As the curtains close on the Long Beach Shakespeare Company’s (LBSC) 20th anniversary season, the company is ready to continue its “circle of life” with the appointment of new Artistic Director Holly Leveque.
Leveque continues a rich tradition at the LBSC, where she has acted under the direction of both outgoing Artistic Director Brando Cutts and LBSC’s founder and guiding spirit, Helen Borgers. Leveque has been involved with the theater since 2010 and began shadowing Cutts and Theater Manager Dana Leach in March.
“I think about this upcoming season as being part of the circle of life, with its cycles of joy and sorrow, loss and renewal,” Leveque said. “So many of Shakespeare’s plays have family and lovers separated for years. And so many in our midst have suffered and lost during these last years of the pandemic.
“Change is inescapable. Yet in life, as in theater, transitions can bring new energy, friendship, creativity and love. That’s my hope for this company and our community,” Leveque said.
As an Inglewood native, Leveque experienced an upbringing centered in the arts. She recalls family vacations consisting of watching plays and shows with her parents in New York and London.
“I do think that my mom somewhat used theater as a form of child care in different ways,” Leveque said.
“Getting the opportunity to study at the Moscow Art Theater, and study where theater itself was born in Greece was a dream come true. It’s all led me to this path to where I am at this moment at [the] Long Beach Shakespeare Company.”
Holly Leveque, artistic director of LBSC
It was Leveque’s late uncle, a two-time British Academy Film of Television Arts winner, who convinced her parents to get her an agent after watching her perform in a play as a child.
Backed with a solid support system, Leveque attended Culver City High School’s Academy of Visual & Performing Arts (AVPA) where she learned about experimental theater and gained an appreciation for international art.
Afterwards she earned her bachelor’s degree in theatre arts and a master’s of fine arts in feature screenwriting at Loyola Marymount University, where she served on the board of directors for the Del Rey Theatre for three years.
Leveque’s international studies brought her through Germany, Russia and Greece, where she worked in comedies, dramas and theaters across the Southland. Her time studying at the Moscow Art Theater was most influential, she said.
“Getting the opportunity to study at the Moscow Art Theater, and study where theater itself was born in Greece was a dream come true,” Leveque said. “It’s all led me to this path to where I am at this moment at [the] Long Beach Shakespeare Company.”
After joining the LBSC in 2010, Leveque found herself in the first show ever directed by Cutts at the company. Leveque also did shows with LBSC’s founder Borgers, who took a liking to Leveque, and Dennis McCourt, who was Co-Artistic Director at the time.
Leveque said she was granted a space that allowed her to express herself and instilled in her a sense of community, which Leveque plans to give back to patrons.
“I want to make sure that we fully put ourselves into the educational nonprofit that we are,” Leveque said. “I’m dedicated to continuing that mission by putting up shows that can teach students who do not get the arts in their life, that is beyond just Shakespeare, in order to move forward with the theater and educate youth in Long Beach and beyond.”
Not only is Leveque stepping in as artistic director, but she also is absorbing a producer role. Leveque worked as a producer at the LBSC in the last half of 2022 for “The Wizard of Oz” in July and is currently producing LBSC’s holiday shows. Leveque also directed LBSC’s “Peer Gynt” in June.
With the current season soon coming to a close, Leveque said she is thrilled to usher in a new lineup of shows for the 2023 season, with help from LBSC’s loyal patrons. Shows in the lineup were chosen through surveys given to patrons in early 2022.
“I aimed to give our audience what they wanted with this season, not only to deliver on what is best for our community, but what’s best for the company,” Leveque said.
LBSC’s 2023 season titled The Circle of Life features classic productions such as Shakespeare’s “King Lear,” “Twelfth Night,” and “The Winter’s Tale,” and for the holidays, the company will perform “The Gift of the Magi.”
Fans of LBSC’s old-time radio productions can look forward to eight shows in 2023, including “Alice in Wonderland,” “The Strange Case of Miss Alice Faulkner,” fan favorites “The Wizard of Oz,” “The War of the Worlds,” and “A Christmas Carol,” which closes the year in mid-December.
Two new events tie together the circle of life theme for the 2023 season. LBSC will host a New Works Festival in July, which will be an opportunity for local artists to showcase new shorts, plays and musicals in various stages of development. LBSC is also introducing its first ever poetry series in October, with two days of events led by poet Linda Ravenswood and appearances by luminaries from Southern California’s poetry scene.
“Helen Borgers, our first Artistic Director, had such a passion for Shakespeare and his sonnets and LBSC hadn’t really explored the sonnets fully in a good while,” Leveque said. “With there being such a big surge right now with spoken word, I wanted to play with that and see how we can bring in a new audience”
The LBSC is currently gearing up for their holiday production of “A Child’s Christmas in Wales,” which will run from Nov. 25 through Dec. 11. Tickets and a synopsis of the show, as well as the full schedule for LBSC’s 2023 season can be found on the company’s website at lbshakespeare.org.
