In April, the future of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival looked bleak. The last week of that month, Sidonie Garrett, the festival's artistic director, warned fans that unless the festival could raise $100,000 in 10 days, the Shakespeare in the Park production of Macbeth would be canceled, ending the project's 19-year outdoor run in Kansas City. Local Shakespeare fans didn't let that happen. In just a week, supporters ponied up the hundred large, saving Macbeth for the city. And the production was well worth saving. Garrett and her crew staged a riveting show, with John Rensenhouse the picture of masculinity, barely restraining a flickering vulnerability, and Kim Martin-Cotten a sensational Lady Macbeth. Making the production even more enjoyable for a summer-sweaty crowd was its swift pace; the play set some kind of Shakespeare land-speed record, coming in at just over two hours. In a time of reduced budgets and financial hardship for arts organizations (and a ridiculous anti-arts governor in Kansas), we're extra-proud that Kansas Citians stepped up to save the Bard.
