ASP: Coming Attractions

The Actors' Shakespeare Project mission is to make Shakespeare accessible and relevant to modern audiences. They're known for innovative use of performance spaces and crosscasting (racially and genders). But on-the-whole, performances themselves have been fairly straightforward.

It looks like that's about to change with the next two (yes, two) plays scheduled for this season.

Next up, opening the end of March, is Titus Andronicus.

When Ian and I saw Titus at Wellesley College, we wondered what ASP could bring to their forthcoming production that Wellesley didn't.

And ASP found the one element Wellesley couldn't emulate: an all-male cast.

After that, ASP has added a fourth show to the season: Love's Labour's Lost. They're taking a "no frills" approach to the play, using only six actors to play 18 roles

"It's got three evenly matched sets of characters - the young men, the young women, and the townsfolk," said Benjamin Evett, ASP Artistic Director who will also be directing this play, "so each actor can easily jump from one to another without its getting too confusing. It will give the actors a chance to really show their skills, and the audience a chance to watch the actors transform before their eyes. For most of the play the men will woo the women, but we'll also have women-playing-men wooing men-playing-women. We'll be able to find interesting and funny insights in love and courtship, honesty and disguise, gender and sex."

"After a season of very intense plays, it will be nice for us and for our audience to relax with such a sweet and delightfully comic story."

The production will preview on May 31, open on June 2 and run through June 24 at a venue to be named.

So far, four of the six castmembers have been announced:

• Sarah Newhouse (Viola in Twelfth Night; Cordelia in King Lear) as Lord Longueville, the Princess of France, and Jacquenetta
• Michael Walker (Aguecheek in Twelfth Night; Pompey in Measure for Measure) as the King of Navarre, Maria, and Nathaniel
• Marianna Bassham (Ophelia in Hamlet) as Lord Dumaine, Rosaline, and Costard
• Jason Bowen (Marcellus/Fortinbras in Hamlet) as Lord Berowne, Katherine, and Holofernes

Bobbie Steinbach, who announced this at the end of Winter's Tale; called it a stripped-down no-costumes approach -- then clarified that this didn't mean an all-nude revue.

In college, I saw the Actors from the London Stage put on a five-person Midsummer Night's Dream and it's still one of the most amazing Shakespeare experiences I've ever had. Such a limited cast throws a spotlight on the actors in a way that really allows them to shine. You might think that the amount of doubling would add to the confusion, but that hasn't been my experience.

I've grumbled in the past about missing AFTLS's return engagements, so I'm delighted by this development. Based on their previous productions, ASP certainly seems capable of pulling it off -- with or without the rest of their clothes. ;)

With this addition, LLL will make the tenth play ASP has staged after only three seasons in existence -- over a quarter of Shakespeare's oeuvre.

Here's wishing them another decade or more in which to complete the whole set.