I took two weeks off in August, and spent one of those weeks performing Shakespeare dowin in Texas. Yes, I know, it’s not exactly the traditional vacation, but it was definitely something I needed to do. Twenty-five years ago, or so, I discovered the Shakespeare-at-Winedale program at the University of Texas, and over the course of a ten-year period, I performed there for four summers.

There’s nothing like the Shakespeare-at-Winedale program, so far as I know. It’s a total-immersion, Outward Bound-like experience. All participants in the program will not only perform, but they’ll also direct other students, make costumes (I learned quite a bit about sewing during my summers there), do the lighting, and so on. It all comes together after weeks and months as a series of performance weekends, doing three plays (all by Shakespeare or a Shakespeare contemporary) in rotation.

What I participated in this summer was not the full, months-long summer class (I’m a little long in the tooth for that now), but a weeklong reunion event, during which I got to work with 17 other alumni of the program to put on a series of scenes in the Winedale Theater Barn. (Yes, it’s an actual barn, converted to function as a theater space.) (You can see us gathering outside before performance here and here.)

What surprised me is how easily my body and mind rediscovered what it was like to perform in that empty space, with those people, under those conditions. It all came back, “just like riding a bicycle.” (Here’s a picture of me as Sir Toby Belch, with the Austin Chronicle’s Arts Editor Robert Faires as Andrew Aguecheeck, and Lynn McGuire as Maria — from “Twelfth Night.”) It was a good experience for me, emotionally and spiritually. Best of all was performing with my 12-year-old daughter in the audience — she’s a Shakespeare fan herself, and has participated in the kids’ version of Shakespeare-at-Winedale, Camp Shakespeare.

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