Artwork for Kemp-Blair Shakespeare Festival's 40th Anniversary


40th Kemp-Blair Shakespeare Festival – logo design by Madison Switzer ‘15



The annual Henry Kemp-Blair Shakespeare Festival and Tournament is hosted every February by Chapman University’s Department of Theatre. Now in its 40th year, the Festival’s goal is to provide high school students with an opportunity to experience and learn more about performing Shakespeare.

The Festival focuses on education, offering presentations and workshops over two days for both acting and design, and follows a tournament format. All California high schools are invited to participate in the Festival and are encouraged to attend both days, February 27 and 28, to get the full impact of the program. Students attend scene, monologue and design presentations on one day and acting workshops on another day. All presentations are drawn from the first folio of William Shakespeare.

Theatrical books and certificates are awarded for outstanding male and female monologues, outstanding scenes, individual performances within scene presentations, and outstanding designers.

“This spring the College of Performing Arts features an element of Shakespeare at some point in every department’s performance schedule,” says Professor Thomas Bradac, Shakespeare Festival Director. “The Department of Theatre’s main stage productions will be Shakespeare’s famed ‘The Tragedy of Hamlet, Prince of Denmark’ in February, as well as the modern tragi-comic masterpiece, ‘Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead’ by Tom Stoppard in April.”

The Festival’s namesake, Henry Kemp-Blair (April 15, 1930 – April 30, 1986), was a South African-born playwright, director, clergyman and educator, and was instrumental in developing the theatre program at Chapman University. Iris Gerbasi, Assistant Chancellor and daughter of Kemp-Blair recalls what it was like to witness the Festival taking shape in its early years, and later to carry on her father’s legacy as the festival director.

“My father, Henry Kemp-Blair was passionate about theatre, his students and Shakespeare. It was no surprise that when given an opportunity to create a scene and monologue Tournament for high school students he would select Shakespeare at its center,” Gerbasi says. “He directed 11 Tournaments prior to his death in 1986. He planted the roots for what was to follow. Moving forward, Michael Nehring and I worked together to continue the Tournament. We began small in 1987 with the 12th Annual Tournament and over time it grew to four times its original size. My last year as Tournament Director was in 2007, the 32nd Tournament. Through all these years, one thing always remained: Each year the tournament would see high school students and their teachers intensely committed to their art. It reaffirmed that studying and performing Shakespeare remained relevant. The passion continued… my father would be proud.”

For more information about the Henry Kemp-Blair Shakespeare Festival, visit
chapman.edu/shakespeare
.