July 23 - 25, 29-31 6PM
Come Join us in Centennial Park. For directions and ticket information please visit our Eventbrite.
Programme
Acknowledgment
Our works are produced on the traditional unceded territory of the Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples. This territory is covered by the “Treaties of Peace and Friendship” which Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) and Mi’kmaq Peoples first signed with the British Crown in 1725. The treaties did not deal with surrender of lands and resources but in fact recognized Mi’kmaq and Wolastoqiyik (Maliseet) title and established the rules for what was to be an ongoing relationship between nations.
Director’s Word
We’d like to thank you all for joining us for the return of Shakespeare in the Park! Honestly, we’re probably more excited than even our audiences are.
This play, above all else, is about the great joy that it is just simply to be alive and to enjoy each other's company. As You Like It is sometimes called the play where nothing happens because there isn’t the same kind of plotting and scheming and grand adventures that are found in many of his other works. But I think that something we have all learned in the past year is that sometimes it can be a good thing when nothing happens. While the pandemic forced us to face down great tragedy and fear and urgency, it also provided many people the opportunity to reflect on how they spend their time here on earth and to rediscover the joy it is to spend time with their loved ones, or for those who were separated from their families, to feel the great burst of love that comes with reunion and to feel what it is like to be missing those things.
We often say in theatre that our ultimate goal is for the audience to feel something inside of them and to deeply affect you and lead you to the consideration and exploration of your humanity. But we hope that after this play you are less inclined to take the time to explore your humanity internally and intellectually, but rather, to do so with great vivacity and energy by running out to your loved ones, your community and the world at large. As every day looks a little bit brighter towards the future, we hope you’ll continue to find the time to talk with your friends, reunite with your family, fall in love, and above all else, playfully discover the magic that it is to just be alive on our earth.
Cast
(in order of appearance)
Adam - Georgia Ross
Orlando - Samuel Grove
Oliver - Mark McPhee
Charles - Aaron Blair
Rosalind - Teagan Anderson Leger
Celia - Kelly Tynan
Touchstone - JB Vanier
Le Beau/William - Lumi Mitton
Duke Frederick - Chisholm Pothier
Amiens - Jill Quiring
Jacques - Melanie Mealey
Duke Senior - Darren Blois
Corin - John Mackenzie
Silvius - Cody Bolton
Audrey - Jess Whalen
Phebe - Jessica Dunphy
Clowns - Cody Bolton, Jessica Dunphy, John Mackenzie, Jess Whalen, Georgia Ross, Aaron Blair, Chisholm Pothier
Crew
JB Vanier - Director
Mark McPhee - Dramaturge
Nadyne Kuhn - Stage Manager
Natalie Smith - Assistant Stage Manager
Lumi Mitton - Assistant Director
Darren Blois - Assistant Director
Synopsis of the Play (spoilers!)
As You Like It takes place in a duchy where everyone has their place and their role and to step outside of it is heresy. It is a world of severe colors and muted outfits (with perhaps the exception of the clown, Touchstone, permitted to roam freely). Prior to the play, the Duke Senior has been usurped by his younger brother, Duke Frederick who has imposed martial law with his red-nosed soldiers throughout the land. Duke Senior’s daughter, Rosalind, has remained in the duchy to be with her cousin and best friend, Celia, daughter of the usurping Duke Frederick. Every part of their lives is controlled by others, but their humor and wit and intelligence set them apart from the others who serve the new duke, such as the henchmen Le Beau.
Meanwhile, Orlando, the second son of the noble Sir Rowland de Boys, has spent the last years of his life being mistreated and forced into grueling labor by his older brother Oliver. Orlando finally decides to stand up to his brother and to earn his keep by proving himself in front of the nefarious new duke by facing the great wrestler, Charles. Little does Orlando know that Oliver has paid off Charles to permanently defeat the younger Orlando.
Following the wrestling match, The Duke Frederic feels his power threatened and decides to rid himself of the people causing him trouble. First he banishes his niece Rosalind on threat of death and then plots to aid Oliver in a second attempt on young Orlando’s life. But before his plan can go into effect, Celia offers to run away with her dear Rosalind along with the clown Touchstone. Rosalind and Celia decide to conceal their identities, Aliena as a lady of the country, and Rosalind decides to disguise herself as a man in order to ward off dangerous folk along the path. Meanwhile, Orlando is warned of his coming doom by his family’s longtime and loyal manservant, Adam, and they also decide to run away. Finally, the dangerous henchmen, Charles and Le Beau run off to the forest as well in disguise, overcome with guilt from working with the foul Duke Frederic.
We then find ourselves in the magical Forest of Arden, where we are greeted by Amiens - the goddess of marriage,feasts and ceremonies Hymen in disguise - and the enigmatic, melancholic philosopher, Jacques, who have used the gift of song to call our players to the forest. In the forest, we meet the exiled Duke Senior who finds forest living much to his liking, especially when he can poke fun at the dour Jacques. Rosalind, Celia and Touchstone encounter the two shepherds Silvius and Corin, the former a love-lorn youth and the latter a man of life’s simple truths and pleasures. Rosalind and Celia decide to purchase some land and a cottage from Corin’s master and make their home in the forest.
Desperate to survive, Orlando attempts to rob Duke Senior and his entourage of their food but is met only with care and compassion instead of desperation or violence, and he and his friend Adam are welcomed into the duke’s forest entourage. This gives the young Orlando time to write his thoughts and feelings about the woman he met and fell in love with at the wrestling match and to place his poems throughout the forest. Rosalind and Celia discover these poems and discover that the poems are in fact about her, just as Orlando appears near them. Finally, Rosalind and Orlando meet once more, but Rosalind is still in disguise as a young man, Ganymede. She challenges Orlando to prove his love for Rosalind, and to do so she, as the youth Ganymede, will pretend to be Rosalind and attempt to sway him away from love because love makes fools of us all.
Meanwhile, the clown Touchstone has found a “love” of his own, the shepherdess Audrey. He thinks he can fool her into spending a night with him, but the shepherdess is wiser than it seems and plots to get the clown to marry her first, thereby winning herself a position in the court one day, but not before Touchstone has to face off her middling suitor, one Young William. Along the way, we see Silvius again and the woman he loves, Phebe. But Phebe is not a fan of Silvius despite his honest love for her. Rosalind, as the young man Ganymede, encounters these two, wherein Phebe falls in love with the disguised Rosalind. Rosalind decides to use this to her advantage to place the final pieces of her plan together. Shortly thereafter, Rosalind and Celia encounter the reformed Oliver, who has mended his ways, made peace with his brother, and quickly falls for the charming Aliena. With all the pieces in place, Rosalind convinces Orlando that she, as Ganymede is a great magician that will make Rosalind appear at the wedding the next day. She then challenges Phebe that if she does not want to marry Ganymede on the day of the wedding, that she should marry the loving Silvius, and so Phebe agrees.
And so the players gather together at the end: Rosalind reveals that she and Ganymede are in fact one in the same and she is reunited with her father and marries her love, Orlando. Aliena and Oliver, the fast lovers, are united in marriage as well; the gentle Silvius gets his dream to marry Phebe, whom rejects Rosalind after she reveals she is not a gallant youth; Touchstone and Audrey finally get married to get to their favorite part - the wedding night. And, in a twist of faith, Duke Frederick returns in his own disguise, as Brother Frederick, a now reformed monk who returns Duke Senior to his rightful place and places the last missing pieces together. The wedding guests celebrate with song and live presumably happily ever after.
What’s up Next?
Stay tuned for more from Hubcity Theatre in November:
From our friends at Live Bait Theatre in Sackville:
From our friends at Hazy Grape Theatre Collective in September:
