Northern Colorado Child Free Wiki

The Colorado Shakespeare Festival in Boulder is held every summer. They put on 4 plays in reporitory. They have an excellent outdoor theater where they put on most of the plays. They usually do 3 Shakespeare plays and 1 play related to Shakespeare.

http://www.coloradoshakes.org/

You can show up early and have a picnic dinner on the grass in front of the theater.

Things to Bring

Raincoat - This is an outdoor show and the show will go on in moderate rain. Umbrellas are not allowed as they would obscure the view of people behind you. So bring a raincoat (or at least a black hefty trash bag).

Bug repellant - Mostly you can rely on the fact that everyone in crowd is deet'ed up to repell all the skeeters. However, do you really want to be the only tasty item in the crowd?

Blanket - Colorado evenings have a tendency to cool off rapidly, bringing a lap blanket will make you more comfortable. Beside you don't want to sit under the blanket, you can also use the blanket as an extra seat cushion.

Wine - What better way to enjoy Shakespeare under the stars than with a glass of wine. I recommend plastic or metal wine glasses. Also, if you forget, the concession stand does sell alcohol too.

2006 Play Reviews

The Merchant of Venice

Love and money are the root of all—passion. In Merchant, these two themes are inextricably bound up. Bassanio, the erstwhile hero must have money to woo the lovely Portia, a need which sets the plot in motion. And when Shylock, the source of that money, learns his daughter has eloped, there is both pathos and irony in his cry: “Oh my daughter, Oh my ducats.” Shakespeare untwines the two themes and offers a value-laden answer in the riddle of the golden, silver, and lead caskets.

Unexpected Shaxpeare!

Back, literally by popular demand, the Unexpected Shaxpere! improv troupe will again take suggestions from the audience to create a brand new play—every night. Speak in iambic pentameter? That’s a snap. Think up a plot? No problem. Create a character that looks and feels Shakespearean? It’s done. These incredibly gifted actors make what is very, very difficult look simple. Come once, and come again, to see the troupe exercise their imaginations, and yours, night after night.

As You Like It

Imagine a green glade in a forest of tall trees and sparkling brooks, a group of like-minded friends away from the travail of city and politics. Who would ever want to leave? Well, to have a play, we have to have conflict, so, enter the lovers—four sets of them to be exact—to epitomize the varieties of love. Rosalind and Orlando will turn out to be the truly ideal pair balancing passion and affection, intellect and feeling, but only after Orlando undergoes a playful trial at the hands of witty Rosalind. Of course the villains arrive from the corrupt court—and are forgiven—and then. . . . Well, even if you know the ending, come and rejoice in the fantasy of “happily ever after.”

The Tempest

With the most dramatic of openings, The Tempest cracks and booms its way into consciousness. And then a strange and eerie calm descends while characters undergo a deep and significant transformation—psychic, social, and spiritual. As the sprite Ariel sings “There is nothing but doth change, into something rich and strange . . . .” Commonly thought to be Shakespeare’s own farewell to the theatre profession, The Tempest contains much to puzzle and more to please.

2005 Play Reviews

Winter's Tale

The World of the Play (from the www.coloradoshakes.org site)

The Winter’s Tale relates a family's journey to forgiveness. The play opens in Sicilia where a perfect family is destroyed by infectious jealousy. The passage of sixteen years and the transition to Bohemia offers the audience a respite from the tragic events. Like a breath of fresh air, a harvest festival marks the possibility of rejuvenation. The journey concludes with a return to Sicilia and the reconciliation of king, queen and their long-lost daughter. To forgive is not to forget, however, and Hermione’s return does not erase the story’s tragic beginning. True loss has been incurred: a young prince and a husband are dead, and a mother has missed sixteen years of her daughter’s life. This play teaches us that time can bring healing change and peace: as in ancient mythology and Medieval fairy tales, a return home is always possible but there is a price to be paid for the journey.

This sprawling plot evokes a fusion of ancient myth, fairy tale and epic poetry. Inspired by Medieval fairy tales, director Cynthia Croot's production blends an Eastern aesthetic with the illustrations of early 20th-century artist Kay Nielson. This fusion of styles reflects the far-flung story itself—the production will not be tied down to a single era but will explore the power of myth in a magical setting.

David Barber’s scene design creates a world of myth-inspired otherness. Hung from an iron arch wrought like the "tree of life," a curtain follows the family's journey as it changes from grandiose backdrop to ragged and water-stained reminder of better times. Deb Sivigny's costume designs use dark, lush materials to evoke the Kingdom of Sicilia while gossamers, lightweight sheers and shapeless tunics express the summery freedom of the Bohemian harvest festival.

Saw this on July 16^th with Gabi, Chaylyn, Bob, Sue and Ann. A good night, if just a bit too warm, the typical Colorado 15 minute rain shower came in right on cue for the intermission. Met at 6:30 for a picnic in park before play. I never really been a fan of the Winter's Tale. It doesn't fit the categories of comedy or tragedy in Shakespeare's works. However, on the comedic side, a hilarious series of encounters between Clown, a shepherd's son, and Autolycus, a rogue, in which a fool and his money (and clothes) are soon parted, is cleverly escalated into commentary on dishonesty and class pretensions. Nice work here by Ryan Spickard and Diomedes Koufteros.

Twelfth Night

The World of the Play

“So full of shapes is fancy/ that it alone is high fantastical,” declares the lovestruck Orsino in the first moments of Twelfth Night, or, What You Will. Matching the fanciful action of the play, director Robert Cohen aims for the “high fantastical” in this production.

Cohen locates Shakespeare's Illyria on a Caribbean island in the 1930s, a place infused with vintage calypso rhythms and a mix of Italian, English and Creole characters. Janice Lacek's costumes are exuberant reminders of the period but the set designed by Arthur Chadwick illustrates best of all the spirit of the “high fantastical” so important to Cohen's vision of the play. Featuring an ocean-blue floor and twinkling globes, the set incorporates elements of the original Elizabethan theatre in whimsical ways while providing space for the play’s tropical antics.

The play's alternate title What You Will would have suggested to Elizabethan ears the phrase "Who You Want." Cohen conceives of the play in these terms because so much of the action raises precisely this question: exactly who do the characters want? All of the major characters fall in love with the wrong person: the servant Malvolio with his mistress Olivia, Olivia with the girl Viola, and Orsino with the boy "Cesario." Romantic confusions multiply until, like a moebius strip, the characters come out on the other side of the story with the right person—all except one, the pitiful, misplaced Malvolio.

The only play old Bill decided to name twice, Twelfth Night or What You Will. Written quite late in the Bard's career, Twelfth Night is a lark. Possibly the lightest of all of Shakespeare's comedies, Twelfth Night follows the standard mistaken identity formula to till laughter from comedy's fields. Director Robert Cohen's choice to place the play in a patchwork 1930s Caribbean setting, complete with Calypso rhythms and a multicultural cast of characters, subtly accentuates the comic aspects as well as the plight of the one semi-tragic character.

Othello

The World of the Play

Director Jane Page has chosen to set this year’s production of Othello during the first World War when war raged between the Ottoman Empire (Turkey) and Italy, and colonial African soldiers were commonly pressed into service in the European armies. In Page’s interpretation of Shakespeare’s text, Othello is one of these African soldiers, raised to high command by his successes in the war. Ever the “outsider,” Othello strives mightily to serve the interests of his adoptive nation and his men. Page’s interpretation provokes thought on the promises made to those who sacrifice themselves to war, and the roles “outsiders” play in any culture—satisfying the needs no one “of” the culture desires to fill.

From the cosmopolitan streets of Venice, the center of Italian government, to the war-torn island outpost of Cyprus, set designer David Barber creates a world of classic arches and tight quarters for the private revelations, accusations, and deceptions intrinsic to the action of Othello. Yet these spaces ingeniously pop wide open for the public proclamations and brawls intrinsic to the action of Othello. Lighting designer Michael Wellborn contributes, evoking the too-bright light and sharp shadows of the Mediterranean island’s sun. Finally, the costume design by Patrick Holt contrasts the crisp historic uniforms of the Italian troops with the flowing, gauzy garb of Cyprus. Jane Page utilizes the overlap between these two worlds, pushing us to question what boundaries outsiders face in any culture, and how these boundaries are enforced.

Unexpected Shaxspeare!

Improv Shakespeare-like fun, they make up a play on the spot based on audience suggestions.