In August, tragedy struck Shakespeare West, the Blackbird Theatre’s summer season in West Park. A car crash took the life of seventeen-year-old performer Danny Friedland, who was appearing in the performance of Twelfth Night. Nobody in the grieving company wanted to go on, so they ended the run. The next show on the schedule was Othello, but when, shortly before opening, the lead’s sister died, the theater canceled that show, too. “We are a producing organization, but our people have to come first,” explains Blackbird founder Barton Bund.
Bund says it’s too soon to tell if Shakespeare West will return next year. Meanwhile, he’s also reconsidering the Blackbird’s main season in Shaut, the space on Braun Court it moved to last fall. Renting in Ann Arbor was expensive for the small professional theater that always pays its actors, and the Blackbird also wanted more space to house varied projects. “We are on the lookout for a larger space that can accommodate classes and youth programs as well as our regular production schedule,” says Bund. The Blackbird’s fall season is on hold while he searches.
