John Kooistra: Thespian For The Decades

This article honors a long-time contributor to the Hilo arts scene for his dedication to local theatre via 26+ years of participation.

JOHN KOOISTRA, THESPIAN FOR THE DECADES IN KALĀKUA PARK, HILO... Speak the speech, I pray you, as I pronounced it to you, trippingly on the tongue. Hamlet Act 3, scene 2, written in 1603... One must wonder if William Shakespeare had an inkling – 416 years after he penned this passage – that an actor 7,200 miles from Stratford-upon-Avon, in the middle of the Pacific on the Island of Hawai’i, would take his words to heart. For decades, John Kooistra has done just what the Bard proposed, appearing in 26 plays in downtown Hilo’s Kalākaua Park from 1983 to this summer’s 2019 production of Hamlet, where he found himself on-stage and back-stage, once again muttering famous soliloquies he had committed to memory. Read the full article here: JOHN KOOISTRA, THESPIAN FOR THE DECADES IN KALĀKUA PARK

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