WV Shakes Fest

   My pal Dave Lavender turns in an excellent story in the Herald-Dispatch about this weekend's West Virginia Shakespeare Festival, which you can read at this link.

   Here's an excerpt:

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With a set and costume twist of 1970s/'80s American beach culture, Shakespeare's island-set love adventures "Twelfth Night (or What You Will)" gets sent up in summer style.

Alchemy Theatre Troupe rolls into its second weekend of the production with two final shows - at 8 p.m. Friday and Saturday, June 7 and 8 - and the production-ending full-day second annual WV Shakes Fest starts at 1 p.m. Saturday with a menagerie of dance, comedy, music, arts and crafts vendors and more.

All tickets are general admission and are $20 to see the play which is about two hours with a short intermission. Saturday's WV Shakes Fest admission is an extra $5. Patrons are encouraged to dress in beach-themed attire and to bring picnics (all legal beverages allowed).

Since the 1602-written romantic comedy takes place on an island, Michael Murdock, who is directing the play, said it was easy to re-imagine it with a 1970s/'80s beach resort vibe.

"Because we were outdoors, and because this is set on an island we wanted to go with a beach resort vibe with a very late 1970s/early to mid-1980s resort style," Murdock said. "There's going to be a lot of Hawaiian shirts and an 'Magnum P.I.'-like vibe."

Murdock said for all shows they are encouraging folks to bring their own chairs or blankets to sit on. Also feel free to bring their own picnics and drinks to make a party of it.

On Stage An Island Apart

To set the visuals for the story, the Amphitheater's stage is set with Orsino's Tiki Lounge on stage right and Olivia's Biergarten on stage left to represent the romantic gulf between the two main characters, Duke Orsino, played by Owen Reynolds and Countess Olivia played by Kate Morris.

The play takes place on the island of Illyria in the middle of its Twelfth Night (the 12 days of Christmas leading to Epiphany) celebration. Orsino is in love with Olivia. Olivia won't have him because she's mourning for her dead brother. A set of twins, Viola (played by Joanna Murdock) and Sebastian (played by Andrew Surber) wash up on the shores after a shipwreck and cause a bunch of problems for everyone living on the island, including themselves. Viola ends up dressing as a man to get around the island freely, begins working for Orsino and inadvertently becomes the object of Olivia's affection. Olivia's staff also find time to cause trouble as well - and, in true, Shakespearean fashion, everything gets crazier and crazier all the way through to the end.

"It's a very Jimmy Buffett like vibe and we set it up for them to have rival bars on the island so that when you walk in and see that you basically get the gist of what we are doing," Murdock said.