The California Shakespeare ensemble begins its residency at Farnsworth Park on Mother's Day with the greatest hits of the Bard's writings about love.
"Shakespeare's LOVERS," will be performed Sunday, May 12, in the Fansworth Park Amphitheatre. The 70-minute performance starts at 6 PM, and admission is $10 at the door.
CSE's Brian Elerding writes: "The California Shakespeare Ensemble is digging out the greatest scenes from all of Shakespeare's work and performing them live as part of "Shakespeare's LOVERS." The show comes from its popular opening day at Descanso Gardens' Earth Day 2013 celebration in April. The show is fast-paced and fun, and will even have Shakespearean newbies understanding and enjoying. The show is a series of the ensemble members' favorite love scenes from throughout Shakespeare's catalog; from the popular to the obscure, the comic to the tragic, the epic to the trivial."
Some of Shakespeare's best writing about love rarely sees the light of day: it is buried in lesser-known plays that don't have as much box office draw. We all know Romeo and Juliet, but when was the last time you saw Henry the Sixth Part II, or Two Gentlemen of Verona? Shakespeare's lovers takes the best of all worlds.
The California Shakespeare ensemble began when three working actors had an idea one evening over dinner: what if they got the best Shakespearean actors they knew, then stripped their favorite plays down only the words and the people? No fairy costumes. No artificial inflection. Just dogged determination to tell the story at hand. By the end of the dinner, the California Shakespeare Ensemble was born.
The ensemble is based on the idea of a supergroup: it is a side project for currently working actors, and an incubator for up-and-coming actors. So the ensemble are stars of hit TV shows(Ken Baumann on "The Secret Life of the American Teenager," David Blue from "Stargate: Universe" and "Ugly Betty," Fred Cross from "The Joe Schmoe Show"), and some in the ensemble are fresh from training at NYU. RADA, and Shakespeare's Globe in London.
Due to some innuendo and double entendre, the ensemble recommends the show for adults and teens. There is no nudity or overt vulgarity, but the show is recommended for 12 years of age and older.
