Theater arts professor and Shakespeare Santa Cruz artistic director named Artist of the Year

By Barbara McKenna

Shakespeare Santa Cruz artistic director Paul Whitworth has been named 1997 Artist of the Year by the Santa Cruz County Arts Commission. Whitworth is the 14th county artist to be recognized. Past honorees include photographer Frans Lanting, poets Adrienne Rich and William Everson, dancer Tandy Beal, composers Lou Harrison and George Barati, writer Jim Houston, visual artist Jack Zajac, and musician Linda Burman-Hall. The annual award recognizes artists of national or international reputation who have also made significant contributions to the local arts scene. (photo caption)

Whitworth, who is also a professor of theater arts at UCSC, first came to Shakespeare Santa Cruz in 1984 to play Prince Hal in Henry IV, Part I. Whitworth was attracted by the festival's dual missions of academic rigor and artistic integrity and has continued to promote those ideals in the ensuing years as actor, director, and, since last season, artistic director.

Since his first performance, the Royal Shakespeare Company alumnus has been a favorite of Shakespeare Santa Cruz (SSC) audiences. In recent years, Whitworth has won a number of awards for his work, notably the U.S. premiere in 1994 of his own translation of The Rape of Tamar for SSC, which resulted in six Drama-Logue awards in the areas of direction, overall production, original score, scene design, sound design, and costume design. In 1996 as the artistic producer of the festival, Whitworth received a Drama-Logue award for Twelfth Night and the production received six additional awards in the areas of direction, performance, lighting, and costume design.

His SSC acting credits include the title roles in Hamlet, Richard II, and Henry V, Benedick in Much Ado About Nothing, Berowne in Love's Labour's Lost, John in A Life in the Theatre, Leontes in The Winter's Tale, Salierei in Amadeus, the Duke in Measure for Measure, Vladimir in Waiting for Godot, Parolles in All's Well That Ends Well, Applegate in Damn Yankees, King David in The Rape of Tamar, Norman in The Dresser, the Fool in King Lear, and Tartuffe in Tartuffe.

At UCSC Paul Whitworth has directed students in The Crucible [with Michael Edwards], studio productions of Julius Caesar and The Merchant of Venice, three productions for Shakespeare To Go, his own translation of Tirso de Molina's El Burlador de Sevilla, She Stoops to Conquer, Arms and the Man, and Tartuffe.

As Artist of the Year, Whitworth will present a free public performance in June, with the date and location to be announced.

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