2022 Happy Hour Member Meeting | The San Diego Shakespeare Society

Featuring the full Board of Directors, all our Coordinators, an opening song by Richard Lederer, guest speaker Walter Ritter of Write Out Loud, virtual selections from the Student Festival and Art Stops, cocktails, trivia, and a song by member Maggi Veltre and James Brown!

“A hundred thousand welcomes; I could weep,
And I could laugh; I am light and heavy; Welcome.”
Coriolanus 2.1.184-85

A message from the 2022 President of the Board

Thank you to all our members! We saw a 48% increase in membership since January 2021, totaling 130 members (including individuals, families, etc) as of this meeting.

You’ll hear from many people tonight about the myriad events and programs we have going on, and what I want to highlight is that this is YOUR society as much as it is mine. The Board is not here to have all the answers of what to do, and honestly, we can’t. Those of us on the Board have simply been elected to serve in these capacities—and frankly, we need your support, your ideas, and your vision to keep us going for another 20 years. What do YOU want to see us do? What would you like to make happen? I encourage you to get involved and I’ll share in a bit how that can happen.

One final point I’ll make right now is that while there have been a couple long-standing presidents who have become synonymous with the organization, I’d like to follow the lead that our 2020-21 President, Gordon Gidlund, has set: that there is no one person who is the Society. I believe that each and every one of you as members is as much the face and representation of the Society as anyone else. There is no singular leader here, so: what do you want YOUR Shakespeare Society to be and do in 2022?

-Nathan Agin

Program

Welcome and opening remarks – Nathan Agin
Invocation – Richard Lederer
President’s Report and introduction of Directors – Nathan Agin
- Learn more about all the ways you can be part of SDSS leadership here!
Treasurer’s and Marketing Director’s Reports – Nathan Agin
Cocktail time – Amanda Walter
Lectures Report – Gordon Gidlund & Amanda Walter
Mock Trial Report – Gordon Gidlund
Artistic Director – John Tessmer
Performance – Joy Yvonne Jones from 2021 Romantic Art Stops
Jeop-BARD-y – Bill Glaser
Guest Speaker – Walter Ritter, Executive Director, Write Out Loud
- Our producing partner for the 2022 Student Shakespeare Festival
- get in touch with him to volunteer or help at walter@writeoutloudsd.com
Performance – Madeline Considine & Victor Kallett from 2021 Virtual Student Shakespeare Festival
Open Readings Report – Kevin Manley
Recognition of Tim Laufer and Genevieve Foster – Nathan Agin
Breakout sessions for mingling
Recap and closing – Nathan Agin
Adieu –“O Mistress Mine”performed by Maggi Veltre & James Brown

A Sonnet about Sonnets, by Richard Lederer

Our Bard did not invent the stately sonnet.
The hundred fifty-four in his collection
Remade the vessel, thus improved upon it
And lit its form and function with perfection.

He pours his thoughts on life and death and time
Into three quatrains and a couplet brief.
To a youth fair and lady dark, in rhyme,
He sings of lust and love and joy and grief.

To think that God once made a man like him.
In such a miracle we all rejoice.
His words fly up and reach a spatial rim.
His sonnet trove proclaims his timeless voice.

Across four centuries he calls us still —
Our Bard, our Shakespeare, our own living Will.