Each summer, a small mid-western city named Winona, Minnesota has a Great River Shakespeare Festival. As with many of similar festivals, it relies on the support of the community and the various small businesses, and one or two larger corporate donors for its support.
In their quest for supporters, they use email to contact potential volunteers and contributors. Today, I received an email announcement that the Festival had invited a speaker to their 'Front Porch' series of speakers. Is the speaker from any of the nearby universities speaking on Shakespeare and its relevance to today? Is the speaker an actor who appears on Broadway in various Shakespearian roles? No.
No.
The Festival has decided that the speaker ought to be the man responsible for contributing "Axis of Evil" to our lexicon, along with fear-mongering talking point, "Mushroom Cloud" that was so imminent prior to our illegal invasion and occupation of Iraq, Michael Gerson.
Mr Gerson is scheduled to speak on Sunday, July 29th.
My concern is that a seemingly apolitical community event is being spoiled by having a right-wing, evangelical, Bush speech-writer, and Heritage Foundation member spew his hatred. It soils what is normally an entertaining and quite interesting festival by politicizing it. Being somewhat familiar with the community sponsors of the Festival, I can tell you that some, if not all, would not support Mr Gerson's extremism and would not appreciate their efforts and funds being used in this way.
Please contact the Festival at 507.474-7900 and ask them if they know what they are doing...
Thank you.