SOC to Present AS YOU LIKE IT

Following its groundbreaking production of Shakespeare's Romeo and Juliet, Shakespeare Orange County (SOC) now turns to the comedy of Shakespeare's As You Like It.

This second Shakespeare production of SOC's Summerfest 2015 opens August 15 and continues through August 29. Opening night will offer a limited number of premium 'Night in White' packages, with catered pre-show dinner and center section seats in the first three rows. Preview performances are August 13 and 14.

All performances are in Garden Grove's Festival Amphitheater, located at 12762 Main St, Garden Grove. There is ample free parking available on the street and in a nearby lot. For information visit shakespeareoc.org or call 714-5901575.

Like another popular Shakespeare comedy, A Midsummer Night's Dream, As You Like It celebrates joy of love, liberty and great wit. The characters, and the play, leave the structured world of court for the untamed Forest of Arden. Duke Senior lives there in exile after being deposed by his brother. Soon, his spirited daughter Rosalind is soon banished, too, but not before she and Orlando are mutually smitten. Traveling with her are her cousin Celia, rebelling daughter of the usurping Duke Frederick, and Touchstone, the wisest of fools. Disguised as a man for safety, Rosalind encounters lovesick Orlando writing love poems to Rosalind and, as Ganymede, advises him how to win his true love and then helps pair up other lonely hearts for the play's climactic four-couple wedding.

"We have moved our As You Like It from its setting in France to the time and place it was written," said Director Peter Uribe. "We're really enhancing the experience of being back in Elizabethan England with Renaissance period entertainment before the show and plenty of rich period costumes onstage."

"With great veteran Shakespearean actors like John-Frederick Jones, this will definitely be a charming and enchanting production," added SOC Producing Artistic Director John Walcutt. "It will be a lot of fun for all audiences, with great surprises, disguises and cross-dressing antics that have made this play beloved for more than four centuries."

The cast includes Cynthia Aldrich (Phebe), Alex Bodrero (Jacques), Marisa Costa (Celia), Michael Drace Fountain (Duke Senior), John Frederick Jones (Adam), Colin Martin (Orlando), Josh Odsess-Rubin (Rosalind), Blake Prentiss (Oliver), A.J. Smitrovich (Duke Frederick) and Tony Torrico (Touchstone). [Principle bios follow release.]

The production team is Michael Drace Fountain (scenic design), Sean McMullen (costume design), Kevin Cook (lighting and sound design), Amelia Barron (Music Director) and Jeff Budner (fight choreography). Cailin Luneburg and Sarah Bond are stage managing.

Special Added Event

In a special free pre-show seminar on August 21, beginning at 7:15 p.m., Samantha Dressel will discuss gender dynamics in As You Like It and how they reveal the fluid and nuanced understanding of gender and sex that existed in the Renaissance playhouse. Currently in the University of Rochester's doctoral program with a focus on Renaissance revenge tragedies, Dressel recently presented a paper on verbal identity construction in Othello at the Stratford Shakespeare Festival. She earned her bachelor of arts in English Literature from Colgate University and has taught undergraduate writing, including a course on rhetoric and identity in the Renaissance, at the University of Rochester.

As You Like It runs August 15-29, with performances Thursday through Saturday at 8 p.m. Tickets are $15, $25 and $40, with discounts available for groups. There will be two previews, August 13 and 14.

The August 15 opening includes "Nights in White," a special $100 package that includes pre-show dinner and entertainment on the amphitheater lawn, with reserved seats in the first three rows. Guests are invited to dress in white.

Thanks to generous support from Macy's, SOC is offering two "rush ticket" programs to help make theatre affordable for everyone: On Fridays and Saturdays beginning at 7 p.m., "7 at 7" offers remaining seats for that night's performance for $7; and Thursdays are "Pay What You Want" for all remaining unsold seats one-half hour before curtain.

For tickets and information visit shakespeareoc.org, call the Box Office at 714-590-1575, or email info@shakespeareoc.org.

All performances are in the Festival Amphitheatre Main Stage located at 12762 Main St, Garden Grove, CA 92840. Free parking is available on the street and in the city parking lot on Acacia Parkway one block west of Main St.

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