Shakespeare assumes a 1940's style

BRADLEY UNIVERSITY THEATRE PRESENTS SHAKESPEARE’S AS YOU LIKE IT

New Production remodels the theatre and features 1940s styles and music.

Guest director Kevin Rich, artistic director of the acclaimed Illinois Shakespeare Festival, travels west to lead Bradley Theatre students in one of Shakespeare’s most popular comedies, As You Like It, running at the Hartman Center from April 16 – 26.

The play tells the story of Rosalind, the daughter of a banished Duke. Exiled by her wicked uncle, she disguises herself as a man and flees with her loyal cousin, Celia, to the bucolic Forest of Aden. There she is welcomed by an unforgettable assortment of courtiers, clowns, romantics and philosophers -- including the melancholy Jacques, whose pensive meanderings include the famous “All the word’s a stage.”  Rosalind,  considered one of Shakespeare’s greatest young characters, is a woman of remarkable intellect, imagination and resourcefulness, who confounds the dull, lifts up the oppressed, debates justice, rights wrongs, and, of course, discovers love. BU junior Meghan Grott, who played Catherine in Proof earlier this season, takes on the role of Rosalind.

Inspired by the styles and music of the early 1940s, director Rich sets the production in northern California. Rich is an advocate of a theatre style known broadly as Original Practice, which employs many of the method’s of Shakespeare’s time, including extensive direct address to the audience. “We’ve set this production [at] a time when powerful oppression led men and women alike to ask big questions about the true meaning of life, and to rise up and take control of their destinies,” notes Rich. “ It was also a time when ukuleles were popular, which, as you’ll see, made this period an especially good fit for us!”

BU junior Hannah Williams has composed new musical settings, featuring 3-part harmonies in the style of the Andrews Sisters, for the play’s numerous songs, including “Under the Greenwood Tree" and “Blow, Blow Thou Winter Wind, Scenic designer, Professor Chad Lowell, has completely reimagined the Meyer-Jacobs theatre space, turning the auditorium into an intimate, four sided arena and providing sudents with the opportunity to work in the round.

As You Like It will run Thursdays through Saturdays, April 16-18 and April 23-25 at 8pm, with Sunday matinees April 19 and  April 26 at 2:30pm. Tickets are $14 for adults, $7 for students (with a special $5 ticket for Bradley freshmen), and $12  for Bradley faculty, staff, and seniors (62+). For tickets call 309-677-2650.

About the Director

Kevin Rich is an Assistant Professor of Acting at ISU and Artistic Director of the Illinois Shakespeare Festival. His previous teaching experience includes Kenyon College, Carthage College and the University of Wisconsin at Parkside, where Kevin taught courses in acting, directing, voice, dramatic literature, Shakespeare, theatre for young audiences, and theatre history.  As Artistic Director, Kevin’s interests include the accessibility of classical plays to a contemporary audience and the development of new work in the spirit of Shakespeare’s plays. Highlights of his first three seasons include an all-male, original-practices production of Much Ado About Nothing; the nurturing of new plays such as Failure: A Love Story, Love’s Labor’s Won, and Q Gents, a hip hop adaptation of Two Gentlemen of Verona; and the creation of a new, sold-out Halloween tradition, ShakesFEAR. Kevin’s professional experience as an actor includes ISF, Milwaukee Shakespeare, Chicago Shakespeare, Kentucky Shakespeare, Shakespeare and Company, Portland Center Stage, San Jose Rep, Yale Rep, and the American Theatre Company, and this summer, he’ll play the title role in Richard II at ISF. As a director, he is directing The Importance of Being Earnest at the American Shakespeare Center this fall and Romeo and Juliet at ISU next spring. His play for young audiences, The Magical Mind of Billy Shakespeare, is published by Playscripts, Inc. He is member of AEA and SAG-AFTRA, and a Certified Associate Teacher of Fitzmaurice Voicework®. He holds a BA from Grinnell College and an MFA from Yale School of Drama.