Last night Clark Park hosted the first performance of the “Merry Wives of Windsor” as part of the annual summer “Shakespeare in Clark Park.” It was great – see the review below written by Kelly Lawler. Also, please check out our photos of the merry performers and the crowd watching them. Not only is Shakespeare in Clark Park a great chance to connect with friends and neighbors and see a great show, it’s also a great place to people-watch.

If they weren’t using Shakespearean language, a passerby might mistake the performance of The Merry Wives of Windsor for a party or a dance or a barbecue in Clark Park’s bowl. And indeed, everyone has fun with the play; the actors, the musicians, and the audience all revel in the ridiculousness and hilarity. And the result is a very pleasant theater experience.

The play, one of Shakespeare’s less-famous comedies, follows several wives and lovers through an absurd series of events. Falstaff, a knight, is in debt and decides to alleviate this problem by seducing the wives of two rich merchants, Mistress Ford and Mistress Page. Meanwhile, Mistress Page’s daughter, Anne, is in love with Fenton, but her father wants her to marry Slender and her mother wants her to marry Dr. Caius. Hilarity ensues.

Merry Wives takes place in Elizabethan Windsor in England, but as is the norm with Shakespeare productions now, it is put in a different setting. The director, Rebecca Wright, chose to place it in an old West setting, complete with cowboy hats and boots and country music. It works well in an outdoor performance like this, where the physical space is so large and so distinct that the actors and the set and the props must also be large and hammy to compensate. If the play were inside a normal theater it might have seemed cheesy, but instead it worked well in the park. The production was at its best when it utilized the space it was in. Not being able to have a traditional “back stage” area the actors were forced to stay in character for the whole performance, even when not in the scene. But this allowed things like young lovers Fenton and Anne to wander off and have a romantic talk under a distant tree.

The production also utilized music very well. A three piece band accompanied much of the show, complete with a banjo and a real washtub-bass. Original songs were written for the production, which was more of a musical than other Shakespeare, but worked really well both with the absurd story of Merry Wives, and with the Western setting. It was also great for the audience who got to clap along to the beat, and join in the party-like atmosphere of the play.

All in all the performance is a lot of fun. The story is easy to follow and quite funny. With a picnic blanket and basket, Shakespeare in Clark Park is a really lovely way to spend a summer evening.

– Kelly Lawler

If you missed last night’s show, there are four more left. For more information, go here.

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Shakespeare is coming to Clark Park this week, and all I have to say is: to picnic or not to picnic, that is the question.

From this Wednesday, July 25, to Sunday the 29, Shakespeare’s comedic classic, The Merry Wives of Windsor will be performed in Clark Park at 7:00 p.m. The play chronicles Falstaff, a poor sod in Elizabethan England, who decides to solve his debt problems by wooing the wives of wealthy merchants. But of course, the wives have a plan of their own. The play is directed by Rebecca Wright and stars Jess Conda as Mistress Ford, Mary Tuomanen as Mistress Page, and Robert DaPonte as Falstaff.

All shows are free (although donations are accepted) and are performed outdoors in the park by the Shakespeare in Clark Park company. It is recommended that you bring chairs and blankets, as the performance is just under two hours, and there is no intermission. The play is family-appropriate and a great treat for those who’ve never seen it before.

Shakespeare in Clark Park was started in the fall of 2005 and has grown immensely since then. The free outdoor performances have become a much-anticipated event of the West Philly summer. As Mistress Quickly says, in the play, “Here will be an old abusing of God’s patience and the King’s English.” In the most fun way possible, of course.

Look for our review of this performance later this week.

– Kelly Lawler

The Curio Theatre Company has announced their 2012-2013 season and it will knock your socks off! It is rich in suspense plays, comedy, and also includes a world premiere by Curio’s Artistic Director Paul Kuhn. The new season begins October 11 with Milan Stitt’s The Runner Stumbles. Here’s the full show schedule:

The Runner Stumbles
By Milan Stitt
Directed by Gay Carducci
October 11 – November 10, 2012

The Real Inspector Hound
By Tom Stoppard
Directed by Dan Hodge
November 29 – December 29, 2012

Equus
By Peter Shaffer
Directed by Liz Carlson
January 17 – February 16, 2013

Madville
By Paul Kuhn
Directed by Rosemary Fox
March 14 – April 13, 2013

The Hound of the Baskervilles
by Sir Arthur Conan Doyle
Adapted by Steven Canny and John Nicholson
Directed by Paul Kuhn
May 2 – June 1, 2013

Tickets are available on the Curio Theatre website. You can also subscribe to the season and see all five shows for the price of four.

“We’re going to need real magic to pull this show off, and we’ve got it!” says the Curio Theatre Company, of their latest production, Shakespeare’s The Tempest, which opens this Friday, April 27. A revenge story featuring drunken clowns, political intrigue, a magical slave-driving wizard, and a father-daughter duo marooned on an island for twelve years, The Tempest is one of Shakespeare’s most compelling comedies.

Director Dan Hodge, co-founder of the Philadelphia Artists Collective, makes his directing debut with this production. “Ultimately The Tempest is about choice,” says Hodge, “and Prospero’s command of dark arts affords him an impossibly wide array of options.  The balance hangs on revenge and forgiveness.  And that’s a current that runs through nearly every character in the play.”

Paul Kuhn, Curio’s Artistic Director, has designed a “magical playground” for the production, rumored to include a rolling ocean, a ship, and a tropical island. The fifteen characters will be played by seven actors. Joining long-time company member Brian McCann as Prospero are Steve Carpenter, Liam Castellan, Robert Daponte, Aetna Gallagher, Ken Opdenaker, Eric Scotolati and Isa St.Clair.

Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays at 8 p.m. Opening April 27. Curio Theatre, 4740 Baltimore Avenue. 215-525-1350.

Curio Theatre (4740 Baltimore Ave) has had a great season so far, hitting it off with both the public and critics with their first two shows – Sarah Ruhl’s Eurydice and Dario Fo’s Accidental Death of an Anarchist. This week the theater presents the Philadelphia premiere of a work based on Kurt Vonnegut’s Slaughterhouse-Five.

The show is directed by Jared Reed and features seven Curio actors (most of them from West Philly) playing some 40 characters. No one in this show remains the same for long, except the time traveling main character Billy Pilgrim. The dynamic sets (built by Curio’s Artistic Director Paul Kuhn) and cast will often change, adding to the confusion Billy experiences during his travels.

The show preview begins Thursday, Feb.2, and the official opening is February 10. All shows begin at 8 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays, and Saturdays. For more information and to buy tickets ($10-$20) visit this page.

Beth Nixon, a West Philly-based puppeteer and the founder of Ramshackle Enterprises, is presenting a new show at The Rotunda (4014 Walnut Street) beginning Sunday, Jan. 15. The show, Below and Beyond, is inspired by the long‐submerged Mill Creek of West Philadelphia, by current debate about fracking in Pennsylvania, and overall by what lies beneath our feet.

Beth and her colleagues will be using puppets, pulleys, movement, maps, and their imagination. Dozens of local artists contributed their talent to the creation of the puppets and props.

Below and Beyond is a collaborative performance experiment by Beth Nixon and Sarah Lowry of The Missoula Oblongata experimental theater company. Nixon and Lowry were inspired by interviews with Mill Creek residents, the “landscape literacy” research of Anne Whiston Spirn and Protecting Our Waters ‐ a local grassroots organization fighting against unconventional gas drilling in the region.

There are only four Below and Beyond shows scheduled: Sunday – 7:30 p.m., Monday – 2 p.m. and 7:30 p.m. and Tuesday – 7:30 p.m. Tickets are $5‐$10 at the door, but no one will be turned away for the lack of funds. Tickets can also be purchased online here.