Upcoming: An All-Female Staged Reading of The Taming of The Shrew, Austin Shakespeare at the Curtain Theatre, March 25 - 27

Click for ALT review, March 26


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Austin Shakespeare presents an all female cast in

The Taming of the Shrew

A Slapstick Comedy for the Lighthearted
written by William Shakespeare, directed by Ann Ciccolella
Friday, March 25 – Sunday, March 27 at 8 p.m.
at Richard Garriott’s Curtain Theater on the shores of Lake Austin, 7400 Coldwater Canyon Dr. (click to view Google map)
Tickets $24, available at www.nowplayingaustin.com or at the door.
Discount tickets available.
or follow Austin Shakespeare on Twitter: @austinshakes

After the success of packed houses during the run of Mary Stuart, Austin Shakespeare continues its 25th anniversary season with an all-female cast in a staged reading of the classic Shakespeare comedy. The Taming of the Shrew will play at Richard Garriott’s own Curtain Theater, a scaled replica of an Elizabethan outdoor theater nestled along the banks of Lake Austin, March 25 through 27 at 8 p.m.

“In Shakespeare’s time, only men were allowed on stage, even to play the female roles,” said Ann Ciccolella, artistic director of Austin Shakespeare. “We wanted to turn the tables and see a full cast of charismatic women to bring this comedy to life on a stage that resembles one of Shakespeare’s own.”

The story is based on the beautiful merchant’s daughter Bianca, and her admirers Lucentio, Gremio and Hortensio. Her father insists that she will not marry until her after her older, shrewish sister, Kate does, so Bianca's suitors persuade fortune-seeker Petruchio to court her. Bianca's suitors pay for any costs involved, even Kate's dowry, but Kate shows in no uncertain terms how opposed she is to marrying anyone.

The Taming of the Shrew is among one of Shakespeare’s earlier comedies and it shares characteristics with his other romantic comedies such as Much Ado About Nothing and A Midsummer Night’s Dream. The play is lighthearted, with slapstick humor, disguises and deception, replete with a happy ending.

The Curtain Theater is located in the heart of Garriott’s Castleton Village that is tucked away in a pecan grove along Lake Austin and features a fort, ship, lighthouse and jail. The Curtain Theatre is off City Park Rd., near Rts. 2222 and 360. (click for Google map)

THE CAST for TAMING OF THE SHREW

Jill Swanson as Petruchio, Gwen Kelso as Kate; with Babs George, Jill Blackwood, Linda Nenno, Karen Jambon, Kara Bliss Galbraith, Bernadette Nason, Jenny Larson, and Mary Alice Carnes.

ABOUT AUSTIN SHAKESPEARE

Now in its 25th anniversary season, Austin Shakespeare (formerly Austin Shakespeare Festival) presents professional theater of the highest quality with an emphasis on the plays of William Shakespeare to Central Texas. Bringing to the public performances that are fresh, bold, imaginative, thought- provoking, and eminently accessible, Austin Shakespeare connects the truths of the past with the challenges and possibilities of today. Founded in 1984, Austin Shakespeare offers fall and spring sessions of "Shakespeare Studio," the organization’s professional actor training courses. In addition, actors, teachers, parents and students are welcome at the "Shakespeare Aloud" year-round weekly reading group. Austin Shakespeare also offers summer camps for high school students at St. Edward's University, and camps for children at Scottish Rite Children's Theatre, downtown. Austin Shakespeare is a member of the Austin Circle of Theatres, and is funded in part by the City of Austin through The Cultural Arts Division and by a grant from the Texas Commission on the Arts.

The World's Fastest Hamlet, Austin Shakespeare at First Night Austin, December 31

Austin Shakespeare winked at the bard and happily laughed at itself with The World's Fastest Hamlet, a twenty-minute show given its second (annual?) staging at First Night Austin, the December 31 downtown festival.

Last year the same four-actor cast performed twice under the First Street Bridge during a bright, mild afternoon. This year they briefly took the music stage at City Hall Plaza at 6:15 p.m. as dark fell and the First Night parade unwound behind them along the lake front.

The joke is one of Ultimate Compression. When you take a great and renowned three-hour tragedy and metaphorically throw it into a car-crusher, only the crazy survives. The script is built of familiar patches of dialogue, all in their proper order, but without the emotional depth or imagery of the tragic. Those who know and love that vigorous meditation on treachery, guilt, responsibility, love, friendship, rank, decision and mortality are left with only the "vigorous" part of it. And what could be more absurd?

So this guy in a black beret is called up on the ramparts for a dialogue with a ghost, puts on an antic disposition, repudiates his girlfriend, threatens his uncle king and aunt mother, skewers a counselor, battles pirates, gets back to contemplate a skull and encounter the unexpected funeral of the girlfriend, accepts a friendly fencing match and winds up surrounded by corpses before becoming one himself. What?? And this, they say, is probably the greatest literature ever written in English??

Imagine doing all that at breakneck speed with four actors popping out from behind a flimsy screen, waving props like a flimsy "Casper the ghost" cut-out and using the wildest out-in-the-saloon melodramatic style.

It's a blast, and it's all the funnier when you recognize familiar Austin Shakespearians. ALT has reviewed most of them.

Read more and view images at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: World's Fastest Hamlet!, Austin Shakespeare at First Night, CIty Hall Stage

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Austin Shakespeare at FIRST NIGHT AUSTIN, City Hall Stage at 6:15 p.m. Thursday, December 31

The World's Fastest Hamlet FREE

Austin Shakespeare reprises its popular production of The World's Fastest Hamlet on New Year's Eve as part of Austin's First Night. We are honored to be presenting on the City Hall Stage at 6:15 pm. Don't miss this wonderful piece that turns Shakespeare's most famous tragedy into a delightful comedy for the whole family. starring Ted Meredith of Esther's Follies, Gwen Kelso, Robert Deike and Justin Scalise as Hamlet. Directed by Beth Burns.

As You Like It, Scottish Rite Theatre, August 7 - 30

As You Like It is one of the gentlest and most whimsical of Shakespeare's works, a playful edifice built on oppositions.

The court versus the forest, autocratic older brothers excluding younger brothers; lovers vying in vain for their ladies and, inevitably, a fair maid cross-dressing as a fair youth.

An aged servant finances with his last savings the flight into the forest of his impetuous young master; that master braves a fight for the sake of his ancient retainer but instead of armed resistance meets open handed generosity.

A witty, carefree fool flings himself into lusty romance; a melancholy gentleman observes, philosophizes and abstains from the world.

"As you like it . . . ." Perhaps the enigmatic ad libertam title doesn't immediately conjur up the plot for you?

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: As You Like It, Scottish Rite Theatre, August 7 - 30

UPDATE: Click for ALT review




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The Scottish Rite Theatre
presents

As You Like It

directed by Beth Burns
with music by Michael McKelvey

August 7 - 30
Fridays and Saturdays at 8 p.m., Sundays at 2 p.m.
207 West 18th Street, Austin, at the corner of 18th and Lavaca, catercorner from the Bob Bullock Texas History Museum.

As You Like It follows its heroine Rosalind as she flees persecution in her uncle's court to find safety and eventually love in the Forest of Arden with her cousin Celia, court jester Touchstone, and many other love-sick characters. Charades and disguise lead to all manner of frolics in the forest, with the lively plot ultimately resulting in a “happily ever after“ finale.

Tickets: Friday and Saturday $12 in advance (online or at Box Office) and $15 at the door
tickets online

Sundays: $10 in advance (online or at Box Office) and $12 at the door

As You Like It is brought to you by the same team behind last year's sparkling Twelfth Night. Director Beth Burns, fresh from the run of her own play The Long Now, returns to direct Shakespeare's pastoral masterpiece, with the help of music director and composer Michael McKelvey, and some of Austin's most accomplished classical actors.

Read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

Upcoming: Romeo and Juliet, Austin Shakespeare in Zilker Park, May 7 - June 7

UPDATE: ALT review of May 10




Posted by Austin Shakespeare on April 26:

Romeo and Juliet

For the 24th year, Austin Shakespeare brings FREE Shakespeare to Zilker Park. From May 7 to June 7 we present Shakespeare’s most popular play with a new twist: Romeo & Juliet features Shakespeare’s own text, including some Spanish language!

Set in Central Texas in the 1940’s, this production boasts a Central Texas setting with a Mexican-American flavor. This is the timeless story of two young people who fall in love, but whose families have hated one another for so long that they no longer remember the reason.

"This new approach to Romeo and Juliet relishes the beautiful story, exciting characters and thrilling language framed within the Mexican-American culture of South Central Texas," said Artistic Director Ann Ciccolella, who is staging the outdoor production. "We have a cast filled with actors who are dynamic, funny and make Shakespeare totally understandable--even in Spanish."

WHEN: May 7 - June 7, Thursday - Sunday at 8:00PM; special Mother's Day matinee at 2PM (no evening performance); special preview Wednesday May 6.
WHERE: The Sheffield Hillside Theatre at Zilker Park (across the parking lot from Barton Springs pool)

Click to read more at AustinLiveTheatre.com . . . .

World's Fastest Hamlet and Heron & Crane, December 31

Sometimes you master the venue and other times the venue masters you.

We went to downtown Austin on the afternoon of the First Night celebrations, particularly to check out the theatre events advertised for the HBMG Foundation stage in the park just under the south end of the First Street Bridge.

Except that there was no stage there. HBMG certainly must have encouraged and subsidized the schedule of events for that locale, but the participants were left to define a playing space as best they could.

That didn’t much bother the Capoeira group, who set up their drums and percussion on the sidewalk and spent a cheery, thumping half-hour or so demonstrating that graceful, dance-like martial art from Brazil. They gathered a good crowd. Some folks watched from the bridge railings, above, and others stood or sat on the curbside.

The second spot, at 3:30, was reserved for Austin Shakespeare’s World’s Fastest Hamlet. They had chosen to set up beneath the bridge itself, using the road as the playing space and encouraging spectators to seat themselves next to it.

They had done their homework – not only did they plant a thicket of microphones, but they had also secured professional stage lighting up under the girders of the bridge.

A glib and cheery Master of Ceremonies took the microphone as soon as the Capoeira group finished. Many of the spectators attracted to the martial arts display good naturedly strolled the 20 or 30 feet over to the performance space. Quite a few of us plopped our rears down in the fine dirt next to the street, and others gathered on the incline beneath the bridge.

Hamlet done in fifteen minutes can be played only as wild street farce, particularly since the company consisted of only four players for all parts. Director Beth Burns discharged them at the august edifice of the play like a load of Silly Putty, and they were all over the place.


(Left to right: Gwen Kelso animating the ghost and playing female parts, Ted Meredith as Shakespeare and others, Justin Scalise as Hamlet, and Robert Deike as Horatio, Polonius and Laertes).

This was a very silly and very funny version of Hamlet, played at maximum volume and picked up very well by the sound system. The theatrical lighting dispelled the shadows normally lurking under the bridge in mid-afternoon. The show occurred relatively early in the First Night program, so there was little noise from other activities in the parks.

It was all clowning, made even more funny because the players were quoting verbatim from Shakespeare’s revered text. Justin Scalise put no darkness in this Hamlet; he was as animated and silly as a Road Runner cartoon.

Some of my favorite moments

The opening scene, with guards on the ramparts:

(The ghost that pops up next to the moon turns out to be a puppet styled after the “Ghostbusters” emblem.)

Hamlet and Polonius: “Words, words, words!”

Hamlet confronts mom Gertrude in her chambers:


Claudius decides that Hamlet must to England after the killing of Polonius:

And of course, the finale:

Once they’d finished, to cheers from the audience, our players over-topped themselves by doing a two-minute Hamlet, followed by a ten-second Hamlet.

Justin Scalise is without doubt a Shakespeare buff. He recently played a fine Feste the clown in Twelfth Night at the Scottish Rite Theatre, and he delivered some more fractured Shakespeare at Frontera Fest (he plays Hamlet in the “O Feel Ya!” parody, available on YouTube). And the narrowsheet passed out at this show promises “for those interested in more Hamlet, there will be a fall production featuring some of Austin’s finest actors. For information, inquire a jscalise@hotmail.com.”

The following act was a no-show, and the crowd dissolved quickly. We strolled the park, enjoyed the gathering crowds and examined the towering wooden clock that was to be burned just hours later. On the north side of Lady Bird Lake, someone had set up a powerful sound system and was inviting passersby to express their New Year's wishes. The result was a loud, perfectly audible sequence of banalities that did not stop for the rest of the time we were there.

The sun had gone lower in the sky, sending broad yellow shafts of light across the dusty park. When we came back in half an hour to the HBMG venue, the DA! Theatre Collective was setting up for their touring children’s show, Heron & Crane.


At the 4:30 showtime there was almost no audience. The DA! players had set up on the road. Almost without exception the people who showed up for the presentation elected to sit on the incline, behind a dirt strip about 50 feet wide. I joined them, with the perspective shown above. One man broke the pattern and plumped his rear down in the dirt just by the stage; I went and joined him. Then I stood up for a moment and looked back. The perspective from there shows the great divide between stage and public.


The players from the DA! Collective had an inadequate sound system, which was their primary additional disadvantage; in addition, as their audience strained to hear them, the idiot chatter booming across the lake continually interrupted their lines.

Occasional joggers and bikers along the roadway diverted across the dirt, and at times sculling races crossed dramatically from far, far stage right to far, far stage left.

Heron & Crane is a charming, whimsical two-character play, based on a Russian folk tale. In these circumstances it was a beautiful gem cast onto a sandpile.

As a start to the participatory session, the actors encourage the audience to make the sounds of wind, bubbles, frogs, bumblebees, and storms.

The story is simple: Michelle Brandt is Heron, a sweet but lonely bird living by a pond; Jude Hickey arrives as Crane, the boisterous, bumbling newcomer to the neighborhood. The story runs through the course of a year, as Heron and Crane discover one another, play, quarrel, dance, and make up. The wind, bubbles, frogs, bumblebees and storms periodically occur, to the delight of the spectators. The actors danced to recorded music at several points in the action.

Language is simple; concepts are easy for children to grasp as the two friends compete, play, differ and reconcile. Brandt and Hickey do lovely bird struts. (Click on images to enlarge.)

This is a play written for close-up participation. Jude Hickey gave us the gosh-gee-whiz attitude and throwaway energy of a clever four-year-old, and Michelle Brandt was as cheery and attractive as any child's very best friend. But after a cranky, nonsensical argument over pumpkin carving, as the play's year draws to a close the friends are not speaking.

Moderator Kirk German then engages children directly, asking what the two bird friends might do to overcome their difficulties. ("Say you're sorry!" "Play together -- have a flying race!")

The actors carry out the audience's suggestions and bring their bird year to a cheerful, successful close.

The venue was a disaster for this delicate, friendly presentation, which in the comfortable and non-distracting confines of a classroom or activity hall must awaken wonder and great enthusiasm with its target audience. Make-believe is natural and spontaneous for the very young, and the lessons in this simple morality play are easy to grasp. And anyone with an ounce of wonder left in his or her spirit would be pleased to make the acquaintance of such engaging characters as these.


That was certainly the opinion of the two tiny youngsters who rushed the stage after the conclusion of the play.