SHORT HISTORY
Having worked for several summers with students attending speech and drama camps, founder Jeffrey Stegall decided that the students he was coaching would benefit from seeing a live stage production during their week at camp. Pooling the talents of colleagues and former students, he directed Love’s Labor’s Lost in 1995, and Summer Shakespeare was born.
For the next three summers, two more of the Bard’s comedies and The Importance of Being Earnest were presented. After taking a few summers off, Summer Shakespeare was reborn in 2004 and has been growing ever since. Their shortened Shakespeare adaptations have become the highlight of the summer season for many Greenville residents.
In 2008 and 2009, the Brave New World Theatre Workshops were held in downtown Greenville, SC. This and subsequent educational endeavors in area schools led to Summer Shakespeare’s incorporation as The Greenville Shakespeare Company, a nonprofit organization.
Summer Shakespeare’s preferred venue is Performance Hall, the cozy black box theater on the campus of Bob Jones University.
In 2011 GSC ventured into unknown territory: downtown Greenville and Travelers Rest. St. Louis performer Leigh Ellen Fort brought her one-woman show about Irish immigrants on the Titanic to the Upcountry History Museum and Travelers Rest High School. Since 2012, the Summer Shakespeare troupe has performed at the Greenville Country Art Museum and has been invited back this year for the 2022 season of the museum’s Sundays@2 series. The company also performed at the Greer Opry House and traveled to the Chicago suburbs to perform four shows for Overshadowed Productions in Itasca, Illinois.
The 2022 production of Love’s Labor’s Lost marks Summer Shakespeare’s 22nd season.
CURRENT CREATIVE TEAM
Jeffrey Stegall, Artistic Director
Jeffrey Stegall, Director/Designer
Jeffrey has been directing, designing, and acting for over 30 years. After earning a master’s degree in Performance Studies at Bob Jones University, he studied design at the University of Oklahoma and acting at the National Shakespeare Conservatory in New York City. He has played over 30 of Shakespeare’s roles including Hamlet, Henry V, Malvolio, Richard II, Iago, Touchstone, Caliban, Costard, and Don Armado. His directing and design credits include over 45 plays and operas. His current favorite Shakespearean play is . . . whichever one he’s working on at the moment. Jeffrey has performed his one-man show “An Amazing Grace: The Story of John Newton” at churches in New Hampshire, Indiana, Tennessee, and Texas. He is founder of The Greenville Shakespeare Company, a non-profit organization in the Upstate of South Carolina and surrounding areas.
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Margaret Stegall, Marketing & Operations Director
Margaret Stegall, Marketing & Operations Director
Margaret was just four months old when her parents started The Greenville Shakespeare Company. Her dad likes to joke that he cut the first play in the hospital when she was born, but that can’t be verified. After college she spent three years in New York City attending as many shows as possible when not at work as the Advancement Manager for a local non-profit. Currently she is a Director of Development for the American Heart Association and manages social media, marketing, and day-to-day operations of The Greenville Shakespeare Company.
Elizabeth Nelson, Scene Designer
Elizabeth Nelson, Scene Designer
Elizabeth Nelson returns to GSC for her twelfth show as scene designer and actor for Loves Labours’ Lost. Summer Shakespeare audiences have seen Elizabeth’s work in Two Gentlemen of Verona (’09, ’18), Twelfth Night (’10, ’17), As You Like It (’12, ’19), Comedy of Errors (’13, ’20/21), Midsummer Night’s Dream (’14), Love’s Labor’s Lost (’15), Tempest (’16). She holds degrees in two-dimensional studio art and dramatic productions. She has taught art and theater on all grade levels around the upstate and has done design work at the South Carolina School of the Arts, Artios Academy of Greenville, Centre Stage, and the Younts Center for the Performing Arts, to name a few. She is the current Wig Shop Supervisor at Bob Jones University. Elizabeth and her husband, Carey, have two active young boys, two big dogs, and one sugar glider.
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Paul Keew, Sound Designer
Paul Keew, Sound Designer
Paul’s collaboration with Summer Shakespeare began in 2004 when, as a college student in the cast of As You Like It, he worked up the courage to ask if he could try his hand at writing some new music cues. Paul has worked for many years as a music teacher, director, and producer, writing music for churches, film, and even a stage musical (A Christmas Carol, 2010). He recently moved back to Greenville with his wife and two young children, working remotely for Atlanta-based publisher Church Works Media.
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Kim Stegall, Adaptor
Kim Stegall, Adaptor
Kim worked as an author of secondary English grammar, writing, and literature textbooks for 18 years. She currently writes and edits for WORLDteen, a high school magazine from the publishers of WORLD. Her love of words and meaningful language makes cutting plays a natural fit for her work as chief adaptor for Summer Shakespeare’s scripts. She has worked with her husband Jeff on all 22 Summer Shakespeare productions as well as several plays in other venues. She is the author of two children’s books, Mumsi Meets a Lion and Rodney Robbins and the Rainy-day Pond. (There’s even a book trailer!) Her adaptation of four children’s novels by local author Jean Hunt was produced by the South Carolina Children’s Theatre in 2015.
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Jon Andrews, Graphic Designer
Jon Andrews, Graphic Designer
Jon Andrews is a Greenville freelance artist and designer. His work for Summer Shakespeare includes everything from postcards and t-shirts to web banners and water bottle labels. Jon’s original designs and hand-lettered fonts often set the tone for the summer’s production before a single costume or prop is acquired. He has also designed stunning sets and visuals for numerous area theatre productions. Outside the theatre, Jon enjoys creating mixed media assemblage sculptures using worn or discarded objects. When not building, sketching, or painting, Jon is on the hunt for collectibles and other nonesuch for his work.
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Austin Phillips, Costume Designer
Austin Phillips, Costume Designer
Austin served as assistant costume designer/costumer for six seasons with Greenville Shakespeare Company’s productions of Comedy of Errors (2013), Midsummer Night’s Dream (2014), Love’s Labor’s Lost (2015), The Tempest (2016), Twelfth Night (2017), Two Gentlemen of Verona (2018), and stepped into the lead costume designer position for As You Like It (2019) and Comedy-O-Errors (2020/2021). He designed BJU’s Henry IV (2017), Sense and Sensibility (2016), and Joan of Arc (2014). Other credits include costume assistant for BJU’s Love and Laughter (2015) and costume coordinator for Centre Stage’s The Explorer’s Club (2016). He is a member/collaborator of 11th Hour Theatre and supervised the design of a new work Full Circle (2019).
Lindsay Morgan Bean, Associate Director
Lindsay Morgan Bean, Associate Director
GSC has been thus far unable to get rid of her, and so Lindsay has undertaken a number of roles for Summer Shakespeare, appearing in Comedy of Errors, Two Gentlemen of Verona, The Tempest, Love’s Labor’s Lost, Midsummer Night’s Dream, As You Like It (twice!), Taming of the Shrew, and Twelfth Night (also twice!). She is always excited for the chance to tell stories, whether on stage, on camera, or behind the scenes. Lindsay holds both an MA and a BA in Theatre, and is a dog mom as well as a professional hedgehog & chicken handler.
PAST PRODUCTIONS
Comedy of Errors ’21
Comedy of Errors ’20
As You Like It ’19
Two Gentlemen of Verona, California ’18
Twelfth Night ’17
Tempest ’16
Love’s Labor’s Lost ’15
Midsummer Night’s Dream ’14
Comedy of Errors ’13
As You Like It ’12 (See trailer below.)
Taming of the Shrew ’11
Twelfth Night ’10
Two Gentlemen of Verona ’09
Tempest ’08
Midsummer Night’s Dream ’07
Love’s Labor’s Lost ’06
Comedy of Errors ’05
As You Like It ’04
Two Gentlemen of Verona ’98
The Importance of Being Earnest ’97
As You Like It ’96
Love’s Labor’s Lost ’95