Locals might have noticed a reduced level of tragic romance, fairy comedy, or brooding, murderous kings this summer. The popular Shoreline Arts Alliance (SAA) program Shakespeare on the Shoreline, which for 20 years has provided extravagant annual productions of the bard’s plays on the Guilford Green, took a hiatus in 2019.

The program’s popularity was not a factor in the decision, according to SAA Executive Director Eric Dillner, but was instead caused by a combination of short-term considerations and long term adaptations to a changing environment for arts and theater along the Connecticut shoreline.

In the short term, Dillner said he didn’t want to compete with a Branford Shakespeare production this year, and noted that SAA was also pooling resources for a Woodstock 50th anniversary celebration, which took place in July at Bishop’s Orchards.

In the long term, financial considerations along with a renewed focus on leadership development and educational programs might shift SAA away from big productions like Shakespeare.

Corporate sponsorship has dwindled, Dillner said, with some companies leaving the area and others unable to provide the same support they have in year’s past.

On the positive side, Dillner said that with Shakespeare postponed, SAA was able to focus on its internship program, which provides young artists the opportunity and resources to learn new skills or complete projects.

“We’re actually finding that that kind of impact [is] so huge, that now, we’re in a bit of a quandary,” said Dillner.

Investing in promising high school- and college-age individuals has been an increasingly rewarding and successful venture for SAA, Dillner said. By including aspiring members of the arts community in local projects and helping them develop their skills or businesses, Dillner said they will be more likely to live on the shoreline and contribute to the arts here.

SAA officially serves 24 towns along the Connecticut coast, but Dillner said people from all over the state have participated in their programs. The internship program was based out of Guilford this year, and has been running for around five years, Dillner said.

In the past, interns have contributed heavily to the Shakespeare event, not only learning things like stage design and acting, but how to negotiate contracts, marketing, and coordinating many other details of the show over five days.

What Dillner said he and SAA realized was that interns could learn many of these skills while simultaneously exercising more of their own creativity, putting together their own projects.

“We said, ‘OK, if you were going to plan your own event, from idea to putting a budget in place, developing…[the staff] you need to put it on,” said Dillner “[Then] they all took their own project, their own idea, and created that project.”

Dillner used an example from the Woodstock event, where young artists built an atmospheric tent full of decoratively modified vinyl records that was part art project and part marketing venture, and which ended up being extremely popular with the public.

“We were all pleasantly surprised that when we had the main stage Woodstock band doing all those tunes from Woodstock, you could hear the people singing at the top of their lungs from the tent,” said Dillner

Interns have other opportunities in the program, Dillner said, including the chance to bounce their ideas off of industry professionals—people like the head of marketing at Goodspeed Opera. Interns were also observed by colleges such as the Hartford Art School, which gave out $1.74 million in scholarships at SAA programs earlier this year, according to Dillner.

Whether or not big productions like Shakespeare continue to happen is an unanswered question at this point, Dillner said, but the overall trend for SAA is grassroots—both fundraising, and in the kinds of things the public might see from SAA.

“This is about [interns] submitting their art, and truly their talent as an artist, being celebrated, and then connecting them to funds that are going to get them into college,” Dillner said.

For more information on SAA, visit www.shorelinearts.org.