The Bard is back! Following last month’s highly successful production of the melodrama The Great Ice Cream Scheme, Footlighters Theatre Society will continue its 21st season with Shakespeare in the Park (Or Something Like It) VI, running at 6 p.m. Aug. 20-22 at Millennium Park.
“We keep getting requests to bring it back,” said president Brian Lawrence. “It’s a wonderful venue for a production like this, so we’re excited to return to the park.”
This sixth production will continue the theme set by Gail Kitt, who conceived Shakepeare in the Park (Or Something Like It) as a way to offer the audience a dose of culture, not just a few scenes.
“It’s like a mini-Elizabethan festival,” said Kitt. “As well as scenes and speeches, the audience will also enjoy music and dancing.”
The dancing will be performed by a troupe of eight dancers, wearing costumes created for an earlier production, and music will include Shakespeare-era songs by Debra Mehrer, as well as instrumentals by Julie Groot and Shirley Cameron (Friday and Saturday only).
On the spoken word side, performances will include the witches’ scene from Macbeth, a condensed Timon of Athens focusing solely on the title character, and speeches from Henry VI, Part 3 and Richard III.
As always, the audience is encouraged to bring a meal or snacks to eat during the show; the Fork food truck will be on-site to serve dinner at the park.
The season will include two more plays, the farcical comedy Nana’s Naughty Knickers in December, directed by Gary Atha, and the drama Other Desert Cities (a finalist for the 2012 Pulitzer Prize for Drama) in March, directed by Lawrence.
—FOOTLIGHTERS THEATRE SOCIETY