January 3 – April 3, 2014
The cast of AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Sarah Fallon in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Tracie Thomason and the cast of AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Tracie Thomason and Gregory Jon Phelps in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Gregory Jon Phelps in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Tracie Thomason in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
John Harrell in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Abbi Hawk and John Harrell in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Andrew Goldwasser and Allison Glenzer in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Tracie Thomason and Gregory Jon Phelps in AS YOU LIKE IT. Photo by PAT JARRETT. 2014.
Cast
PREVIOUSLY WITH ASC: More than 137 roles in 113 productions, including the title roles in Coriolanus; King Lear; Edward II; Timon of Athens; The Merchant of Venice; Pericles; Doctor Faustus; …
THIS SEASON: Mark Antony in JULIUS CAESAR, Mrs. Bennet & Lady Catherine de Bourgh in PRIDE AND PREJUDICE, Egeus & Flute in A MIDSUMMER NIGHT’S DREAM
Rosalind
PREVIOUSLY WITH ASC: More than 20 roles in 15 productions, including Juliet in Romeo and Juliet; Helena in All’s Well That Ends Well; Helen, Diomedes, Alexander in Troilus and Cressida; …
PREVIOUSLY WITH ASC: 27 seasons and over 200 roles including Falstaff in Henry IV, Parts 1 & 2; Brutus in Julius Caesar; Iago in Othello; Guildenstern in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern …
THIS SEASON: Friar Lawrence in Romeo and Juliet and Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors.
PREVIOUSLY WITH ASC: More than 137 roles in 113 productions, including the title roles in Coriolanus; King Lear; Edward II; Timon of Athens; The Merchant of Venice; Pericles; Doctor Faustus; …
Chris Johnston has over 20 years of theatre experience and more than 120 productions at the American Shakespeare Center.
Polonius, Fortinbras in Hamlet; Northumberland in Richard II; Polonius, Fortinbras in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Mirabell in The Way of the World; Alberto, Page in Antonio’s Revenge.
More than 186 roles in 101 productions, including Volumnia in Coriolanus, Olivia in Twelfth Night; Regan in King Lear; Margaret in both Henry VI, Part 1 and Part 2; Isabella in Measure for Measure;…
Charles
PREVIOUSLY WITH THE ASC: Fluellen, Bedford, Constable of France in Henry V; Casca, Titinius, Strato, Plebian in Julius Caesar; Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest; Captain Bluntschli in …
This Season: Alice Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Lady Percy, Prince John in Henry IV, Part 1; Courtney Ash in Anne Page Hates Fun…
Hamlet in Hamlet; Mowbray, Percy, Groom in Richard II; Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Petulant in The Way of the World; Castillo, Senator in Antonio’s Revenge.
Jaques
PREVIOUSLY WITH ASC: Weird Sister, Macduff in Macbeth; Lignière, Bellerose, Carbon in Cyrano de Bergerac; Antipholus of Ephesus in The Comedy of Errors; Pembroke, Spencer Senior in Edward II; Simonides, …
Amiens
PREVIOUSLY WITH THE ASC: Fluellen, Bedford, Constable of France in Henry V; Casca, Titinius, Strato, Plebian in Julius Caesar; Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest; Captain Bluntschli in …
Hamlet in Hamlet; Mowbray, Percy, Groom in Richard II; Hamlet in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Petulant in The Way of the World; Castillo, Senator in Antonio’s Revenge.
Silvius
PREVIOUSLY WITH THE ASC: Fluellen, Bedford, Constable of France in Henry V; Casca, Titinius, Strato, Plebian in Julius Caesar; Lady Bracknell in The Importance of Being Earnest; Captain Bluntschli in …
More than 186 roles in 101 productions, including Volumnia in Coriolanus, Olivia in Twelfth Night; Regan in King Lear; Margaret in both Henry VI, Part 1 and Part 2; Isabella in Measure for Measure;…
This Season: Alice Ford in The Merry Wives of Windsor; Lady Percy, Prince John in Henry IV, Part 1; Courtney Ash in Anne Page Hates Fun…
Polonius, Fortinbras in Hamlet; Northumberland in Richard II; Polonius, Fortinbras in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Mirabell in The Way of the World; Alberto, Page in Antonio’s Revenge.
Polonius, Fortinbras in Hamlet; Northumberland in Richard II; Polonius, Fortinbras in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Mirabell in The Way of the World; Alberto, Page in Antonio’s Revenge.
Polonius, Fortinbras in Hamlet; Northumberland in Richard II; Polonius, Fortinbras in Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead; Mirabell in The Way of the World; Alberto, Page in Antonio’s Revenge.
Artistic Team
Stage Manager/Prompter/Understudy
Sara has been a member of the ASC team since the 2013 Summer and Fall Seasons. She grew up in Michigan (America’s high five), developing her love for Shakespeare and …
Properties Master/Assistant Stage Manager/Understudy
Chris has been designing and building props for the ASC since 2012. In that time, he’s provided props for over 60 productions, including (from Shakespeare): The Merchant of Venice; The Two Gentlemen of Verona; Cymbeline; King John; Love’s Labour’s Lost; Twelfth Night; Julius Caesar; Henry VIII; The Two Noble Kinsmen; Romeo and Juliet; All’s Well That Ends Well; Troilus and Cressida; Othello; The Merry Wives of Windsor; Henry IV, Part 1; As You Like It; Timon of Athens; Macbeth; The Comedy of Errors; Pericles; Hamlet; Much Ado about Nothing; The Taming of the Shrew; Antony and Cleopatra; A Midsummer Night’s Dream; The Winter’s Tale; Henry VI, Parts 1, 2, and 3; Henry V; The Tempest; Measure for Measure; and King Lear.
Understudy
This is Symmonie’s seventh season as troupe understudy, having previously understudied more than 300 roles in 29 productions during the 2013, 2014, and 2015 Summer and Fall Seasons, and the …
Costume Shop Manager
Erin has been designing and building costumes for the ASC since 2005. Past ASC shows she designed include: The Fair Maid of the West, Wild Oats, Romeo and Juliet (2009, …
Wardrobe Manager
Mika Nesbit came to the American Shakespeare Center as an intern to work on the 2011 Summer and Fall Seasons. After graduating with a degree in Art and Theatre from …
Stuff that Happens Before the play
- Duke Frederick overthrows his brother, Duke Senior, who flees to the Forest of Arden with a group of followers, including a courtier named Jaques.
Stuff that happens during the play
- Orlando complains to his old servant, Adam, that his older brother, Oliver, is depriving him of his rightful education and inheritance.
- Oliver hears that Orlando plans to wrestle Charles, Duke Frederick’s champion, and incites Charles to kill Orlando in the bout.
- At the wrestling match, Orlando meets Rosalind, the banished Duke Senior’s daughter.
- Orlando wins the wrestling match, but Duke Frederick hears that he is the son of Sir Rowland – a friend of the banished Duke. Duke Frederick snubs Orlando instead of rewarding him.
- Rosalind, however, gives Orlando a token of hers to wear.
- Duke Frederick banishes his niece Rosalind from court.
- Duke Frederick’s daughter, Celia, insists on accompanying Rosalind and they hatch a plan to take “the clownish fool” Touchstone to see the banished Duke Senior in the Forest of Arden.
- Adam warns Orlando that Oliver plans to murder him and the two of them flee into the Forest of Arden.
- Rosalind (disguised as a boy, Ganymede), Celia (disguised as Ganymede’s sister, Aliena), Touchstone, Orlando, and Adam reach the Forest of Arden, where the banished Duke Senior, Jaques, and other lords as well as the Arden natives Corin, Silvius, Phoebe, and Audrey pursue their pastoral interests.
- Love lessons, the seven ages of man, and a god-officiated quadruple marriage ensue.
1. When was the play first peformed?
1599 (ish).
2. Where was the play first performed?
Probably at the Theatre in Shoreditch, but it may have been one of the first plays staged at the new Globe.
3. How does the play fit into Shakespeare’s career?
Chronologically in the middle. Generically, the play gets categorized as one of the “mature comedies.”
4. How is this play like Shakespeare’s other plays?
Rosalind has theatrical sisters in The Merchant of Venice’s Portia, Twelfth Night’s Viola, The Two Gentlemen of Verona’s Julia, and Cymbeline’s Imogen, all of whom don men’s clothing to solve the mess men make of the world. And, like A Midsummer Night’s Dream, the play goes into the forest to solve its problems.
5. How is this play unlike other Shakespeare plays?
As You Like It is Shakespeare’s “chick flick.” Rosalind is the largest female part he wrote, and the other women – Celia, Phoebe, and Audrey – are wonderful roles. Though the play begins in the world of male competitiveness and conflict, as soon as Rosalind and Celia get out of Dodge, they start over, and what ensues is as happy a world as Shakespeare ever put on stage.
6. What do scholars think about this play?
Critics of the play – like Samuel Johnson and George Bernard Shaw – worry about the play’s lack of seriousness. I worry more about them. I think As You Like It is Shakespeare’s most genial and generous play. The comedy in it is neither farce nor satire, but humor that seems to come organically out of the characters and the situation. I’ve directed it twice and advised on last year’s Mary Baldwin College production (in which I played the central role of Sir Oliver Martext), and Celia sums up my growing admiration for the play: “wonderful, wonderful, and most wonderful wonderful.”
7. Are there any controversies surrounding the work?
Not really.
8. What characters should I especially look out for?
Celia. Rosalind’s sidekick is the audience’s ombudsman in the play. Her responses – silent and otherwise – make the comedy three-dimensional. Also look for (alphabetically): Adam, Audrey, Charles the Wrestler, Duke Frederick, Duke Senior, Corin, Hymen the god of marriage, Jaques, Oliver, Orlando, Phoebe, Silvius, Touchstone. Oh, and the very reverend Martext.
9. What scene should I especially look for?
For the giddiness of love, Act 3.2, where Rosalind finds out Orlando loves her and puts in motion the world record for gender bending in which a boy (in the original production) plays a woman who plays a man who plays a woman.
10. What is the language like?
A good buffet that runs the gamut from plain spoken to intricate.