Texas Shakespeare Festival performances are orders of magnitude above any of the other venues I've attended, but I'm not sure exactly why.

It has little to do with the physical space. The Van Cliburn Auditorium at Kilgore College is nice enough, but The Shreveport Little Theatre is much nicer.

It's not the sets. They did have beautiful sets this year, but Beauty and Beast's rotating castle was an amazing piece of stage work, and I've no doubt if TSF had performed Love's Labours Lost on a bare stage, it would've still been the highlight of my year.

Obviously the actors and actresses are a huge part, but I don't think it's the quality of the individuals so much as the quality of the troupe overall. That's what stood out so much at BPCC's performance of Rumors. When everyone on stage is performing to a high level, it profoundly lifts the whole experience. Conversely, if you've got one or two actors doing outstanding work but also a few of noticeably less skill, it keeps the experience as a whole from enveloping the audience in that suspension of disbelief which swallows all attention and presence. Don't get me wrong, I've loved almost all the shows, and don't require profundity to find enjoyment, but when it happens, MMMMM!

Also obvious is source material. If the story is not interesting or well told by the author, the performance of it will bound and weighted by those original failures. Of the plays I haven't enjoyed to the fullest, most of the issues can be easily traced back to confusing or uninteresting source material. By it's nature TSF is choosing to work with older, well known stories of particularly high quality.

Finally, there's direction. Like sound and lighting, this is a realm to which I don't think I've given enough respect. As I try to find the difference between what happens on stage during TSF performances compared to others' I've enjoyed recently, there is a heightened feeling of precision and intentionality. A sense of holistic narration, where each action or word, each individual performance, however beautiful in itself, is a piece of a larger story enhanced by the piece fitting perfectly with it's mates. Referring again to Love's Labours Lost, there was a distinct sense of Matthew Simpson's careful hands sculpting each part of the experience, the costumes and performances, the set and songs, purposefully into a delightful whole.