Shakespeare in LA

Celebrating the joy of love, liberty and great wit, Shakespeare Orange County will present Shakespeare’s As You Like It, August 13 – 29. The cast will feature Josh Odsess-Rubin as Rosalind, with Cynthia Aldrich (Phebe), Alex Bodrero (Jacques), Marisa Costa (Celia), Michael Drace Fountain (Duke Senior), John Frederick Jones (Adam), Colin Martin (Orlando), Blake Prentiss (Oliver), A.J. Smitrovich (Duke Frederick) and Tony Torrico (Touchstone).

“With great veteran Shakespearean actors like John-Frederick Jones, this will definitely be a charming and enchanting production,” says SOC producing artistic director John Walcutt. “It will be a lot of fun for all audiences, with great surprises, disguises and cross-dressing antics that have made this play beloved for more than four centuries.”

Director Peter Uribe adds, “We have moved our As You Like It from its setting in France to the time and place it was written. We’re really enhancing the experience of being back in Elizabethan England with Renaissance period entertainment before the show and plenty of rich period costumes onstage.” 

The production team includes Michael Drace Fountain (scenic design), Sean McMullen (costume design), Kevin Cook (lighting and sound design), Amelia Barron (music director) and Jeff Budner (fight choreography). Cailin Luneburg and Sarah Bond are stage managing.

In a special free pre-show seminar on August 21, beginning at 7:15 p.m., Samantha Dressel will discuss gender dynamics in As You Like It and how they reveal the fluid and nuanced understanding of gender and sex that existed in the Renaissance playhouse. Currently in the University of Rochester’s doctoral program with a focus on Renaissance revenge tragedies, Dressel recently presented a paper on verbal identity construction in Othello at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. She earned her bachelor of arts in English Literature from Colgate University and has taught undergraduate writing, including a course on rhetoric and identity in the Renaissance, at the University of Rochester.

AS YOU LIKE IT
August 13 – 29, 2015 (opening night 8/15)
Festival Amphitheatre Main Stage
12762 Main St, Garden Grove, CA 92840.
Tickets: (714) 590-1575 or www.shakespeareoc.org

The August 15 opening includes “Nights in White,” a special $100 package that includes pre-show dinner and entertainment on the amphitheater lawn, with reserved seats in the first three rows. Guests are invited to dress in white.

Rush tickets are available on Fridays and Saturdays at 7pm. Any seats not sold for that performance will be made available for $7. In addition, Thursdays are “Pay What You Want” for all remaining unsold seats one-half hour before curtain.