About The Mountain Shakespeare Festival

Our Mission

The Mountain Shakespeare Festival’s mission is to enrich the local community through
education, entertainment and enlightenment while providing a delightful tourist offering
that brings low-impact commerce to the region.   Through productions of Shakespeare’s
plays and modern stage works, coordinated with a vigorous education program, we will
create a wealth of language, commerce and community participation that result in an
overall improved quality of life to our mountain area and the surrounding region.

Theatrical Production

  • Our title, The Mountain Shakespeare Festival, like many other Shakespeare
    Festivals, only tells half the story.  We are theatrical production company that
    specializes in producing stage renditions of the works of Shakespeare but we
    produce an equal number of plays you could call modern "classics."   
  • The directors, cast, crew and administrators of these productions are drawn
    almost exclusively from the local talent base.  We perform for the most part
    outdoors in a lovely setting in the community of Pine Mountain Club.
  • These productions include a mixture of highly experienced professionals in
    theatre as well as talented novices of all ages.  

Education        

  • Central to our mission is Education.  The Mountain Shakespeare Festival will
    conduct many education programs that work in concert with the production of the
    plays.  Mentorship of young and emerging talent and those interested in the
    business of theatre will be accomplished through offering positions as actors,
    stage managers, technicians or in the areas of marketing, promotion,
    fundraising, etc.   These opportunities will be supervised by professionals in the
    various fields.
  • MSF will also conduct seminars, internships, workshops, etc. to introduce and
    train young performers and technicians in many aspects of theatre.  Programs in
    language, writing, stage combat, directing, acting, theatre management, stage
    management, costuming, lights and sound and set design are all envisioned.

MSF is an equal opportunity organization.

Mountain Shakespeare Production History

The Mountain Shakespeare Festival got its start in the Summer of 2006 while working on
a production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night's Dream produced with Focus
Central, an arts education organization in the Frazier Park area, www.focuscentral.org.
In the summer of 2007 we produced our own show of As You Like It  in two locations,
Pine Mountain’s Lampkin Park and The Dream Castle Cafe, in Frazier Park.   

2008
You Can't Take It With You, Kaufmann and Hart
The Comedy of Errors

2009
12th Night
The Foreigner, Larry Shue

2010
Taming of the Shrew
The Odd Couple

2011
Romeo and Juliet
Bullshot Crummond
In "As You Like It"  
Shakespeare makes
reference to a tapster.
What is it?
Answer on Contact page.
Mountain Shakespeare
Festival

Founding Members and
Directors:

Artistic Director: Peter
Kjenaas  

Managing Director: Kat Fair

Education Director: Michelle
Morain
Board of Directors:

David Stenstrom
President

Maxine Cameron Stenstrom
Vice President

Holly Van Houten
Secretary

Rachel Junell
Treasurer

Pam McGee

Beans Morocco

Richard Hoeg

Advisory Board:

Randy Messick
Bakersfield College

Aldo Billingsly
Santa Clara University

Janine Tominaga

Anne Weber
Mountain Arts & Recreation
Coalition

Wayne Adelstein
Publisher