The FSU/Asolo Conservatory Presents TWELFTH NIGHT

The FSU/Asolo Conservatory for Actor Training wraps up its 2021-22 season with William Shakespeare's Twelfth Night. Adapted and directed by Jonathan Epstein, and with original music by Daniel Levy, the show runs April 6 - 24, with a pay-what-you-can preview on April 5.

Shakespeare's beloved romantic comedy of (mis)identity begins with twins being shipwrecked. The young woman, believing her twin brother dead, disguises herself as a boy for her own safety. But she finds herself playing go-between for the beautiful countess Olivia and Count Orsino, with whom she herself has fallen in love! When her brother reappears, identities are mistaken, and chaos abounds. Full of some of Shakespeare's most glorious characters, this masterwork is performed by the entire second year FSU/Asolo Conservatory Company.

"Twelfth Night is a play of unanswered questions - Who are you? What dost thou know? Who does do you wrong? Above all - What is love?" noted Epstein. "Every great play embodies the uneasy balance between our need for justice and our longing for togetherness and harmony. Twelfth Night, more than most, balances these on a knife edge."

For the past nine years, Epstein has served as teaching professor of classical performance at the Conservatory, where he has directed the second-year MFA candidates in productions of As You Like It, Much Ado About Nothing, Midsummer Night's Dream, Macbeth and Loot. He has performed on and off-Broadway, in London's West End and at dozens of regional theatres across the country, but is perhaps best known for his 34-year association as actor, director and teacher with Shakespeare & Company of Lenox, Mass. Epstein often works as a narrator, both in person (Boston Symphony, Utah Symphony, Berkshire Chamber Orchestra) and on recorded audiobooks - most recently Moby Dick produced by Alison Larkin Presents, which was nominated for an Audie for best Literary Fiction recording. He is a two-time recipient of Boston's Elliot Norton award.

The cast of Twelfth Night is comprised of the second-year Conservatory students - Joe Ayers as Sir Andrew, Dreaa Kay Baudy as Maria, Macaria Chaparro Martinez as Festa, Christian Douglass as Sir Toby Belch, Zoya Martin as Malvolia, Erin O'Connor as Violet, Peter Raimondo as Antonio, Evan Stevens as Sebastian, Sydney Story as Vesta, Jerald Wheat as Duke Orsino and Imani Lee Williams as Olivia. First-year students make up the crew.

The creative team includes Production Manager/Technical Director Chris McVicker, who also serves as Set and Lighting Designer; Stage Manager Savannah Heslep; Sound Designer Alex Pinchin; Costume Designer April Carswell; Voice & Dialect Coach Patricia Delorey and Movement Coach Eliza Ladd.

Twelfth Night plays April 5 - 24 in the Cook Theatre at the FSU Center for the Performing Arts. Tickets are $32 and are available online at asolorep.org/events/detail/twelfthnight, by phone at 941.351.8000 or in person at the Asolo Rep Box Office at 5555 N. Tamiami Trail in Sarasota. Student prices are also available.

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