The new Hope Theatre will open its doors to the public for the first time Friday with the opening of the Shakespeare classic “As You Like It.”
The play contains all the usual marks of a pastoral comedy, including troubled nobility, lovers in disguise, crossed paths in the forest and good-natured confusion. “We haven’t changed a word,” director Jack Watson said. “But it’s not your grandmother’s Shakespeare.”
“We are setting it contemporarily,” said Brian Cook, the stage manager and a graduate student in theatre arts. The original play was set in the court of a duke and the Forest of Ardenne, but the University Theatre’s production will take place in Las Vegas and a health spa retreat center.
“It still makes perfect sense, and makes it more relevant to our lives today,” Watson said.
“As You Like It” will be the first play ever performed in the black-box Hope Theatre, part of the new James F. Miller Theatre Complex. The complex, which took eight years and $7.8 million to complete, added more than 18,000 square feet to the existing Robinson Theatre and Villard Hall. The additions included a new costume shop, scene shop, box office and lobby.
“There is so much more space to move around in,” Watson said. “It seems like a long way from place to place now.”
The renovations, which began in March 2007, also enhanced the lighting system, sound system and seating in the original auditorium. In January, “Around the World in 80 Days” became the first show to be performed in the improved Robinson Theatre.
The entirely new, smaller Hope Theatre is a versatile space, containing 148 seats on movable platforms. “It is a fully flexible theatre, so you can set it in any sort of configuration of audience and set you want,” Cook said.
“As You Like It” will be performed “in-the-round,” meaning the audience will surround the stage on all four sides.
This directing challenge, the first in the Hope Theatre, will also be the last for Professor Emeritus Watson. Watson received his Ph.D. in theatre arts from the University in 1987 and joined the Theatre Arts faculty that same year. “It’s time to move on here, to give opportunities to new faculty,” he said. Watson expressed that he will greatly miss directing and will continue to teach part-time.
For his final show, Watson has created a unique set of characters modernized from the original Shakespeare play. The cast of 24 students will include a WWE wrestler, a security guard, a masseuse and a cowgirl instead of lords, courtiers, servants and shepherds. “The costumes are hysterical,” Watson said.
“It’s a funny show,” Cook said. “We’ve added some slapstick-type comedy. Students would enjoy it.”
The typical audience for University Theatre has been a mix of University students and attendees from the community at large. About 2,000 people attended “Around the World in 80 Days.”
“We’d like more students!” Watson said. “We try to pick meaningful plays that people will want to see.”
“As You Like It” will be performed at 8 p.m. Feb. 27 and 28, March 5 to 7, and March 12 to 14 with one matinee Sunday, March 8 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $7 for students, $10 for University faculty and staff, senior citizens and non-University students, and $14 for the general public.
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