It’s difficult to surmise Rotimi Agbabiaka’s interdisciplinary career — the many tempests he’s traversed, before getting ready to direct San Francisco Shakespeare Festival’s version of THE TEMPEST this summer, joined by Assistant Director and Dramaturg Ely Sonny Orquiza.  I start by watching MANIFESTO, a film based on a solo show written by Rotimi. (Which is still available to stream on YouTube and was directed by Edris Cooper-Anifowoshe, aka SF Shakes’ Prospero!) MANIFESTO is a comedy-drag-music-dance extravaganza, asking what do artists need to survive? Perhaps one place to look for answers is Rotimi’s resume. Rotimi Agbabiaka is an actor, writer, director, theater journalist, and teacher at Stanford University. Similarly to Prospero’s books and robes, these many skills provided Rotimi the tools needed to create a show filled with (in addition to fart jokes and goddesses decked in Pride attire) humor, play, and forgiveness. Across Zoom bubbles, we discuss their voyage, from English major to drag to Shakespare and back around again. 

INTERVIEWER

I wanted to start with MANIFESTO. Edris [Cooper-Anifowoshe, playing Prospero in SF Shakes’ THE TEMPEST] sent me the link. I know you’ve worked with Edris a bunch of times and I saw Kevin [Clarke, playing Ariel/Gonzalo in THE TEMPEST] pop up on the video. I wonder what does it offer you to work with the same people over and over again?

RA

The reason why I work with them over and over again is because I love working with them. It’s always fun to find your people. They bring a certain kind of playfulness and creativity. And a certain sensibility that we share as theater makers. When you work with people like [Edris and Kevin] over and over again, it does feel like you’re building a company of sorts, even if it’s not an official company.

And in the case of Edris and I, we have our own theater company, Black Artists Contemporary Cultural Experience, and Kevin has been a collaborator with us in many productions with that company and in other venues. [Working with them] feels like you have a community, which is nice to have in this profession where you’re often bouncing from project to project and it can sometimes feel like you’re floating by yourself. 

INTERVIEWER

You went to University of Texas at Austin, right? 

RA

I did, yes. 

INTERVIEWER 

Do you feel like it’s just in the Bay that you have this community of people to always draw upon? Is it something you’ve cultivated here? Is it special to here?

RA

I’ve lived in the bay for about 14 years now. I moved here right after graduate school in Illinois. My professional life as an actor has been here in the Bay Area. I’ve always been mostly here but I’ve been making theater since high school.

In high school and in college, I had some really formative experiences and connections. So those people are still part of my theater community. [In college] I participated in this program called Shakespeare at Winedale, which happens in the summer. About 16 to 20 students go to [a historic] center in the Hill country in Texas and perform three Shakespeare plays in a 19th century barn that’s been converted into a theater. Over the course of the summer, we do three plays, live in dorms together, and make our own costumes.

It’s one of the experiences that made me really want to be a professional actor and grow to love Shakespeare, to understand him, to all the possibilities of the language.

I also have community members, in Washington DC, New York, New Haven, Bulgaria, Russia, etc. I’ve been fortunate to be able to keep building connections with artists in the Bay Area, but also beyond.

INTERVIEWER

Had you done Shakespeare before the program? 

RA

We’d read some plays in English class. When I was a child, we had these abridged children’s versions of Shakespeare that were like synopses. And then middle school, we read some Shakespeare. Romeo and Juliet. I remember being fascinated by it, but not fully understanding it.

The wonderful thing about Shakespeare at Winedale was the way it taught Shakespeare. [The program] was [run by] the English department but instruction was [taught] through performance. That really opened my eyes because the plays were not meant to be read. They were meant to be performed. They weren’t even written down in a collection in Shakespeare’s time. And so it wasn’t a literary work, it was a work that was just created to be spoken. And to be heard. So in learning it through performance I was like, Oh my God, this is how it makes sense. And this is what the rhythm is doing. And this is how the rhythm of the words helps you understand what the keywords are and what the meaning is.

Once that became unlocked, it was so exciting for me to learn and to play [with Shakespeare]. Like, okay, this is something that’s mine. I can live in this world. It’s not some archaic thing that is incomprehensible. 

INTERVIEWER

You’re also a drag performer? 

RA

I’m in semi-retirement, but I have done [drag] and probably will do it again. 

INTERVIEWER 

I was just curious cause you said you were making costumes in the Shakespeare [at Winedale] program. Are there any ways in which your drag career interacts with Shakespeare? 

RA

Absolutely. I haven’t necessarily done a Shakespeare [drag] number, which now I’m wondering: why haven’t I done that? But of course thinking about the history of Shakespeare, the roles were initially played by only male identified actors.

There’s always gender subversion imbued, not just because of that history, but because in so many of the plays, there’s so much playing with gender: women dressing up as men, or in [the original production], it’s a man playing a woman, playing a man.

Even just the size of the feelings. The expressions that [characters] make I consider very akin to the size of drag performance. The heightened version of reality or femininity or whatever persona is being inhabited by the drag performer. I certainly think, in the other drag that I’ve done and continue to do, that Shakespeare has been an influence. Teaching me how to hold a stage and go somewhere over the top. 

In 2022, I played Oberon in A Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Folger Shakespeare Center in Washington D.C. That was a period where my drag performance intersected beautifully with Shakespeare as my Oberon was clad in platform high heels and a giant pink skirt with a massive train. In that production, Oberon was the one who got love juice in his eyes and fell in love with Bottom. In performing that role, I used mannerisms honed in my drag performance and was very grateful that drag had taught me how to walk in 5-inch heels. It was a joy to lean into the queerness that Shakespeare embedded in the role of the “King of the Fairies.”