ROVING SHAKESPEARE
As You Like It by William Shakespeare
As You Like It is the fifth production of our inaugural season. The production is the first of Roving Shakespeare’s season designed specifically for the Blackfriars Playhouse. Jarom Christopher Brown, As You Like It’s director, used the entirety of the space and all its offered choices to differentiate this production from the rest of the season’s offerings. The play’s focus on the constraints and indulgences of freedom, reflected in Brown’s direction, looked at stepping back to move forward in life, love, politics and family.
Duke Frederick, the newly usurping ruler, banishes his niece Rosalind. She flees into the Forest of Arden to find her father, accompanied by her sympathetic cousin Celia, and the court fool, Touchstone. Disguised, the trio meets shepherds in and out of love, Duke Senior's camp of lords-turned-foresters, and Orlando, who fled from his hateful brother Oliver's governance. Rosalind's clever disguise serves to determine Orlando's love for her, as well as reunite her with her father.