in full Spanish, which I think is beautiful.
Audience502: What’s the tour experience like for an actor?
Wiltshire: There’s nothing like it. It is extreme on-the-job training for an actor in the best way possible. We show up in one van; the set’s in the van, the actors are in the van. We unload our set, we do the show, and it’s on to the next location. The level of unpredictability depending on the venue and the trust that you have to have with your ensemble is what makes the magic.
Peterson: It’s like being a child on a playground. You’re traveling, and you get to these parks and different venues, and no one show is the same. We have to take into account our architecture and what’s around us, and use that to elevate the story that we’re trying to tell.
Audience502: If everything and everyone fits in a van, the sets must be minimal.
Peterson: We’re going to have a chair and two sit-able block pieces. With those three pieces, we build so many different pictures and worlds so you know exactly where we are on the island. It’s very minimalistic, which I love.
Wiltshire: We don’t want to show up to a park with a bunch of set pieces. We want to let the show illuminate the beauty that’s already within the park. And we use nature. In one venue, if you want to reference trees, they’re there in the park. In other places, maybe it’s a completely open space, and you’ve got to work with that. It’s that level of unpredictability and trust with your fellow ensemble members that makes it worthwhile.
Audience502: How do costumes help define the different characters one actor plays?
Wiltshire: The costume changes are always a fun part of the process. Molly Morgan is our costume designer, and she works to minimize our costume pieces but still make them impactful. If someone is just wearing a jacket, let’s make that jacket really pop, you know. Simple but effective is the best way to go.
Audience502: Do you have a favorite memory from a past tour?
Peterson: Last year, I played Macduff in Macbeth. At one park, a lot of kids were playing before our sword fight. When they saw swords swinging around, they got interested and started scurrying over. I have this beautiful, vulnerable monologue where I’m angry and sad, and the kids are sitting in the trees going, “He’s angry. Why is he so angry?”
Wiltshire: When I played Romeo in 2016, we had to move a performance to our rain space. Only one person decided to stay and watch the show. During the balcony scene, I would always go out in the audience and try to hide behind people. So I’m hiding behind this guy as Juliet is delivering her text. We had a lot of fun with him, and he was so game to play with us. And he later came to see us in Central Park.
Audience502: Any last thoughts?
Peterson: If you want to have an amazing, fun, jammin’ time, you should see this show. Bring the family, a blanket, and some food, and we guarantee you will leave feeling full and joyous.
Wiltshire: I think this is going to be a very, very special show. Don’t miss it.
For more information, visit KYShakespeare.com
By Mark Ray
