‘Something for Everyone’

Geoffrey Forward used his experience developing subscription seasons for several theaters--from a professional company attached to his alma mater, the University of Utah, to the West Hollywood-based Shakespeare Society of America--to form Shakespeare LA.

The company’s initial production, “The Taming of the Shrew,” opened in August at the Richard Basehart Playhouse in Woodland Hills. Now, “Taming” is playing at Shakespeare LA’s San Gabriel Valley home, the Pasadena Presbyterian Church. The company is planning this double-valley approach for subsequent productions.

A resident “reader,” or researcher, at the Huntington Library in San Marino for nine years, Forward leads a Saturday morning Shakespeare actors workshop, open to the public in the Huntington’s lily pond area.

For “Taming,” he cast dwarf actor Stevie Lee Richardson in the lead part of Petruchio.

“Stevie Lee can be strong one moment,” he says, “then romantic the next--perfect for Petruchio. This also plays against Petruchio as a wife beater. At the same time, we’re not for a moment getting comedy out of his size.”

Thad Taylor, Shakespeare Society of America artistic director, describes Forward as “a fine director, extremely devoted to his craft and the Bard. He has a gift for vocal precision--he’d always be taking actors aside to work on their diction. He epitomizes the fact that once you get Shakespeare in your blood, you never get rid of him.”