Troupe to perform 'The Merry Wives of Windsor'
SHELTON - Almost everyone has attended, or will attend, “the theater” at some time in their lives, and most of these times will be in a formal setting.
But now more than ever theater companies are expanding their performance spaces to include some unusual and unlikely venues.
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| Jeremy Funke |
The last 50 years have seen professional theater works performed in parks, schools, libraries, prisons, homeless shelters and even private homes.
And most recently bars have become the newest go-to venue.
Shelton-based Valley Shakespeare Festival has been producing its Shakespeare in the Bar series for the past four years. Next month it will kick off its fifth anniversary season with two performances of the Shakespeare comedy “The Merry Wives of Windsor” at Caloroso Eatery and Bar, 100 Center St.
Jeremy Funke, a professional teaching artist and actor who has performed in all six of the company’s previous Bar productions will take on the iconic role of Sir John Falstaff, one of Shakespeare’s most beloved characters.
Funke’s versatility and willingness to explore all kinds of characters makes him the perfect performer for this theater format.
He describes the process this way:
“Tom (Simonetti, VSF’s founder and Executive and Artistic Director) is always eager to point out that this series allows us as actors to try on parts we normally wouldn’t be cast in- I’m too young for Titus (the title character in Shakespeare’s Titus Andronicus) and Scrooge (Ebenezer, of Charles Dickens’ A Christmas Carol), and a little trim for Falstaff, for that matter.
"But I’m consistently drawn to the venue, and the audience interaction and the different acting muscles that get worked by such an abbreviated, intense and fun rehearsal process. We really only get a day and a half on our feet, and Tom is there to guide us for sure, but the challenge of making strong and interesting choices so quickly is a really rewarding one.”
As to how crazy those choices can get, Funke explains:
“In the last five years, Tom’s had me play twin brothers, fight with big sticks, deliver shots of booze to the audience a la Oprah, feed people-pie to people, take off my pants and, at least twice a year he threatens to dress me in drag. I’m game for whatever he throws at me.”
The bottom line is: anything can happen in live theater. Unlike movies or television, where the performances are rehearsed and recorded over and over until the director feels it’s just right, live performers only get one chance to get it right each night.
And their performances are influenced by a multitude of factors, the most important of which is the audience.
In the Bar setting, the audience is not only close to the action, it becomes a part of the performance. Shakespeare in the Bar is not a spectator sport!
So, if you’re looking for entertainment that allows you to really experience something completely different in a relaxed and comfortable setting, check out Valley Shakespeare Festival’s Shakespeare in the Bar: The Merry Wives of Windsor March 1 and 2 at Caloroso Eatery and Bar.
You don’t know Shakespeare until you’ve met him in the Bar…
Tickets are on sale now at www.vsfestival.org or 203-513-9446.
Admission is $20 for table seats, $15 for bar seats in advance, $25 at the door. Doors open at 6 p.m., performance 7 p.m.
This is a press release from Valley Shakespeare Festival, a 501(c)(3) nonprofit theater company dedicated to bringing free and low-cost theater to the communities of the lower Naugatuck Valley.
