"...I'm in a Shakespeare class right now and I wondered if you still had your concept or spine lines for As You Like It. I know it was a while ago, but I thought it'd be interesting to get your perspective of the messages of that play. If you have any time to sit and think about it, I'd love to know your dramatic perspective. If not, I completely understand, no worries. I just thought I'd ask.
It was good to see you over the break! If I come home after this semester, maybe I'll get to see your spring play!
Take care, Janet
-Whit"
Here's what she wrote back:
"...I've enclosed these for fun, but I still haven't found what you want...really.
The idea behind the play was despite family interference true love will trump all.
If you recall we had a sort of mafia theme, with brothers fighting for "turf" as it were. Mostly I remember some excellent Louis Prima music, some very bad stagecraft - including flats of a restaurant scene where each table had only a single chair. I kept thinking, "My goodness these guys can't fly in a few trees and roll in a log and we're doing "Singin' in the Rain" next."
Love to you,
Janet"
Seeing as we performed this play 7 years ago (woof, I'm getting old!), Janet didn't have a whole lot of original documents, but I thought this cue sheet was interesting. It's to do with our tech and the backstage workings of As You Like It.
Something I want to send out to you guys as a question is this idea behind As You Like It. Despite family interference, true love will trump all. Is this what you read in AYLI? What kind of interesting themes are brought up when AYLI is set with a mafia tone? What does this cue sheet say about the performance? I know I'm delving back a couple weeks, but I thought I'd ask because Shakespeare's plays were meant to be performed, and I thought this would be an interesting look at a director's intentions for recreating Shakespeare's pieces.
And some pictures of the performance...
Here's Orlando and Adam.
And this is Duke Frederick with the fur. The one who kicked his brother out of the kingdom. We made him a girl. (:
