CSF Opens 'COMPLETE WORKS OF SHAKESPEAERE' Tonight

Three actors, all 37 of Shakespeare's plays, in 97 minutes - what could go wrong? The madcap comic mayhem of "The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" opens at the Colorado Shakespeare Festival on June.

Director Gary Wright, a favorite comic actor on CSF stages for many years, is tasked with the job of wrangling three painfully funny actors - CSF veteran Ian Andersen and newcomers Patrick Elkins-Zeglarski and Evan Zes - in a semi-free-form take on the entire Shakespeare canon. The L.A. Herald once described it as "Shakespeare as written by Reader's Digest, acted by Monty Python and performed at the speed of the minute waltz."

"If you can imagine Shakespeare's plays as innocent pedestrians, our show is a speeding, out-of-control clown car, running them over, sometimes individually - "Titus Andronicus," "Othello," "Macbeth" - sometimes in wholesale groups - the comedies, the histories," says director Gary Wright. "In certain cases, we'll run 'em down and then back over 'em a couple of times for good measure - can you say 'Hamlet'?"

Click here for cast lists, actor bios and photos, director's notes, synopses and other information on CSF's new website.

"The Complete Works of William Shakespeare (abridged)" directed by Gary Wright runs now through Aug. 10, 2013. Click here for complete schedule. All performances run at the University Theatre, University of Colorado Boulder campus. Buy tickets online or call the box office at 303-492-8008. Box office is open 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday-Friday. A box office in the University Theater building will be open on performance days.