It may have been King Richard’s summer of discontent, but it wasn’t for the Chanticleer Shakespeare Co.

Fresno’s first professional Shakespearean theater company wrapped up its first production last weekend, but for those who missed it, artistic director Blake Ellis says they’ll only increase the “wow factor” for the next one.

The production of “Richard III” drew from not only local talent but from across the country as actors sought to be a part of Shakespeare in Fresno, Ellis said. He said the city’s Measure P parks and art tax made the production possible.

“With the Measure P funding coming through finally, and really being queued up for the next I guess now 29 years, everything seemed to be falling in place for the creation of a truly professional theater company here in Fresno,” Ellis said. “That’s been a dream of a lot of thespians who’ve come into Fresno and had to leave because there’s no professional venue here. But I feel like now is the perfect time. And I think the audience that showed up really demonstrated that.”

Ellis Wanted Something Fast-Paced for the Modern Audience

It took more than a year to get “Richard III” stage ready, Ellis said. Having a professional company means navigating through actor’s unions, but when Chanticleer put out the call for actors, the number of applications did not disappoint.

“We got tons of submissions from professional actors from big theater cities, New York, Chicago, San Francisco, Los Angeles, Washington D.C., all over the place, who were wanting to come to Fresno to do professional Shakespeare,” Ellis said.

Kathleen McCall, who played the Duchess of York, trained at the London Academy of Music and Dramatic Art. She’s been in Broadway and off-Broadway productions.

Jacqueline Antaramian, who played Queen Elizabeth, played alongside Denzel Washington in a Broadway production of “Julius Caesar.” Her TV credits include parts in “Homeland,”  “Ahsoka,” and “The Sopranos.”

With the amount of local talent also wanting to be a part of the production, four of the 17 cast members came from out of town.

Part of the draw for actors was doing a performance in up-and-coming Fresno, Ellis said. The other part was the play Ellis chose.

Richard III tells the story of a king’s younger brother who has eyes for the throne. One of Shakespeare’s bloodier plays, it not only has murder, a battle, and a sword fight, but also the Bard’s “most delicious vilain,” Ellis said.

Richard’s schemes advance the physically disabled Duke of Gloucester to kingship before being defeated by Henry VII, grandfather of Queen Elizabeth, William Shakespeare’s patron.

Ellis chose it because for many years, he had a 100-minute cut of the play that would otherwise would have been three hours with an intermission. Audiences and actors took to the fast-paced production, and that’s something Ellis wanted to leave people with, and something he’ll want for future productions.

“That’s where we want to be. We want people to be able to talk about it and say, ‘Oh, you missed it, they had all these fantastic actors. You’d better show up for next season,’ ” Ellis said.

Next Production Will Make Full Use of Historic Warnor’s Theatre

It will be a few weeks before Chanticleer announces its next production and another year before it will be ready, Ellis said. He’s already made the selection and the pieces are falling into place for it.

He said the next production will take full advantage of Warnor’s Theatre.

“The people who came and saw Richard are going to be very impressed with the steps that we’ve taken to increase the wow factor in terms of what we can do in that 100-year-old building at Warnor’s,” Ellis said. “It’s the gem downtown and it feels like the building itself is part of any show you do there, but with this next production, we’re going to really make use of that in a way that’s unusual and exciting.”

With the $50,000 Measure P grant they received, Ellis said they want to be as fiscally responsible with funds as possible. He said he’s seen too many production companies be cavalier with taxpayer funding.

Some elaborate productions can cost $800,000 to $1 million. But Ellis says they can do it for a fraction of that cost. As they expand and begin to do more than one show a season, he’s envisioning plans to stretch their dollars.

“Without Measure P, we would never even gotten off the ground. The important thing that I see Measure P is doing, not just in our company, bit in the community, is it’s creating opportunities for art and for organizations to not just produce something for the community, but to start and establish a footprint,” Ellis said.