Photos courtesy of Smith Street Stage

By JACK DELANEY | jdelaney@queensledger.com

It’s summertime in Carroll Park, and all the signs are there: the heat, the sunshine streaming through the leafy canopy above the WWI memorial; parents maneuvering strollers through the circle as fifth graders whizz by on scooters. The shouts from the basketball courts, apart from the one that was never repaired after Hurricane Sandy; a line forming for the water fountain. But the clearest tell is the clump of actors rehearsing by the playgrounds — it must be summer, because Smith Street Stage is back. 

This season’s production of “Henry V” is particularly special, however, because it marks the beloved theater group’s fifteenth year of providing the community with masterful and engaging renditions of Shakespeare’s plays, free of charge. 

“Our mission, plainly spoken,” said Jonathan Hopkins, the troupe’s co-founder and artistic director, “is the idea that on any given night anyone — anyone — can walk into this park, find a seat, and see themselves reflected on our stage.”

And Smith Street Stage has delivered on that promise, judging by the crowds of Carroll Gardeners who gather in the park year after year to watch its shows. But how did it become such a local mainstay? 

For one thing, the quality is high. “Henry V” has already garnered rave reviews: Stephanie Pietros of Thinking Theater declared it “one of the best ways to spend a summer evening in New York City,” and Blog Critics’ Jon Sobel praised lead McLean Peterson’s performance as the “most stirring portrayal I can remember” of the titular king. And when Manhattanites are waiting in line for hours to secure their tickets to Shakespeare in the Park, the ease of simply wandering into Carroll Park can lend the luster of the Brooklyn-based company’s top-notch acting an extra sheen. 

The other obvious answer is that community theater can serve as a neighborhood’s glue. Yet here’s where the story takes a turn: Smith Street Stage was actually conceived in New Jersey. Hopkins and his wife, Beth Ann Leone, met in Jersey City while developing a small-cast “Romeo and Juliet,” which they planned to produce there. When their theater company nixed the show due to budgetary constraints, they looked elsewhere; Leone was living in Carroll Gardens at the time, and suggested her local park as the venue. 

The rest is history — except for the downpour that rained out the first show in 2010. (“There was, like, no audience there,” Hopkins recalled, laughing.) The next night, a boy lobbed a water balloon at the actors in the middle of the climactic fight between Romeo and Tybalt, and Hopkins snapped at him. But after the co-founder apologized, explaining that the scene involved chaotic blocking and he was worried about safety, the boy’s stance on the play shifted. Slowly, over the course of an hour, he and his friends inched their way closer and closer to the stage, their interest piqued.

A cozy scene at the company’s first show in 2010.

“There’s swords, there’s music, and that spectacle is attractive,” mused Hopkins, fifteen years after that exchange, “but when kids stay and watch, it’s because they can sense that there’s a conflict. They can sense that if there are two people arguing on stage, they’re actually arguing about something, that if there are two people who are in love on stage, that we feel that they’re actually in love.”

Hopkins still routinely meets audience members who remember those initial performances. The group is now old enough that college graduates will come up to him, reminiscing about attending plays when they were children. (Growing up nearby, I assumed it was normal to have swashbuckling and soliloquies in the park every summer.) 

Now, Smith Street Stage is instilling a love for theater in the next generation: the night before our interview, for example, Hopkins had spoken with a nine-year-old boy named Avery, who had been getting into photography with his friend and was excited to document the show.

“I’ve worked with a lot of other companies and it’s rare to have this kind of experience, where you get to know members of the community so well,” said Will Sarratt, who has acted in seven of the group’s productions, including its latest as part of the ensemble. “I truly believe it’s only possible by making theater as accessible as Smith Street Stage makes it.”

Since “Romeo and Juliet,” which the company staged for a second time in 2019, offerings have included virtually all the classics — ”Macbeth,” “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” “The Tempest” —  alongside innovative adaptations such as a “King Lear” told through the eyes of a girl who finds a musty version of the play in an attic, only for its characters to spring from the pages. (Smith Street Stage has also held indoor shows at the Mark O’Donnell Theater.)

In deciding what to perform on a given season, the company often looks for connections to current events. “Is there a germ in this play,” said Hopkins, “that feels like it could speak to something that we’re experiencing as a people, as individuals, or as a neighborhood?”

Why pick “Henry V,” then, the final installment in a four-part sequence that includes “Richard II,” “Henry IV, Part 1,” and “Henry IV, Part 2”?  It’s not an obvious candidate for modern audiences, as an old play about events that are even older — written around 1599, it follows the lead-up and aftermath to a clash between England and France in 1415. 

For Hopkins, much of the story’s enduring appeal is that it captures personality types that still resonate today. “Henry the Fifth, there’s a lot of charisma in that character,” he noted. “A lot of charm and a lot of power, but also a lot of drive. So perhaps it’s someone we might be reminded of, someone who we’ve worked for, or known —  a dominant voice in our friend group, who always seemed to get their way. You couldn’t stay mad at them, but sometimes it could feel like it was a little much.”

Amara James Aja and Angel Lu in “Henry V.”

As New York prepares to elect its next mayor, theatergoers might also see parallels to politics. “I wish there were a leader like Henry who represented my policy preferences, so I could vote for him and he would win,” Hopkins added. “But the way that he gets to victory is compromised. I hope that in watching this production, some people feel heartened by the thought that a Henry will come along to articulate our national values and restore them. But I think many people will also watch the play and say, this is part of the problem — that there’s no way to achieve a national or political victory without compromising.”

Shakespeare productions abound in Brooklyn. Bike downtown for sweeping, high-budget interpretations at the Theater for a New Audience; if that’s not your speed, head to Prospect Park this weekend for the Public’s “Much Ado About Nothing.” 

But there’s a rare magic that’s borne of being hyperlocal. “So many of my favorite memories from Shakespeare in Carroll Park,” said longtime collaborator Katie Willmorth, “are the moments in between—warming up before a performance and having the neighborhood kids join in or sit and watch or ask questions, passersby sitting and watching us rehearse before we’re performance-ready, [and] walking around the block between scenes because the temperature has finally started to drop on those hot summer nights.”

Earlier this month, I stopped to admire the actors rehearsing a battle scene. Suddenly, a pre-teen darted out to blurt a curse word, before retreating to the safety of his chuckling friends. Little did they know — if Smith Street Stage’s storied past is any guide, they’ll probably be groupies by July.

You can find more information about Smith Street Stage at smithstreetstage.org. Make sure to catch the last few performances of “Henry V” at 7:30 p.m. in Carroll Park before it closes on Sunday, June 29!