Marilyn Strauss, the founder of the Heart of America Shakespeare Festival, who passed away in September at the age of 91, was a force to be reckoned with.
She could be witty, direct and, at times, brutally honest. And she pursued her goals with single-minded determination.
Strauss often told the story of how she came to found the festival, which began its proud history with an outdoor production of “The Tempest” in 1993. Strauss had established herself as a stage producer in New York — her resume included the musical “Pump Boys and Dinettes” and the Tony Award-winning drama “Da” — and had cultivated relationships with other producers in the New York theater community.
One of those was Joe Papp, founder of the Public Theater as well as the New York Shakespeare Festival, which came to be known as Shakespeare in the Park.
As she told the story, Strauss visited the ailing Papp before he died in 1991. And, in a scene worthy of a vintage movie, he urged her from his deathbed to return to Kansas City and start her own Shakespeare festival.
And so she did.
Working closely with R. Crosby Kemper III, who later helped found a Shakespeare festival in St. Louis, Strauss requested and received permission from the city to stage the first production in Southmoreland Park, just west of the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. The park has been the festival’s home ever since.
Strauss also knew how to extract maximum publicity from local media outlets. In a series of meetings with Art Brisbane, who was then editor of the “Kansas City Star,” Strauss commanded an extraordinary amount of coverage from the local paper. She was the subject of a Sunday magazine cover story, and the weekly entertainment sections devoted considerable real estate to Strauss and the festival — before, during and after. Brisbane ordered up a daily comic strip version of “The Tempest,” and the show was reviewed twice — once on opening night, when the actors performed and the audience watched beneath a steady rain, and again when the show could be enjoyed under a clear sky.
The saturation coverage was unprecedented, and other theater companies wondered what they had to do to get that kind of attention.
The answer was pretty simple: Get your own Marilyn Strauss.
But there was only one Marilyn. And the festival has become a major cultural institution. That’s her legacy. Before the festival, summer outdoor theater in the Kansas City was composed almost entirely of musicals.
The festival changed that and for several years now has adhered to a policy of alternating tragedies, comedies and history plays. Tens of thousands of viewers have taken advantage of something unique in Kansas City — classical drama, performed by professional actors with professional directors and designers, free to the public.
Without question, Marilyn left her mark on the city. May the festival continue for decades to come.
