THE MERRY WIVES OF WINDSOR Comes to Shakespeare Tavern in May

The Atlanta Shakespeare Company at The Shakespeare Tavern Playhouse presents The Merry Wives of Windsor. Previews are May 5-6, 2022. The show runs May 7-29, 2022.

The lecherous Sir John Falstaff sets his sights on the wives of Windsor, leading to a side splitting evening filled with mischief, schemes, a buck basket, a forest full of fairies and one huge pair of ...horns.

Cast & Crew

Director - Kati Grace Brown

Assistant Director- Kenneth Wigley

Stage Manager - Julia Barton

Assistant Stage Manager - Cameryn Richardson

Costume Design and Construction - Anne' Carole Butler.

Wig Designer- Akeria Gant

Lighting Designer - Greg Hanthorn Jr.

Music Director - Rivka Levin

Music Composer- Bo Gaison
Fight Choreographer - Mary Ruth Ralston

Sir John Falstaff - Vinnie Mascola

Mistress Ford - Peyton Johnson

Mistress Page - Kelly Criss

Master Ford - Sean Kelley

Master Page - Alejandro Guttierez

Doctor Caius - Chris Hecke

Slender - Evan Judway

Master Fenton - Daryel T Monson

Jack Rugby - Sarah Hack

Sir Hugh Evans - Gracie Wallace

Anne Page - Gabi Anderson

Justice Robert Shallow - Kelly Clare Toland

Simple - Brooklynn Grace

Mistress Quickly - Alejandra Ruiz

Host of the Garter - Mila Bolash

Bardolph - O'Neil Delapenha

Pistol - Patrick Galletta

Nym - Chris Hecke

Robin - Sarah Hack

Robert - Patrick Galletta

Sir John Falstaff, in Windsor and short of money, decides to woo both Mistress Ford and Mistress Page, prosperous citizens' wives, and sends identical letters to them. Two of Falstaff's discharged followers, Pistol and Nym, reveal this to the husbands, though only the jealous Ford takes real notice. Going to the Garter Inn, disguised as a "Master Brook," he asks Falstaff to woo Mistress Ford on his behalf and learns that the knight already has an assignation. The Wives prepare to trick Falstaff. At the same time, other complex love-matters are in progress. The French physician, Caius, in love with Anne Page, has challenged Parson Hugh Evans to a duel, simply because Evans has asked the doctor's housekeeper, Quickly, to help the foolish Abraham Slender to Anne's hand. Actually, Anne - as we have seen in Act I - is in love with Master Fenton who has already enlisted the versatile Quickly as an ally. Caius and Evans are reconciled by the Host of the Garter who has neatly prevented the duel.

Falstaff is carried from Ford's house (just as Ford arrives to search it) in a laundry-basket of dirty linen; later, as "Brook," Ford discovers what has happened and hears of a new assignation between Falstaff and Mistress Ford. This time Falstaff escapes in the clothes of a maid's aunt whom Ford, still unknowing, beats unmercifully as a witch. At length, the jest revealed to their husbands, the wives get Falstaff, disguised as the ghost of Herne the Hunter, to meet Mistress Ford in Windsor Forest at midnight. There all is settled when Falstaff is assailed by a group of Windsor children, disguised as fairies and hobgoblins. Caius and Slender are each tricked into running off with boy "fairies," thinking them to be Anne. Fenton and Anne appear, just married; and the end will be a journey home "to laugh this sport o'er by a country fire."