These are good times at the Hudson Valley Shakespeare Festival, which relocated last year from its longtime tented home at the federal-style Boscobel Home & Gardens in Garrison to 98 gifted acres in the hamlet, where it will build an environmentally friendly campus that includes an open-air pavilion for its productions.
Not only did HVSF receive the land from philanthropist Chris Davis, part of his purchase of the 200-acre former Garrison Golf Course, but it has also received $10 million from the New York State Council on the Arts to help fund the new home, which could add millions to its economic effect in the Hudson Valley.
And HVSF is getting good reviews for its take on the Bard”™s “Henry V,” with Emily Ota in the title role as the wayward prince who would become one of England”™s greatest monarchs and military leaders. The play (through Aug. 21) is being performed in repertoire with a pop-rock version of Shakespeare”™s romantic comedy “Love”™s Labor”™s Lost” (through Aug. 27). They”™re followed by the world premiere of “Penelope” (Sept. 2 through 17), which reimagines Homer”™s “The Odyssey” from the viewpoint of Odysseus”™ endlessly patient, long-suffering, knitting-unraveling wife of the title.
And yet this is not all that”™s happening in Garrison. ”¯After a brief winter hiatus, the Valley Restaurant has reopened at The Garrison, the 35,000-foot year-round events space and eight-room inn adjacent to HVSF”™s tent, with a pre-fixe, pre-performance menu by chef Peter Hoffman (founder of the restaurants Savoy and Back Forty and a pioneer of farm-to-table cooking in New York), that celebrates the flavors of the Mediterranean and the seasonal bounty of local growers for $55 per person. (The Garrison also runs HVSF”™s concession services.) Dinner and a show have never been easier.
