The West Kortright Centre Presents:
Shakespeare in the Valley

Starting Place

The West Kortright Centre, a beloved arts and culture institution in East Meredith New York, celebrates the work of William Shakespeare each summer with Shakespeare in the Valley, a theater training program for teens and tweens. Now in its 36th year, Shakespeare in the Valley brings together student performers and creative artists from the local community and around the county to mount an outdoor theatrical production of one of Shakespeare’s plays against the backdrop of the rolling hills and stunning sunsets of the catskill mountains.

What We Did

The magic of outdoor theater is notoriously difficult to capture. Due in part to theater’s inherently ephemeral nature, staging constraints, and uniquely immersive experience, outdoor theater is and will forever remain the OG “virtual reality.” Barring actually being there, recordings and videos of theater events are rarely as compelling as the real thing. Using multiple 4K cameras, 32 bit-float audio recording, and a pair of carefully placed GoPros, we produced this video recording of the 2023 season’s production of Julius Caesar, which manages to capture the spirit, if not the full magic of the event. Using the improved capabilities that advanced technology like 32 bit-float audio recording allows, we were able to produce a video document that combines the nuances of the fantastic and intimate performances of the teen actors with the energy and clarity of the hard-charging rock music performed by the on-stage band. Watching the video brings you as close to the action as possible without actually being there, while at the same time allowing you to hear all of the beautiful poetry of Shakespeare’s original text, as spoken by the young actors. With this recording, you are able to enjoy a summer night in July at any time, and see and hear with incredible fidelity what the experience of being in the audience was actually like.