Wichita Shakespeare Company loves the ‘80s with summer show
Come for the Bard and stay for the frat party.
That's the unofficial theme of this year's Wichita Shakespeare Company's touring production of "Love's Labours Lost."
"I've set this on an ‘80s college campus," director Angela Forrest said. "When you read ‘Love's Labours Lost,' the first thing that jumps out at you is that it's a very men-versus-women storyline, and it was all about folks coming in and you didn't know who they were. And you'd have a class clown and read a little further and you had that professor in lit class that would just drone on and on and on."
A self-described child of the ‘80s, Forrest said she also set "Love's Labours Lost" in that decade to avoid the presence of cellphones.
"Most Shakespeare falls apart if you can just call somebody and clarify," she said.
"Love's Labours Lost" opens for the first of three weekends of performances in Wichita-area parks, concluding with an indoor performance at University Friends Church on June 22.
Forrest discovered, however, that finding the right costumes for an ‘80s-set comedy was as tough as searching for pantaloons and ruffled neck collars.
"I really thought it would be easier to walk into a thrift store and find what I was needing, but that has proved to be an incredible challenge," she said.
Rather than Ferdinand, King of Navarre, Robert Brining plays Ferdinand, the frat president.
"We've had a lot of fun conversions we've done with the scripts to kind of fit in with that setting," he said. "Instead of a king and his friends, it's all like a big frat party."
Despite the costume and setting change, Brining said, the script keeps almost all of the script intact.
"Besides changing a couple of words here and there, we are 99.9% the original script, which has been a very fun transition, figuring out how to represent an ‘80s fraternity or sorority while also giving Shakespearian prose and monologues," he said. "It's been a really fun acting journey, honestly."
Ashley Grega plays what was the Princess of France, now the president of a sorority.
"Honestly, when these men are fawning over us, we think it's fun to use our powers against them and mess with their heads," she said.
For both Brining and Grega, it's their first time playing outdoor theater, with all of its unpredictability, both natural and human-made.
"The unpredictability creates a fun combination of improvisation and sticking with the script while having fun on stage," Brining said.
Forrest said she has all the confidence in her cast.
"They've all got great sensibilities about these things," she said. "It's easy to do when the cast gels as well as this cast has."
The two leads are examples of WSC first-timers being cast in "Love's Labours Lost."
"I've been very lucky to pull the cast I've pulled for this show," said Forrest, whose first Wichita theater experience was being cast in a WSC show. "If that director hadn't given me a shot, I wouldn't be doing what I'm doing now."
‘LOVE'S LABOURS LOST' BY WICHITA SHAKESPEARE COMPANY
When: 7 p.m. June 6-22
Where:
- June 6: College Hill Park, Wichita
- June 7: High Park Amphitheatre, Derby
- June 8: Andover Sports Park
- June 13: Central Riverside Park, Wichita
- June 14: College Hill Park, Wichita
- June 15: Buffalo Park, Wichita
- June 20: College Hill Park, Wichita
- June 21: Central Riverside Park, Wichita
- June 22: University Friends Church (indoors)
Tickets: Free, with donations accepted; the WSC phone line, 316-655-2017, will be updated with cancellations
Post a Comment