Riverside Shakespeare Company

[12] The parks tour of A Midsummer Night's Dream was expanded to play locations in two boroughs of New York City, including Wave Hill in the Bronx, which became a favorite annual summer performing site for the company.

[13] Erika Munk of the Village Voice wrote: Shakespeare at the Delacorte always disappoints me because it's overmiked and not in tune with park life; but I saw a charming Midsummer Night's Dream by the Riverside Shakespeare Company: no mikes, no lights, no seats; only clever placement at the bottom of Soldier and Sailors Monument to give the audience a view from the steps; broad acting and old-fashioned projection so that everyone could follow; an ability to capitalize on the audience's pre-disposition to enjoy itself; the flexibility to deal with dogs, kids, jets, and drunks; and splendid timing – the play ended as the sun went down.

"[15] The production of As You Like It was joined at Stage 73 by the New York premiere of the Commedia dell'arte scenario, the 16th century "madrigal comedy" by Orazio Vecchi, L'Amfi Parnasso, directed by Dan Southern featuring company members performing with Renaissance music arranged and played by the chamber group The Western Wind.

In 1979 the Riverside Shakespeare Company mounted Niccolo Machiavelli's Renaissance farce, The Mandrake, in the large second floor auditorium of the Casa Italiana of Columbia University located at West 117th and Amsterdam Avenue.

The production of The Mandrake was cast and rehearsed in the company's fourth floor facility of Columbia University's Prentise Hall in southern Harlem, and was directed by company member Dan Southern (then Daniel O. Smith),[17] The production was played with authentic leather masks and fanciful costumes conceived and constructed by Broadway designer Jane Stein, period sets – including a raked checkerboard stage – designed and built by Gerard Bourcier, lighting (which incorporated the wrought iron chandeliers of the Casa Italiana) by John B. Forbes, and produced by Gloria Skurski and W. Stuart McDowell.

In the Heights/Inwood Press of North Manhattan review of March 14, 1979, Jan Rucquoi noted that: A delightfully produced, fast-paced farce happened uptown on Columbia University's Campus, in the Casa Italiana.

In late spring of 1979 the company produced Much Ado About Nothing directed by Gloria Skurski with original music by Deborah Awner, with Margo Gruber and Gannon McHale, and Timothy Oman, Jim Brewster, Robert Boyle, Ronald Lew Harris, David Florek, Arland Russell, Daniel Tam and Leigh Podgorski, at Manhattan Theatre Club's Stage 73.

[20] Subsequent to its two indoor stagings, The Mandrake was revived for several outdoor engagements, performed on a two-wheel cart with simple cloth backdrop, beginning with the dedication of the Shakespeare Garden in the Brooklyn, hosted by Joseph Papp, Estelle Parsons and W. Stuart McDowell.

This was Riverside's second First Folio Production, mounted on a replica of Shakespeare's Globe Theater, constructed on the courtyard roof Prentise Hall at West 125th and Broadway, and transported and erected on the main campus Quad of Columbia University.

The cast featured Dan Southern as Hotspur and Jason Moehring as Hal, with Eric Hoffmann as Falstaff and William Hanauer as King Henry, and a cast of forty including Jim Brewster, Mary Skinner, Vit Horejs, David Murray Jaffe, Kathleen Monteleone, Jason Moehring, Julia Murray, Gay Reed, John Miller, Ken Threet, Nick Schatzki, and Lois Tibbetts, with music by Deborah Awner played by a live orchestra.

In the spring of 1980, the theatre company mounted a new production of Twelfth Night, set in an Art Nouveau style, directed by John Clingerman, with Andrew Achsen, Kristin Rudrud, Stuart Cohen, Alison Edwards, Beata Jachulski, Will Lecki, Scott Parson, Bruce Altman, Ken Threet, and Ted Polites, staged in the round (with audiences on four sides) in the lower chamber of Riverside Church in Manhattan, featuring music by Deborah Awner.

[23][24] The Shakespeare Center became the home for numerous Equity Riverside productions, beginning with Romeo and Juliet in 1980, directed by W. Stuart McDowell, assisted by Jay King, with Robert Walsh, Arleigh Richards, George House, Barbara Tirrell, Joe Meek, Gay Reed, Curtis Watkins, Dan Johnson, Obie Story, James McGuire, Jim Maxson, Christopher Cull, Timothy Oman, and, as the Nurse, Scottish folk singer and comedian Fredi Dundee.

"[25] This was followed by a Commedia dell'arte production of Two Gentlemen of Verona directed by Dan Southern produced Off Broadway in the American Theatre for Actors, with music by Bob Rosen, with Ronald Lew Harris, Jim Maxson, Joe Meek, Amy Aquino, Allison Edwards, Dennis Pfister, and J. C.

Meanwhile at The Shakespeare Center, the company opened its next season with Henry V directed by Timothy Oman, assisted by Linda Mason, associate director, and Maureen Clarke, Riverside's resident text coach, with music by Sanchie Borrow, scenic and lighting design by Norbert U. Kolb, fight direction by Conal O'Brien, and costumes by David Pearson, featuring Frank Muller and Lee Croghan, with Dene Nardi, Dan Daily, Norma Fire, Ronald Lew Harris, Pat Kennerly, Gay Reed, Gene Santarelli, Sandi Shackelford, and Time Winters.

The New York premiere of Edward II was grounded on interviews McDowell had made in Germany with cast members – Erwin Faber and Hans Schweikart – of the original Munich production of 1924, which had been Brecht's debut as stage director.

The Riverside production of Edward II featured Dan Southern and Timothy Oman in the roles of Gaveston and King Edward, with Andrew Achsen, Larry Attille, Christopher Cull, Michael Franks, Margo Gruber, Daniel T. Johnson, Will Lampe, Joe Meek, Jason Moehring, Gay Reed, Count Stovall, R. Patrick Sullivan and Jeffery V. Thompson, directed by McDowell, with assistant director Jeannie H. Woods, with sets and lights by Dorian Vernacchio, costumes by David Robinson, with hand-hewn wooden props designed and built by Valerie Kuehn.

In early 1983, Riverside Shakespeare Company mounted its third First Folio Production, an uncut staging of The Winter's Tale, with Eric Hoffmann as Autolycus and Tony Award-winning actress Tonya Pinkins in her New York stage debut as "Mopsa – a shepherdess", with Marya Lowry and Timothy Oman as Hermione and Leontes, C. B. Anderson, Franklin Brown, Sally Kay Brown, Lee Croghan, Christopher Cull, Virginia Downing, Freda Kavanaugh, Beatrix Porter, and Richie Devaney.

The production was directed by W. Stuart McDowell, with costumes by Randolph Pearson, original music by Joseph Church, choreography by Beatrix Porter, text coaching by Maureen Clarke, and was stage managed by Mary Ellen Allison.

The production combined modern (Grace Kelly's Monaco) and historical (pastoral 18th century England) periods in a concept centered around a magical transformation that takes place when Mamillius begins to recount "the winter's tale" to his mother, Hermione.

The production featured Obie Award–winner Harold Scott,[44] and Marya Lowry, with Michael Cook, Andy Achsen, Ronald Lew Harris, Paul Hebron, Sonja Lanzener, Jim Maxson, Joe Meek, Robert Walsh and Herman Petras as Caesar.

The production featured a complete, original score for harpsichord and orchestra by John Aschenbrenner, fights choreographed by Richard Raether, lighting by Sam Scripps, and a period wind machine in the wings.

The production featured Barbara Tirrell, Frank Muller and Margo Gruber as Goneril, Edmund and Regan, with Eric Hoffmann as Lear, Dan Daily as Kent, Freda Kavanagh as Cordelia, Don Fischer as Edgard, and Saunder Finard, Sandra Protor Gray, Buck Hobbs, E. F. Morrill, Gene Santarelli, and Richard Willis.

The production featured a magician, a belly dancer accompanied by a lively percussion score composed and played by Michael Canick, and a very broad comedic performance style that proved extremely popular with its audiences.

[52] The following summer the company mounted a music-filled production of The Merry Wives of Windsor set in old, post-Civil War New Orleans and directed by Timothy Oman, with Maureen Clarke as assistant director, featuring ragtime music by Deena Kaye.

According to Nan Robertson in The New York Times: An eight piece ragtime band and Mardi Gras high jinks underscored the slapstick performance, which sometimes evoked the spastic look and ricky-tick musical accompaniment of a very early silent flicker movie.

Riverside's Advisory Board during this period included Shakespeare scholars Dr. Marvin Rosenberg and Dr. Bernard Beckerman, as well as noted stage directors and actors Zoe Caldwell, José Ferrer, Ruth Gordon, Helen Hayes, John Hirsch, Barnard Hughes, Mary Beth Hurt, Raúl Juliá, Garson Kannin, Stacey Keach, Joshua Logan, Mildred Natwick, Trevor Nunn, Roger Rees, Milo O'Shea, Sam Waterston and Joanne Woodward.

In 1985, Helen Hayes appeared in an all-star benefit performance for the Riverside Shakespeare Company of Charles Dickens' A Christmas Carol, with Miss Hayes in her return to the New York stage as Narrator, featuring Len Cariou as Scrooge, Bille Brown of the Royal Shakespeare Company, MacIntyre Dixon, Celeste Holm, Raúl Juliá, Mary Elizabeth Mastrantonio, Harold Scott, Carole Shelley, and Fritz Weaver, staged with an original score for the Brass Quintet by W. Stuart McDowell, sung by the Children's Choir from the Anglo-American School of Manhattan, and an original script by Bille Brown, at the Symphony Space on the Upper Westside of Manhattan.

In 1986 the popular benefit presentation of A Christmas Carol was remounted, again with Helen Hayes, at the Marquis Theatre on Broadway, featuring F. Murray Abraham as Scrooge, with Ossie Davis, June Havoc, Rex Smith, Jean Marsh, MacIntyre Dixon, Alec Baldwin, and the choir of the Anglo-American School, produced by McDowell and directed by Robert Small.

[66] W. Stuart McDowell[67] left Riverside in 1986 to found McDowell/Scripps Productions with arts benefactor, Samuel H. Scripps, and is now Chair of the Department of Theatre Dance and Motion Pictures at Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio.

In its second decade, until it disbanded in 1997, the Riverside Shakespeare Company produced a number of shows with distinguished actors and directors such as Henderson Forsythe, Beth Fowler, David Edward Jones, Charles Keating, Laurie Kennedy, Robert Sean Leonard, Stephen McHattie, Austin Pendleton, and Stuart Vaughan.